NEW BRUNSWICK — Faced with an angry, rowdy audience at a public meeting today, the Rutgers Board of Governors did not just retreat behind closed doors.

They built a wall.

As campus security ushered people out of the building, maintenance workers were called in with ratchets to literally bolt a temporary wall into place — after dozens of students and union members began shouting at the 11-member board over its denial to allow a student leader the opportunity speak about the university budget.

"Shame on you! Shame on you!" chanted the standing-room-only crowd in Winants Hall on the New Brunswick campus, as the barrier went up.

Ralph Izzo, chairman of the board, said he had no choice.

"I don’t know how you conduct a meeting with people shouting at you," he said.

Three members of the press, including a reporter from The Star-Ledger, were allowed to remain inside the meeting room before it was sealed.

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The boisterous crowd of students, professors and campus workers disrupted the meeting several times before the wall went up, heckling board members and protest a salary freeze for all employees.

Others in the audience held up blown-up copies of mock dollar bills to protest Rutgers President Richard McCormick’s new $335,000-a-year professor’s salary, which he will be paid when he steps down from the $550,000-a-year president’s job next year. He will be the highest paid professor on campus.

However, the meeting got loudest after two speakers pleaded with the board to allow student leaders from the Rutgers University Student Assembly to speak about the university budget and tuition, which will be set by the board next month. The students missed a deadline that required speakers to register to speak at least 24 hours before the start of the meeting.

Izzo said he would not bend the rules. When others stood to argue that students had missed the deadline because Rutgers officials sent out the meeting agenda late, the board chairman became angry.

"You’ll sit down now!" Izzo said before the room was cleared, allowing the board to continue the public meeting in private.

The board discussed an agenda item about research funding for several minutes before Izzo ordered the wall reopened. By then, less than half a dozen people remained.

After they were kicked out, students and union members said they believed the board violated the state’s Open Public Meetings Act. All members of the public were shut out of the session, including those who had been sitting quietly watching the proceedings.

"I definitely think it could have been handled better," said Matt Cordeiro, president of the Rutgers University Student Assembly.

Rutgers officials noted that no votes were taken behind closed doors.

"A decision was made to maintain order. No action was taken during this brief period," said Greg Trevor, a Rutgers spokesman.

The board has run afoul of the state’s Open Public Meetings Act in the past. Last year, Rutgers officials were criticized when a campus police officer briefly barred protesters and members of the public from entering a board meeting.

In February, a state appellate court ruled the board violated the law during a 2008 meeting when it discussed football program funding behind closed doors.