The Chilean student movement, which recently has been no stranger to fighting the government (and winning), has over the past month been organizing and demonstrating against the proposed General Education Law (LGE), a sweeping piece of legislation that will fundamentally change the way education is structured in Chile. There was no input on the bill from the people most affected by the legislation: teachers and students.

As a result now both teachers and students are on strike, protesting in the thousands in cities across Chile. The Valparaiso Times:

Wednesday morning marked the culmination of more than a month of protests against the General Education Law (LGE), a controversial reform package meant to replace the Pinochet-era Organic Constitutional Education Law (LOCE). More than 10,000 teachers and students marched through the Region V city of Valparaiso to the National Congress building, where legislators were debating the bill.
[...]
Tension outside the Congress building rose as protesters waved huge banners with messages against the LGE. Police guarding the Congress interrupted the protest by blasting demonstrators with water cannons and tear gas.

Demonstrators, including the president of the National Teacher's Association, Jaime Gajardo, maintain that the Education Ministry and the Chilean government have not considered teacher and student complaints while drafting the education law. Gajardo and supporters left the Congress before the session closed, saying, "One of our demands is that the government stop promoting the LGE, and this has clearly not been the consensus of the meeting today."

More astute readers will remember that it was almost two years ago exactly that students rose up against a similar law, and won. Here's hoping they can do so again.

6-25-08 UPDATE:
Xinghua is today reporting that now military police have been brought in to smash the continuing protests:

Some 40 students were detained here Tuesday for protesting against the General Law of Education (LGE), currently being discussed in the Chilean Senate.
A march by some 1,000 high school students through the Central Station district west of the Chilean capital was broken up by military police who said the demonstration was unauthorized.
The students' group had decided on Monday to continue their protest against the controversial educational reform package proposed by the government.

I'd imagine there's a lot more coverage in Spanish than English - any fluent FSP readers want to help? :)

Okay, check out this awesomeness:

More than 160 students in six different classes at Intermediate School 318 in the South Bronx - virtually the entire eighth grade - refused to take last Wednesday's three-hour practice exam for next month's statewide social studies test.

Instead, the students handed in blank exams.

Then they submitted signed petitions with a list of grievances to school Principal Maria Lopez and the Department of Education.

"We've had a whole bunch of these diagnostic tests all year," Tatiana Nelson, 13, one of the protest leaders, said Tuesday outside the school. "They don't even count toward our grades. The school system's just treating us like test dummies for the companies that make the exams."

According to the petition, they are sick and tired of the "constant, excessive and stressful testing" that causes them to "lose valuable instructional time with our teachers."

And of course, the administration thinks that there's no way students could have organized themselves like that! No, it must've been some unruly teacher, who brainwashed them into disliking standardized tests!

A few days later, in a reprimand letter, Lopez accused Avella of initiating the boycott and taking "actions [that] caused a riot at the school."

The students say their protest was entirely peaceful. In only one class, they say, was there some loud clapping after one exam proctor reacted angrily to their boycott.

This week, Lopez notified Avella in writing that he was to attend a meeting today for "your end of the year rating and my possible recommendation for the discontinuance of your probationary service."

"They're saying Mr. Avella made us do this," said Johnny Cruz, 15, another boycott leader. "They don't think we have brains of our own, like we're robots. We students wanted to make this statement. The school is oppressing us too much with all these tests."

It looks like this teacher has the gumption to actually have his classroom be a place for open discussion and critical thinkin; I'm sorry that he may be canned as a result. But we shouldn't let that dampen the spirit of resistance that these kids showed - it's an inspiration that kids locked down in such a rigid, authoritarian atmosphere every day can organize themselves and take a stand. Bravo!

This also shows the folly of constant testing -- and constant test preparation. And when numerical test scores are linked to the welfare of the administrative elite, one can imagine that priorities tend to get out of whack. No longer is it about encouraging growth as a person, as a thinker, and as a citizen: it's about mastering a very narrow skillset and being able to parrot answers on bubblesheet. Every human has a right to rebel when she is stuck in a dehumanizing system; these courageous 8th graders are continuing in the grand tradition of resistance to oppression.

There's a great op-ed from the Chronicle of Higher Education I just got forwarded. It lays out the case that many athletic departments (especially those in Division I), when their financial books are opened to the sunlight, are draining immense amounts of money from their parent institutions. Money that could be used to fund scholarships, loan repayment programs, and upgrade academic facilities.

No matter if one loves college sports or not, I think the lesson to be learned here is that when budgets are hidden and undemocratic, abuse runs rampant. Whether or not to heavily subsidize college sports programs should be a collective institutional decision, and not the prerogative of those on top. Students - and especially those on sports teams - should be organizing and demanding participatory budgeting.

I've included the article here:

» Read More

Students at Concord University last month protested a proposed 6% hike in tuition. The University's Board of Governors was meeting on campus, and students made their opposition known. The Charleston Gazette:

Concord University students played Darth Vader's theme song as members of the university's board of governors walked through a crowd of 300 student-protesters last Tuesday.

Wearing red T-shirts and holding signs stating, "If we can't pay, we won't stay" and "Higher education, not higher tuition," the students' message to board members was clear: a proposed 6 percent tuition and fees increase was unacceptable.

By day's end, they thought they had at least partially accomplished their mission.

The board reduced the proposed increase to 3.7 percent.

"We were told this year's increase would be as close to zero as possible," said Brian Henderson, business manager for Concord's student government. But the administration then came back with a 6 percent increase, he said.

"We've had the highest freshman requirement last year, but that was slashed by those that we lost because of tuition hikes," Henderson said

Last year's tuition and fee increase of 5 percent brought in $1 million to the university, Henderson said. But the university lost $1.5 million from the students who dropped out, he said.

"It's a vicious cycle," he said. "Less and less students are paying more and more for the same product."

Between 1997 and 2007, tuition and fees at Concord have risen 91 percent, according to a report by the state Higher Education Policy Commission.

If students organize, they can win. Even though the school was screaming that it was "out of their hands" because the state didn't give them enough money, students were able to wring a significant concession.

But this does show that especially in state schools, just organizing one campus isn't going to cut it. Students should be organizing their campuses in such a way that gets a large portion of the student body engaged and energised, and then link up with other schools in the state system. Because the ultimate goal is free education for all - and that requires bringing student power to bear on the halls of the state (and eventually, Federal) capitol.

We can look to our brothers and sisters up north for guidance and inspiration. Students are organized into student unions in Canada, and especially in Québec they take radical action to protect student rights and interests.

Unionizing and connecting students across state system campuses would allow things like strikes and protests to exert power in a way that forces legislators to deal with the problem.

(Entire Charleston Gazette article under the fold)

» Read More

Moravian College's previous President was Erv Rokke, a staggering six and a half foot tall former Three Star General; I guess with this landing they managed to fit an even taller symbol of the mechanized horrors of warfare on campus. Maybe someone in the Administration was running a bet.

It's worth noting that the protesters weren't moved away because of some danger due to the massive blades on the Chinook; look at the video and you'll see people milling all around and inside the thing. Apparently it just gets really terrifically dangerous when people stand around holding protest signs.

Kudos to the sign-holders (and kudos to Dr. Reynolds, who stood up to the campus police on behalf of the students). Word is that Muhlenberg just formed an SDS chapter — might not be a bad idea at Moravian now, eh?

Daily Kos had a post yesterday describing an unsettling move by folks on the far-right to reassert themselves on a campus only now starting to recover from its history as a right-wing institution. The jist:

Here's the deal: Dartmouth has an unusually small board of trustees, with half the trustees historically elected by the alumni. In recent years, a group of alums has organized to elect hard right trustees, with the intent of rolling back two decades of Dartmouth's movement away from its infamously conservative past. Because the board of trustees is so small, it is vulnerable to the election of just a few people. (By way of comparison, Colgate University, with 2,750 students, has 34 trustees, while Dartmouth, with 4,100 students, has 18.)

When the college acted to make a full takeover of the board more difficult by expanding its size, the conservative-controlled Association of Alumni sued the college, supported by outside conservative groups. Now, the AoA is about to begin its elections, and the VRWC is continuing its mission to take over Dartmouth's alumni governance, continue the lawsuit, and influence the course of the college for generations.

Thankfully, those who don't have carboard cutouts of Bill O'Reilly in their bedrooms have banded together to counter this attempted takeover. They've got a slate of their own (and it's hardly a hippie slate at that), and a website at: http://www.dartmouthundying.com/

This is something you should be talking to with friends and family you know who currently or formerly went to Dartmouth College. Even if they're not "progressive," I think if you lay out exactly how horrid these right-wing candidates are (as the Daily Kos post does so well), they'll be willing to help. The DKos post also describes the involvement of right-wing groups like ACTA (American Council of Trustees and Alumni) and FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights in Education). While I've posted favorably on a bit of FIRE's work in the past, looking at all their other work paints a clear picture of how harmful the group is.

As dangerous as this threat may be, it's better than most colleges and universities, where Trustees are entirely self-selecting (i.e. the current Board members get to pick new Board members). Democratizing Boards of Trustees is a crucial battle we need to be fighting, but we should be democratizing it toward students, faculty and staff, not alums. And ultimately, we should be devolving power from them to directly democratic, participatory institutions on campus.

The New York Times had a pair of articles last Sunday chronicling what seems to be an emerging "race to the bottom" among universities, to see who can most cut tuition, either across the board or for families under a certain income level. They also profile several schools that effectively have zero tuition.

The New York Times - "Keeping the Lid On"

The New York Times - "The (Yes) Low Cost of Education"

I've also included the full text of these articles below the cut (in case NYT changes the link or makes your register). Both of these articles are very important for campus radicals to read and chew on; it's a fantastic glimpse into the kind of "peer pressure" that goes on among colleges and universities. Up until recently, the trend was "if you raise your tuition, I'll raise mine," with the added revenue going either to prestige-building exercises (new buildings, facilities, etc.) or financial aid. And of course, there's this:

Donald Heller, director of the Center for the Study of Higher Education at Pennsylvania State, offers one reason: “There’s something we refer to in college pricing as the Chivas Regal effect. If an institution drops its price, it’s seen as a decrease in quality.”

It's sad, but it's something that's true, to a certain extent. And the NYT articles certainly show that in some cases, reducing tuition can have the opposite impact, and actually attract higher-income students, showing that as we look at our own universities, it isn't just the "sticker price" we should be worried about.

Having a good grasp of what your university's peers are doing in terms of tuition can be an effective weapon when fighting for lower tuition and more financial aid, with the goal being tuition abolition. It can also be a key part of any narrative you submit to the press. "All we're demanding X University do is what Y College and Z University have done. They all have similar endowments, so why is X being so greedy?"

But the biggest problem is not that your university "just doesn't have a big enough endowment." The biggest problem is that dealing with tuition is not on the priority list for most schools, and when it is discussed, it's usually in the context of how much it will be increased, instead of whether. If tuition reduction was a priority on par with, say, new athletic facilities, or new buildings, or expanding the student population, then I think things would be much more workable, and almost all schools would easily be able to afford significant tuition decreases. But the Boards of Trustees, comprised mostly of business leaders, would think it crazy to do so.

To push tuition reduction to the fore, it will take an organized, militant student movement on each campus (probably arm in arm with counterparts among faculty and staff), fighting for a more democratic running of the university.

Now this is pure conjecture, but I think a significant side-benefit of winning a "liberated" university, one where everyone has a meaningful, democratic say in the course of their academic and institutional lives, is that alums will feel much more connected and invested in the institution, and will be much more likely to continue to give financially or volunteer there after graduation. I think a lot of students are as likely to donate to their past schools as they would be to "give back" to a prison they just got released from. And I think that analogy is apt in more than one way...

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Yesterday, Sen. Ted Kennedy and Rep. George Miller introduced the "Teaching and Research Assistants Collective Bargaining Rights Act." This bill would amend the National Labor Relations Act to explicitly include Teaching and Research Assistants at private universities and colleges. From the press release:

In fact, the classroom is a workplace for these scholars. It’s where they earn the money they need to pay to put food on their tables and a roof over their heads. They deserve the right to stand together and make their voice heard in their workplace. Like other employees, they should have the right to join a union and improve their working conditions. Obviously, better wages and working conditions for them also means better education for their students.

An NLRB That Needs Fixin'

The National Labor Relations Board was set up in 1935 to handle disputes between employees, unions, and management. After the 1947 passage of the Taft-Hartley Act (one of the most odious pieces of anti-labor legislation in this country's history) the NLRB has trended consistently more pro-management (to greater or lesser degrees) ever since.

That isn't to say that the rank-and-file NLRB employees aren't committed to the right to organize. I spent a summer interning at a Regional Office -- though by the time I was done I was effectively another Field Agent -- and the career employees were fantastic people, who really stood up as best they could for workers. However, as I saw first hand, it was like fighting with both hands behind your back, thanks to the restrictive decisions handed down by the actual Board itself: a five-member quasi-judicial body appointed by the President that hands down binding decisions regarding labor law. (There are actually three vacancies on the Board, which is a testament to the Bush Administration's penchant for letting regulatory agencies rot.)

Unionizing NYU

In 2000, the Board declared that NYU grad students should be protected under the NLRB:

Consistent with Supreme Court and Board precedent, we find that the graduate assistants are employees within the meaning of Section 2(3). We reject the contention of the Employer and several of the amici that, because the graduate assistants may be “predominately students,” they cannot be statutory employees. Like the Regional Director, we find there is no basis to deny collective-bargaining rights to statutory employees merely because they are employed by an educational institution in which they are enrolled as students. [Full text here]

As a result, NYU entered into a collective bargaining agreement with their graduate students' union. However in 2004, a Bush appointee-dominated Board reversed the decision, and in 2006 NYU refused to enter negotiations for a new contract. NYU students valiantly went on strike to force the University's hand, but in the end NYU won.

The Road Ahead

TA unionization is an important step on the road to student syndicalism -- student power can be felt acutely through the potential to halt the University's teaching capacity. A good law does not a labor movement make, as the labor movement has shown. For the working class, the legal right to unionize came only after they endured countless violent suppressions, murders, kidnappings, and assassinations. The brief history of TA labor is certainly less dramatic, but the basic formula is the same: if Kennedy's bill passes, it will be because of all the combined years of organizing, striking, and excellent students being suspended or expelled for standing up for their rights. Those who prefer to wait for the blessing of legality would have us all sit on our hands for eternity.

If the bill fails to pass, we will be where we are now: organizing to force universities to recognize TA and student unions. It's an important battle to wage: one that bears on the future of our movement, and the future of society itself.

Human rights? An end to war? An end to environmental destruction? Members of Students for a Democratic Society at the University of Florida are hunger striking for all three...



SDSers have been working for a year now, fighting to get their University's endowment — their own tuition dollars — invested in an ethical way. From their press release:

Our administration is not impressed by a recent student government referendum question we put on the ballot, which showed that 82% of voters support our proposal. Nor is it impressed with the list of other schools who have similar Socially Responsible Investing (SRI) policies, including Harvard, Yale, and Columbia University. The only thing that actually does impress itself upon our administrators is the bottom line, which is a wholly unacceptable position for an institution of higher education to take.

So starting a little more than a week ago, students went on a hunger strike: "At least 11 people have committed to some level of participation in this hunger strike, including some that will be consuming nothing but water until our SRI proposal is accepted by UF."

SRI, or "Socially Responsible Investment," is an increasingly popular demand placed on university administrations; it attacks the one area that the bureaucrats feel is most sovereign to them — the money. It forces them to live up to the lofty and feel-good language written in their charter and plastered on their PR brochures. The next logical demand, once an SRI is one, is establishing democratic control of the endowment. This can be attained through any number of methods, either setting up popular referenda, democratizing the Board of Trustees, or establishing a student-dominated committee with binding say on investment decisions.



Hunger strikes have a long and rich history of winning reforms on college campuses. But they don't win without our help. That's why the hunger strikers are asking you to contact the University President, Bernie Machen, and tell him to stop using University funds for war profiteers and mega-polluters:
Phone: (352) 392-1311

Fax: (352) 392-9506

Email: President@ufl.edu

Office of the President, 226 Tigert Hall, PO Box 113150,
Gainesville, FL 32611

There's a sample call/letter script on the group's facebook page, here: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=14939337501

To all of you who want to end the war and bring the troops home now...

For Student Power has kindly agreed to host a zine that I worked on entitled "Don't Sign Your Life Away: Some things to consider before or after joining the military." I've included two versions:

--One has the pages in sequential order
--The other is formatted to be copied as a double-sided pamphlet.
Feel free to makes copies and distribute it.

The zine's purpose is to both counter-recruit and support soldiers who resist. Many student anti-war groups have instinctively gravitated toward these tactics, but I thought it might be helpful to summarize them here:

Counter-Recruitment: Counter-recruitment means not only talking people out of the joining the military but also making life hard for military recruiters themselves. Actions have included demonstrations, student walkouts, handing out information in front of recruiting centers, opt-out parties (for high school students to keep the military from getting their personal information), and giving classroom presentations.
What it does:
--Stops the supply of new recruits to Iraq and Afghanistan.
--Keeps recruiters from feeling comfortable at college and community college campuses, and especially high schools. Recruiters work very hard for this kind of easy access. They are taught to woo teachers, the administration and guidance counselors into giving them the freedom to roam the halls whenever they want.

Supporting Soldiers who resist: There are a variety of ways to support the many GIs and officers who refuse to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan. Groups have held rallies, organizing anti-war veterans groups, and created GI coffeehouses
What it does:
--short-circuits the famous "We support the troops" slogan because it draws distinctions between troops who blindly follow orders and those who refuse.
--Makes clear the various obvious point that soldiers can make choices even when placed a in war zone
--Can highlight the ongoing conflict in the military between enlisted men and women and their commanding officers.
--A war cannot continue to be fought with consistently disobedient soldiers. Some have argued that the behavior of soldiers brought a quicker end to the Vietnam War (see the documentary Sir, No Sir! for more on this point) Soldiers are not completely cut off from the outside world and their ideologies are not set in stone. Soldiers can gain confidence when they hear about others like them who have who have chosen to resist.

These are only two current tactics, but both of them involve direct action. Instead of pleading for politicians to do us favors or hoping and praying for an end to war, you can use what's right in front of you to stop enlistment and sabotage the war machine. As it gets closer to election season it's important to remember that we cannot expect a single politician to do all of the work for us. Five years for Iraq and and Afghanistan has already been too long to wait.

For further information:
www.couragetoresist.org
www.ivaw.org

Over 250 high school students who staged a one-hour walkout on March 19th to protest the Iraq War are fighting the principal's decision to give them all two day detentions and fighting for the right to free expression in school. From their March 31st press release:

“This detention is unfair, because we were taking a chance to voice our opinions and educate ourselves, which we are not given the opportunity to adequately do so in school,” said Aislinn Bauer, a Princeton High School sophomore and one of the organizers of the walkout. “We’re turning this punishment into something productive.”

“What I do not understand is how we were able to miss three periods to see Terrance Simien and the Zydeco Experience perform and throw Mardi Gras beads at us, which had little to no educational value,” said Russell Cavallaro, another Princeton High School sophomore. “This walkout actually had educational value. Students were educated on the causes of the war, why it should never have happened, and had a chance to offer their respects to the fallen soldiers.”

The Times also covered the situation:

[...] sophomore Aislinn Bauer, said the rally against the war gave students an opportunity that isn't found in the classroom.

During history lessons, she said, it's more acceptable to talk about past events than to discuss conflicts existing today.

"It's as if the teachers don't want to get in trouble or cause problems by engaging in debate that has many different sides. But this war is very real," Bauer said. "We had to take it in our own hands to educate ourselves and others."

I got a chance to talk to Arantzazu Galdos, one of the organizers of the protest. She said that students converged on the Board of Education on the 31st, and presented their case of what happened.

The walkout organizers informed the principal of their impending action well in advance. "He started off telling us that it's alright, and then a couple of days before the walkout he started basically yelling at us," said Galdos. "He said things like 'I can't believe you're doing this,' 'do this on your own time,' and then he turned around and told the press how proud he was" of what they were doing. According to Galdos, Judy Wilson, the District Superintendent, said she frankly didn't believe them.

The students at the walkout signed petitions demanding the school district inform students of their right to opt-out of military recruiting contact lists (No Child Left Behind made it a requirement that high schools share their students' information to military recruiters - making what used to be an opt-in situation an opt-out situation). Another petition demanded the right to speak out on political issues when they are brought up in classes - "political discussion is routinely silenced in class, even when we're talking about an issue," Galdos said.

At the school board meeting, parents and community members also took the time to voice their support for the students. There is a larger board meeting coming up on April 22 at 8pm, and the organizers expect to have a large presence there as well.

This is a great example of thinking globally and organizing locally. Instead of just having a walk-out to protest the Iraq War (which really would do nothing to stop the war itself), they linked the war with issues relevant to the students -- the right to opt-out of being harassed by military recruiters, and the right to freedom of expression in school. That's probably how they were able to get about a quarter of the entire student population out of their classes and on the front lawn (despite the Principal's -- ever vacillating -- disapproval). And now that they have 250 signatures on those petitions, along with students who have materially invested themselves in a previous action (the act of leaving class, and getting detention), the time is ripe for increased organizing in the next few months -- especially at a time where students are getting more and more restless as the summer approaches.

Kudos to the walkout organizers, and I wish them success going forward.

Québéc Students Defy Ban on Protests

Students at UQAM (which we have covered previously) are at it again — this time protesting a court-approved injunction against protests on UQAM campus. As UQAM finalizes its plan to cut educational services and raise tuition fees as a way to get itself onto better financial footing (instead of going to the legislature for more funding, which it should be doing), the administrators want to keep the rabble-rousing out of sight, by effectively outlawing the students right to strike. Well, that won't stop UQAM students (and faculty!). McGill Daily:

The ban on student protests, which lasts until March 27th, was imposed by the UQAM administration the week before Tuesday’s protest and was approved by the Quebec Superior Court on March 18th.

It aims to prevent UQAM’s 14,000 striking students from disturbing the regular class schedule, or demonstrating within 100 metres of campus.

In response, students formed a human chain just outside of the 100-metre boundary. Any infringements on the injunction can result in a $50,000 fine.

“We’re going to respect the injunction within limits,” said Eve-Lyne Couturieu, communications officer for the striking political science and law students at UQAM.

“We’re also going to look for other means to proceed,” she added.

Strikes and demonstrations began breaking out at UQAM last semester, following the provincial government’s plan to lift the tuition freeze which had been in place since 1996.

The movement then shifted to focus on the University’s cost-cutting plans that aim to pull the university out of its $350 million debt.

PriceWaterhouseCoopers, hired by UQAM to draft the plan, released its financial plan on March 5th. Among other measures, the report calls for increasing tuition fees, cutting 77 teaching positions and freezing employee salaries.

Thankfully this is the last day of the injunction, and if UQAM administrators don't extend it, students will once again be protesting on campus.

Fiji Students Fight Repressive University Regulations

Students at the University of the South Pacific are setting up a mass protest for later this week; the student association is demanding the resignation of Registrar Walter Fraser, who are in their eyes establishing and enforcing rules much too strictly on campus (the University administration, unsurprisingly, disagrees). The students gave Fraser two weeks to resign — that two weeks ended last Sunday. Pacific News Services:

Students Association President, Ilifeleti Tobo told Pacnews that his members are 'unhappy with interferences from Mr Fraser on their on campus activities.'

"He has been very un-cooperative with us, blocking alot of our activities, thus the two weeks notice for him to step down.

"The letter was sent last week and the deadline will be this Sunday, 24 March." Tobo added.

He said if nothing favourable is received by the end of the deadline, 'students will protest.'

"For now, our membership plans to march to the USP Administration office to make our demands." Tobo claims the registrar has victimised the student body because the new executives refused to allow the use of students fund to pay for this year's orientation day programme.

"We've had clashes with the management after this decision. This was followed with stringent regulations imposed on students activities on campus."

A Tale of Two Sit-ins:

University of Toronto Students Harassed While York Students Left Alone

Excalibur:

A student sit-in at the University of Toronto’s (U of T) administrative offices last Thursday came to an abrupt halt after Toronto police and campus security physically intervened.
The protest, aimed at preventing a proposed 20 percent residence fee increase, took place inside Simcoe Hall, just outside U of T President David Naylor’s office. At one point, students convinced campus security to pass the president a note stating they “weren’t looking for trouble” and simply wanted a response. But within minutes, they were forcefully removed from the premises.
“We were there in the spirit of peaceful protest,” said Ryan Hayes, president of the U of T Arts and Science Students’ Union.
“But some people did get bruised, and some people did get their shirts ripped by police on that day.”
[...]
“The main issue is that the administration decided to use the police instead of talking to their students,” explained Hayes.
“You’re not going to touch anyone inside Simcoe Hall, the main administrative building, without first receiving orders from the administrators.”

Interestingly enough, a recent sit-in protest at York University lasted over 24 hours, and actually won — students got the University President to sign onto a non-sweatshop pledge for all University clothing. Security personnel were there, but did not forcibly remove the students.

“Why is it that when York held a peaceful demonstration, they were able to speak to their president, who eventually gave into their demands?” posited Hayes.
“We did the same thing – we just said ‘We’re here until we get a response.’ Ours was also a peaceful demonstration until the police escalated it.”

Why should students get stressed? They're up in that elite ivory tower, removed from the troubles of the world! AP:

College kids are so frazzled they can't sleep or eat. Or study. Good grief, they're even anxious about spring break.

Most students in U.S. colleges are just plain stressed out, from everyday worries about grades and relationships to darker thoughts of suicide, according to a poll of undergraduates from coast to coast. The survey was conducted for The Associated Press and mtvU, a television network available at many colleges and universities.

Four in 10 students say they endure stress often. Nearly one if five say they feel it all or most of the time.

[...]

Even so, the survey shows plenty of sources of stress, led by the seven in 10 students who attribute it to schoolwork and grades. Financial problems are close behind, while relationships and dating, family problems and extracurricular activities all are named by half as adding pressure.

College women have a more stressful existence than men, with 45 percent of females and 34 percent of males saying they face pressure often. The youngest students cite frequent stress most often. Whites report more stress than blacks and Hispanics.

From schoolwork to dating, women are likelier than men to say they experience pressure from virtually every potential source of distress in the survey. Six in 10 women and just four in 10 men say family issues cause problems, though the differences between the sexes in most areas are slimmer.

So let's see. Students are thrown into an unfamiliar setting, right out of a high school experience that leaves most hobbled and insecure, charged exorbitant amounts of money, and are then numerically evaluated by professors in freshman classes that are almost always large and overcrowded. Sure, there's more "freedom," but it's supermarket freedom: being forced to choose between monetized goods (technically "services") with very little information about them, and being resigned to be unable to create your own alternative. It's always a question of what is taught, but never how.

What's interesting is how often students blame themselves for this stress, or at the very most blame a course or professor. This is where the student left needs to inject itself in the conversation. Explain that education -- or better yet, learning -- should not be a stressful thing. The sheer combustibility of the student population around exam time should not be seen as the sum of our individual faults, but as yet another example of a faulty system. It's what the stressing pre-med student has in common with the computer science major, or the French major, or the sociology major. Such a fundamentally-shared oppression is exactly what campus ne'er-do-wells should be organizing around and against.

We should recast ourselves as grade abolitionists, as tuition abolitionists, and as partisans for participatory, democratically-run institutions of learning.

Inside Higher Ed has an interesting story about a college activist who was expelled over a facebook collage.

T. Hayden Barnes opposed his university’s plan to build two large parking garages with $30 million from students’ mandatory fees. So last spring, he did what any student activist would do: He posted fliers criticizing the plan, wrote mass e-mails to students, sent letters to administrators and wrote a letter to the editor of the campus newspaper. While that kind of campaign might be enough to annoy university officials, Barnes never thought it would get him expelled.

Georgia's Valdosta State University, which has a history of clamping down on students' ability to speak out (such as their draconian and unconstitutional "free expression area"), has silenced a student who had the audacity to put up some fliers and get a little satirical with Photoshop. Definitely read the rest of the article. It's beyond the pale what the university's rationale is.

Here's a video I grabbed from the local FOX affiliate about the controversy:



And there's a video by FIRE, a right-libertarian think tank that also looks at the larger issue of free speech at Valdosta State. FIRE is also behind the silly and distorted film "Indoctrinate U", but in this case they're on the right side of this issue, and I'm glad to see their lawyers put to good use.

This situation reminds us that administrators and students both have their own agendas, and rarely do they coincide. And when those agendas conflict, it should not be surprising to see the administration use whatever dirty tricks it can. We need to foster active student organizations on campus that fight for student power, and can organize an effective response when the administration tries to pull something like this. To learn more about what went down, you can check out Hayden's Facebook Group.

In the town of Garfield, NJ, where teachers have been working without a contract for months now, hundreds of teachers called in sick to work on the same day, effectively taking part in a wildcat strike. The Record:

Hundreds of students stormed out of Garfield High School Friday chanting, cheering and holding signs in support of their teachers, who have been working without a contract since the end of the last school year.

The brief rally, triggered by a fire alarm around 9 a.m., came a day after 350 teachers called out sick in an apparent protest over the contract negotiations. The district closed schools Thursday.

Students held signs that read, "No Contracts! No Teachers! No Students!" and "Settle Contracts."

"They don’t have any contracts, that's crazy," said one student, standing on Outwater Lane outside the high school.

The fates of students and educators are inextricably linked, and when they act in solidarity with each other against a common threat, wonderful things can happen.