Student&Youth Fightback: Resistance News

[TheGodlessUtopian]

In the past year and even month there have been continuing upheavals waged against students and young people. From the students protests in Chile which have resulted in Democratic Education, to the student strike in Quebec, even to the recent student strike at Indiana University, there are numerous struggles young people are involved in. So this thread will be home to those struggles; to the young comrades: post articles, updates, and news concerning the fightback against rising tuition rates and assault on civil rights.
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To start, here is some info on the recent I.U strike written by Socialist Organizer (http://socialistorganizer.org/socialist-organizer-southern-indiana-branch-endorsement-of-the-iu-strike/)...


The Southern Indiana Branch of Socialist Organizer, the United States section of the Fourth International, stands in complete solidarity with the students, teachers and staff of Indiana University in support of the IU-system wide strike scheduled for April 11-12. Our members stand together in solidarity with our fellow comrades of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) whose members have played a leading role in organizing this strike and whom our branch works with as members to organize students and workers. Our branch, located in New Albany, Indiana, is working at Indiana University Southeast campus to generate support for the strike at this satellite campus.


We are in full support of all of the demands made by the students, which are:


Immediately reducing tuition and eliminating fees.
Stopping privatization and outsourcing at Indiana University campuses.
Ending the wage freeze.
Making the university honor its promise to double the enrollment of
African-American students to 8%.
The abolition of both HB1402 and SB590, and defense of the rights
of undocumented students.
No retaliation for participating in or organizing for the strike.

We believe that these demands are key to resisting the austerity measures that are being taken by capitalist governments all over the world, and which are resulting in an attack on free and quality education. Due to the current economic crisis of capitalism, the world capitalist class is forcing the working class to pay by attacking public education. Socialist Organizer and the Fourth International stand uncompromisingly against this capitalist austerity and in of public education and all other institutions that aid the working class and the oppressed.


Nationally, Socialist Organizer is involved in organizing student unions to give students more of a voice on campus and to resist austerity.
At the 11th National Convention of Socialist Organizer, we adopted the following statement:
“Our position on building a student union is that this is an important and necessary goal given that students currently lack an authoritative voice to organize and negotiate with the admin and state. But it is necessary to go step by step patiently in this direction, on the basis of the actual conditions within the movement.”
As such, we hope that this strike will be the beginning in laying the foundations for a Student Union at Indiana University. We believe that the creation of such a union is a crucial goal of the current student movement, and is necessary to give students a substantial and independent voice on campus whereby they can affect their conditions of education on campus. Student Unions are needed to resist austerity measures against public education, and to unite the student movement and the movement to defend public education with the labor movement. Uniting with radicalizing teachers, who recently in Chicago demonstrated their ability to strike in defense of public schools and worker’s rights, is a vital alliance that we believe needs to be made in order to make our movement more effective and to link it with the broader struggle of labor against capitalist austerity.
While we do not believe that a Student Union can be built overnight, or without subsequent struggles against reactionary anti-Labor laws (such as the so called “Right to Work” law that passed in Indiana), we do not believe that the “assembly model” or organization is an effective enough tool to give students an organized, powerful and independent voice. We certainly welcome the creation of assemblies as transitional forms of organization, but we hope that these assemblies can be connected statewide, and that some form of organization be applied to give these assemblies a more organized expression and to connect with the organizing efforts of students off of campus, such as the students organizing at IU Southeast. It is crucial, we believe, that a unified network of assemblies be established across the IU system.
This struggle proves that there is hope for students who organize to change quality of education and life on their campuses, and that the capitalist class and their representatives in the state government and the Board of Trustees will not go unchallenged in their attacks on our right to quality, public education. As such, Socialist Organizer stands in the utmost solidarity with our fellow students going on strike at Indiana University this April 11-12.

In addition here are some photos from the event: "The People of IU on Strike (https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.116566111874420.1073741837.100005630947070&type=1)".

[TheGodlessUtopian]

Today there was a protest conducted by the Ohio Student Union against a tuition hike. Here are some photos:

https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/15226_354295428003615_1578655127_n.jpg



https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/533579_354295268003631_1728870427_n.jpg



https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/66855_354294611337030_659403315_n.jpg

[TheGodlessUtopian]

KENT STATE STUDENTS DEMAND DEBT REDRESS



College students in Ohio currently graduate with nearly $28,000 in student loans (http://digitaljournal.com/article/346547), which ranks seventh highest in the United States. In addition to incurring large debts to attend college, graduates also now face a job market where average starting salaries have declined for six straight years (http://www.videtteonline.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=37256:recent-graduates-salaries-in-decline&catid=37:newsnationalglobal&Itemid=53).
At Kent State University in Kent, Ohio, students are taking on even more debt than both the state and national average. According to the Project On Student Debt (http://www.projectonstudentdebt.org/state_by_state-view2011.php?area=OH), for the year 2010, 77 percent of Kent State graduates took out student loans. Even worse, the average debt upon graduation was $28,186! Why? Look at the rising tuition and fees. Since 2003, tuition and fees have increased by 46 percent (https://www.ohiohighered.org/files/uploads/reports/Undergrad_Tuition_Fees_FY2003-12.pdf). Moreover, KSU students have recently been informed that they will also be charged $440 per each credit hour for each one they take over 16. Such a plan will only force more students to incur more debt and extend the estimated date of graduation for many and is far less generous than most other colleges and universities in Ohio, which don't charge additional fees until 18 credit hours or more are reached.
In an effort to raise awareness about excessive tuition hikes and fees, the KSU Young Democratic Socialists (YDS) are organizing with other student groups, creatively utilizing social media to connect with others on campus and organizing digitally to stand in solidarity with students mobilizing at other campuses in the state.
Today, April 17, KSU students plan to demonstrate in Risman Plaza and will be tweeting using the hashtag #RAISEHELL and #NoTo16. The "RAISEHELL" hashtag is in reference to the slogan "raise hell, not tuition" which is being used at other student demonstrations across the country this week. Students far and wide are encouraged to stand in solidarity and tweet using the hashtags, #RaiseHell and #NoTo16.
Source: http://www.thenation.com/blog/173882/kent-state-students-demand-debt-redress#

Here are some pictures from the same protest: http://giveme-a-bic.tumblr.com/post/48138593119/students-organized-on-the-ohio-university-campus

[TheGodlessUtopian]

8 arrested at University of Michigan protest for undocumented students



Eight University of Michigan students were arrested Wednesday evening as they sat in the middle of an Ann Arbor intersection protesting for tuition equality for undocumented residents.
U-M police officers said they were arrested for obstructing traffic. They were taken to a police station and could be issued a ticket, officers said.
There were eight total arrests, seven students and one U-M almunus, said U-M police spokeswoman Diane Brown. They were all processed and released pending charges, which could be charges of disorderly conduct, disobeying a police officer or impeding traffic.
"All were very cooperative," Brown said in an e-mail to the Free Press. "Once they were cleared out of vehicle traffic, there were no other problems."
Yonah Lieberman, a senior from Washington, D.C., was among those who was arrested. He walked peacefully to the police car, continuing to chant.
“I’m willing to risk arrest,” he said minutes before that. “The cause is worthy enough. The students can’t get in here deserve our support.”
The crowd initially blocked the entire intersection at South State and South University. As car horns sounded, the group linked arms and chanted.
The first police officer arrived about five minutes after students entered the intersection. About five minutes later, protest organizers told all those who didn’t want to get arrested to get back on the sidewalk.
Sara Olson doesn’t see why students who grew up in Michigan like she did, graduated from a Michigan high school like she did, should have to pay thousands of extra dollars more than she does to go to the University of Michigan.
Olson, 18, a U-M freshman from Ann Arbor, was among about 60 students and community members who turned out Wednesday evening to protest in front of the Michigan Union.
The students are calling on the U-M Board of Regents to make sweeping policy changes that would require the university to charge the in-state rate to anyone who grew up in Michigan.
Javier Contreras, 18, of Ann Arbor, would fit that bill. He came from Mexico when he was young and has grown up in Michigan. He graduates this year from Skyline High School in Ann Arbor and applied to U-M for his undergraduate studies.
“When I saw that acceptance e-mail just a few weeks ago, I was really excited,” he said. “That feeling ended when I realized I couldn’t afford to pay the international rate of over $160,000 over four years.”
In-state tuition is just over $12,000 a year at U-M.
A group of administrators and students has turned over a report on policy options to the regents. There is a regents’ meeting at 3 p.m. Thursday, but the topic is not on the agenda.
The report looks at the admissions process, how admissions officers interact with undocumented students and financial aid options for undocumented students.
Undocumented students do not qualify for federal student aid or most other aid programs, further limiting those who can afford to come to school, the group says.
The group on Wednesday marched from the union to President Mary Sue Coleman’s house and then back.
If U-M would switched its policies, it would be a controversial move.
Those who are against it say the university should focus its resources on those students who are in the country legally.
Each public university in the state sets its own policy on the matter. Most charge out-of-state tuition.
Western Michigan University offers in-state tuition rates to students with proof that they live in Michigan. Wayne State University doesn’t ask for citizenship documentation. Saginaw Valley State University allows its president to approve waivers and allow migrant workers’ children to be offered in-state tuition.



Source: http://www.freep.com/article/20130417/NEWS06/304170154


P.S: See source for video
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Also I found a video from the Indiana University strike:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5o-6DUrfHs&feature=youtu.be

[TheGodlessUtopian]

TUITION BATTLE IN CONNECTICUT


WILLIMANTIC, Conn.— The students walked through an unfamiliar campus. Attempts by one of the more experienced marchers to start up chants were met with self-conscious and infrequent responses.They had travelled an hour by bus from Central Connecticut State University (CCSU) to Eastern Connecticut State University (ECSU) to protest impending tuition hikes that will affect over 100,000 students.

The March 21 board of regents meeting (where the increase was to be voted up) had been moved from its original central location in Hartford to the more remote ECSU only a week earlier. It was well known that the only CSU that had not held a protest against the hikes (and the only CSU with a student government in support of the hikes) was ECSU.

Moreover, the campus was about an hour farther from all other CSU campuses than Hartford—not a small difference for a 10 a.m. weekday protest. Many students who signed up for the two CCSU buses didn’t show.
Finally, the group turned a corner and met a crowd of some 250, waving numerous beautiful placards and banners. Two animated young men paced back and forth with bull horns leading the rowdy assembly in chants like “Regents, come out! We got something to talk about!” Veteran protesters may know the chant well, but most of those shouting had never demonstrated before, and to them it was anything but routine. This day was not like all other days.

Despite the best efforts of the ECSU student government to prevent tuition-hike opposition on their campus, a handful of independent ECSU students had broken through. In the last two days before the regents’ vote they made contact with those mobilizing from other campuses and managed to turn out a sizable force on their own turf. Other demonstrators hailed from Western Connecticut State University, Southern Connecticut State University, a variety of community colleges, and even the better funded University of Connecticut schools.

The Board of Regents had originally floated a tuition increase of 12.4% before making clear their intention to pass an increase of 5.1%, which will cost students up to $800 more a year. The increase comes amidst cuts in funding for public higher education that have totaled more than 15% over the last two years (about $93.2 million). These cuts have been accompanied by a cumulative tuition increase of 11.8% during the same period (when the new increase is included). Since 2004, tuition and fees for in-state students at the four Connecticut State Universities have risen from about $5000 to nearly $9000 a year.

This assault on public education is part of a larger austerity drive led in the state by Democratic Gov. Dannel Malloy, and nationally by President Obama. Malloy’s proposals also include shifting responsibility for faculty medical benefits and pensions from the state of Connecticut to the university system. This would mean handing the universities $337.5 million to cover benefits and leaving them on their own. If medical costs go up the state would no longer have to cover the difference (as it does now); this would instead be the responsibility of the university system, which could only respond by raising tuition and fees or cutting services.

Such costs are likely to go up. Medical costs routinely shoot up beyond expectations. If all faculty members simply switch pension plans, costs will go up $78.8 million more a year. Malloy’s plan is designed to pit students against faculty, who would have to fight for the same funds.

While Connecticut students have mobilized against tuition hikes before, this year has seen a higher level of communication between campuses and far more involvement from members of student government. Their participation has opened up useful resources like campus-wide e-mail blasts.

The week before the regents’ meeting students rallied on three separate campuses. Such a rally at CCSU drew some deeply angry, but hesitant layers; a picket line of some 50 students attracted a much larger crowd of spectators. When asked about the situation, members of this audience expressed their anger with the hikes, but always found an excuse to stay on the sidelines. As speakers for the day took their places, the pickets joined the other onlookers, who then accepted their new role as participants in a rally.
Throughout the protests some students felt it important to stick to the message that public investments in higher education yield lucrative returns, and should be prioritized for that reason alone. Still, in numerous signs and wildly cheered speeches, participants pointed to the political context of the attacks on education and the enormous wealth that is diverted to the military, the wealthy, and corporate profits.

Outside the board of regents’ meeting, CCSU freshman Nicole Lopriore asked the crowd, “What does it do to the workforce when we’re all so heavily in debt? … It means you will do whatever you can to keep a job—any job. … They want us to pay more every year for lower quality education, only to face worse conditions in the workplace. … And this is what students are facing across the world.”

When it became known that the board was in the process of voting, and that there would be an open mic afterward for students to voice their concerns, the demonstration moved within the courtroom-like confines of the regents’ meeting.

A vote passed in favor of the hike. Students were then given 20 minutes to respond with short statements. Within seconds a line formed 30 deep and was continuously repopulated. Students spoke about working many jobs to afford to go to their schools, and how now they would have to question their ability to continue. Others spoke about flooding dorms and program closures. Frequent applause and cheers punctuated the remarks. All the while, the regents sat stone-faced like well-tailored golems.

After 20 minutes, with a long line still waiting, the chair of the board stopped the students and asked if there were any faculty members who would like to speak. Immediately, two professors stood up and demanded that their time be ceded to the students. The crowd cheered, and the students won another 20 minutes.

The open mike ended with passionate remarks from a student government treasurer, who said he was paying for college by contracting six years of his life to the National Guard, something that he said, “no one should ever have to do.” He ended with “we will be watching, and we are not going away,” and walked off to a standing ovation. He was right. Students are now planning a statewide march on the state Capitol for April 16.
Source: http://socialistaction.org/2013/04/tuition-battle-in-connecticut/?fb_source=pubv1

[TheGodlessUtopian]

Four students from the Ohio University Student Union (https://www.facebook.com/OHIOStudentUnion?ref=stream&group_id=0) were arrested today at the Board of Trustees meeting for disrupting the meeting after the Trustees voted to hike tuition... again.




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An article on the event:


About 15 students disrupted Ohio University's Board of Trustees meeting Friday morning to protest an impending tuiton increase.


Trustee Sandra Anderson, sitting Chair, gave multiple warnings before suspending the meeting. Once suspended, all trustees stood up and left the room.


However, despite the warnings, Megan Marzec, one of the protestors, a sophomore studying studio art and a member of the OU Student Union, continued to speak out against the hike.

"When our university's Board of Trustees is willing to sacrifice its own students at the altar of the free market," Marzec said. "It is clear that you see us as nothing more than a revenue stream. But we are not!"
Protests continued with students chanting "Chop from the top" and "Whose debt? Our debt!" while officers on duty gave a one minute warning to "leave or be arrested."


Students responded by taking a seat on the ground.


After brief chants the protesters were escorted out for violating Ohio Revised Code 2917.12.


The Ohio Revised code states that no person, with purpose to prevent or disrupt a lawful meeting, procession, or gathering, shall act in a way that obstructs or interferes with the due conduct of such meeting, procession, or gathering.
"They have been arrested and charged with a 4th-level desmeanor for disrupting a lawful meeting," said Ohio University Police Chief Andrew Powers.


Ellie Hamrick, Eden Almasude, Jessica Lindner and Marzec were the four students charged. Their court date is set for Monday.
A resolution to raise tuition 1.6 percent was passed. OU currently charges in-state undergraduates $10,216 per year in tuition and fees. That number will now increase to $10,380 for the 2013-4 school year.


"We came to realize that the 1.6 (percent) number is probably about the best place for us for the 2013-2014 fiscal year," Vice President for Finance and Administration Stephen Golding said at Thursday's joint commitee meeting.


After the students were escorted out and the meeting resumed, outgoing student trustee Allison Arnold addressed the board.
"Those individuals that just stood up reperesent many different students," she said. "I am extremely shaken up with what has taken place at this meeting. I want to recognize how passionate they are. I respect those students. I care about them."


After the conclusion of the meeting and during a news conference OU President Roderick McDavis made a statement.
"I support the expression of free speech that took place ...but I do not condone the manner in which the protests were carried out," he said. "Unfortunately, the disruption by some students detracted from the message and undermined the event’s overall effectiveness."
-Hannah Yang contributed to this article.

Source: http://thepost.ohiou.edu/content/student-protesters-disrupt-board-trustee-meeting

[TheGodlessUtopian]

HELP RAISE FUNDS FOR BAIL MONEY



Information

On Friday, April 19, four brave Ohio University students were arrested for engaging in a spirited act of civil disobedience by disrupting the Board of Trustees meeting. The Board had just voted to increase tuition for the 2013-2014 academic year, and students were demanding a salary freeze for administrators and athletic coaches taking salaries in excess of $100,000.

Currently, four students -- Eden Almasude, Ellie Hamrick, Jessica Lindner, and Megan Marzec -- are being charged with "disrupting a lawful meeting." This carries a maximum fine of $250 and 30 days in jail. It is likely that students will also face sanctions from the university, which might carry monetary fines.

One can donate to help their cause here: "Covering Legal Costs" (https://www.wepay.com/donations/696731028?utm_campaign=shops&utm_medium=link&utm_source=facebook&ref=bGluazo5ODMyNDU2Mjo=)

EDIT: The funds needed for their release has been met,so no more donations are required, yay!

[TheGodlessUtopian]

THE BATTLE AGAINST STANDARDIZED TESTING


More than 70 students protested state standardized testing outside Cleveland High School (http://schools.oregonlive.com/school/Portland/Cleveland-High-School/) on Thursday, amid a growing movement across the country urging students and parents to "opt out" of high stakes exams in education. Student organizers scheduled the walkout on one of the days eleventh-graders at the school were scheduled to take Oregon Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (OAKS) (http://www.ode.state.or.us/search/results/?id=169) test on science. The protest attracted students from other schools and students from every grade at Cleveland, including a few juniors who had refused to take the science tests that week.

Emma Christ, a 16-year-old Cleveland High junior who opted out, said she believed the tests are an unfair assessment of teachers and schools.
"You're focusing on passing and exceeding more than you are on absorbing the material," she said.

Ian Jackson, another Cleveland High School junior with the boycott, said the emphasis on standardized tests, which he believes has racial biases, leads to an inequitable education system. Students also called it a waste of time and money.

Standardized testing is becoming even more intertwined with accountability and graduation requirements for students across the country, including Oregon.

This year, the state required seniors to pass the state tests in reading and writing before graduation. Next year, the state will add math benchmark tests to the list for the class of 2014.

But even though students can use other means of use other means of assessment -- such as SAT or ACT scores, or a locally-graded work sample -- to prove proficiency for graduation, a number of administrators have remained wary of students opting out. Portland Public Schools spokeswoman Erin Hoover Barnett said the district "needs kids to take the tests."

"We respect our student's rights to voice their views and take on issues they're passionate about, but we want them to stay on track and graduate," she said. "It's particularly important for kids who are already facing barriers to graduation to not feel pressured by their peers to do something that makes it even harder for them to get to that finish line."

Protestors have pointed out that students can use other means of assessment -- SAT or ACT scores, or a locally-graded work sample -- to prove proficiency for graduation. On Thursday, students gathered outside the front steps of the school, clutching signs and banners saying, "I am a student, not a test score" and "Think outside the bubble," before marching around the block.

Locally, groups from the Portland Student Union and the Portland Public Schools Student Union have helped organize smaller protests (http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2013/02/portland_public_schools_studen_2.html) this year. At a March protest at Grant High, they attracted just more than a dozen for a walkout (http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2013/03/grant_high_students_protest_st.html). Thursday's protest was one of the students' biggest pushes yet.
But it's not just students who are expressing their displeasure in standardized testing. Chris Lowe, a Sellwood Middle School parent who joined the protest, said he was sick of students getting pulled out of class to take tests.

"We've got the assessment tail wagging the education dog," said Lowe.
Cleveland Vice Principal Kevin Taylor, who watched the protest unfold on Thursday, said as long as the states are mandating the tests, the schools will keep administering them to students.

He also argued that some tests can even provide data for teachers to help struggling students.

Others have worried that pushing schools to be labeled as failing -- through failing to test enough students -- may drive prospective families away.
In Portland Public Schools, it's unclear how many students have actually opted out their tests. Schools are required to grant exceptions to the test only for religious or disability-related reasons, but educators cannot force students to take the test.

Barnett said the district has gotten three opt-out requests from parents, but acknowledges schools do not report those requests as diligently as they would like.

Juanita Valder, another Cleveland High vice principal, said they couldn't estimate how many students chose to opt out of the science tests because they were ongoing. But she also speculated fewer students would opt out of other tests that are actually required for graduation.

But Pele Warnock, a senior at Cleveland, believes the movement will grow. As she addressed the students and the small group watching outside, she said students needed to challenge the current education system's emphasis on testing. They had sat down to take the tests long enough, she said.

"We're done sitting," she said. "It's time to stand up."
Source: http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2013/04/cleveland_high_school_students.html

[TheGodlessUtopian]

YOUTH FIGHT FOR QUEER INCLUSIVE IMMIGRATION REFORM



Ten young South Florida protesters on Monday called on U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., to include gay and lesbian people in an immigration reform package set to be unveiled Tuesday.

"We want to make certain that [lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender] equality isn't left out of comprehensive immigration reform," said protest organizer Gabriel Garcia-Vera, 24, of GetEQUAL (http://getequal.org/) Miami, who describes himself as "a queer Puerto Rican and someone who identifies as a Latino voter."

GetEQUAL is a grassroots national LGBT organization dedicated to "full legal and social equality," according to its website.

Garcia-Vera was joined by other young activists representing Florida Immigration Coalition, Students Working for Equal Rights and Dream Defenders.


http://miamiherald.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451b26169e2017c38a34bab970b-pi (http://miamiherald.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451b26169e2017d42d2660c970c-pi)
"There is always a group of people standing up against a system that is always somehow criminalizing us. Black and brown communities are coming together on the side of Dream Defenders and today we are also taking a stand for our LGBTQ community," said Kimberly Gonzalez, 27, president of Dream Defenders' Miami Dade College (http://www.mdc.edu/main/) Kendall Campus chapter.

"LGBTQ rights are human rights and as individual groups fighting what may seem like different forms of oppression, we are here to stand together with the understanding that oppressors are the same," said Gonzalez, who does not identify as LGBT.

A bipartisan group of eight senators, including Rubio, plans to unveil a sweeping immigration bill on Tuesday to secure the border, remake legal immigration, boost workplace enforcement and put 11 million people here illegally on a path to citizenship, according to Associated Press.

In February, Rubio told the website BuzzFeed (http://www.buzzfeed.com/) he hopes LGBT immigration doesn't become a "central issue" in immigration reform.

"I think if that issue becomes a central issue in the debate it's going to become harder to get it done because there will be strong feelings on both sides," Rubio said.

About 900,000 immigrants in the country identify themselves as gay, bisexual or transgender, including more than 48,000 members of same-sex couples in which one or both spouses or partners aren’t U.S. citizens, according to a recent study by the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law, a research center on sexual and gender identity issues.

Sergio Cesario, a Brazilian-American citizen in Miami, said his partner, Mauro, could be deported if immigration reform doesn't include LGBT people.
In 2005, Cesario became critically ill with inherited kidney disease and returned home to Brazil, where he met Mauro. They fell in love and Mauro came to the United States with him.

Mauro eventually donated a kidney to Cesario, saving his life.
"He gave me the gift of love and it's so difficult to separate ourselves," Cesario said. "It would be very difficult to live apart because of a law that is unjust."


Read more here: http://miamiherald.typepad.com/gaysouthflorida/2013/04/young-activists-demand-us-sen-marco-rubio-include-lgbt-people-in-possible-immigration-reform.html#storylink=cpy
Source: http://miamiherald.typepad.com/gaysouthflorida/2013/04/young-activists-demand-us-sen-marco-rubio-include-lgbt-people-in-possible-immigration-reform.html

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STUDENTS PROTEST TUITION INEQUALITY FOR UNDOCUMENTED IMMIGRANTS


YES (Youth Empowered in the Struggle) leaders waiting for our turn to speak against the decreased funding to public education & continued lack of tuition equality for undocumented students at the Joint Finance committee hearing in Milwaukeehttps://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-snc6/5482_481172641949046_957225566_n.jpg


For a video see here: <iframe src="https://www.facebook.com/video/embed?video_id=10100404042268446" width="568" height="320" frameborder="0"></iframe>

Or here (https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10100404042268446)

[TheGodlessUtopian]

As always, The Ohio Student Association had a busy week, here is a peek of what 48 hours of organizing in Central Ohio looks like!

City Council:


http://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/osa/pages/39/attachments/original/1366650954/city_council_.jpg?1366650954
The recent fight against a corporate takeover of Columbus City Schools brought OSA leaders to a Columbus City Council meeting. Amber Evans, A CCS graduate, future librarian, and big sister of four students currently in the public schools came and voiced her concerns about the possibility of legislation taking away the community’s ability to democratically elect the school board. The Council refused to comment on whether or not they supported a takeover and the Ohio House put in the legislation the following week. Click here to like the No School Takeover facebook page!
Documentary Screening and Panel Discussion:


http://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/osa/pages/39/attachments/original/1366649291/Film1.jpg?1366649291
Organizers had to turn people away from the overflowing theatre for a free screening of The House I Live In – a documentary about the failed “war on drugs” and the havoc it has wreaked on communities across the country. The screening was followed by a panel discussion with community leaders, specialists, and people who have been affected by the war on drugs and the school-to-prison pipeline. Various student organizations sponsored the event including OSA, Band of Brothers, NAACP, College Dems, and the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race & Ethnicity. Read this blog post about the event!
Students Give Testimony at House Finance Committee


http://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/osa/pages/39/attachments/original/1366648627/OSA_Testimony.jpg?1366648627

OSA organizers Stuart, Meagan, Lauren, Ilhan and Lainie sought support for legislation that will help give Ohio students more opportunities to succeed with less student loan debt and more fully funded schools. Ohio students told their stories, and brought the voices of thousands of other students around the state with them, to the Ohio House Finance Committee. Students ably fielded questions from legislators in their powerful display of what happens when students speak on behalf of themselves in front of their elected officials. Check out the footage of the testimony here.

Die-in at the State House


http://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/osa/pages/39/attachments/original/1366648854/die_in.jpg?1366648854
OSA joined leaders from Caring Across Generations, Ohio Prophetic Voices, and the Ohio Organizing Collaborative at the Ohio Statehouse to give testimony and demand for the inclusion of Medicaid expansion in the biennium budget. After testimony was given, a dozen leaders seated directly in front of the committee fell onto the ground in a symbolic “Die-In” to represent the thousands of Ohioans that will die within the next three years without Medicaid expansion. Click here to watch the video of the action!
Students & Community Members Phone Bank for Town Hall'


http://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/osa/pages/39/attachments/original/1366648563/aricka_phonebank.jpg?1366648563
Leaders from Students United for Public Education (SUPE) spent the evening phone banking for the Town Hall on the Future of Public Schools. The Ohio Student Association has joined together with a labor and community coalition to stand up for public education and fight a hostile takeover of Columbus City Schools. Click here to like the No School Takeover facebook page and email [email protected] to get involved!


Source: http://osa.nationbuilder.com/48_hours_of_organizing_in_central_ohio


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Teenager fights to save iconic mill

http://www.lep.co.uk/webimage/1.5603420.1366618202%21/image/2442023037.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_595/2442023037.jpg Driven: Charlotte Cropper is fighting tos ave Wesley Street Mill in Bamber Bridge, which is set for demolition


Published on 22/04/2013 14:04

A 17-year-old girl is leading a campaign to save a landmark mill earmarked for demolition.

Charlotte Cropper, an A Level pupil at Cardinal Newman College, is trying to mobilise residents of Bamber Bridge behind preserving Wesley Street Mill.

It comes after plans were submitted to tear down the derelict and vandalised 106-year-old building to make way for 200 homes.

Earlier this year South Ribble Council bought the former Mackenzie Arms site in Station Road, to open up the way for development.

Charlotte, of Brindle Road, said: “The mill is a huge part of the history of Bamber Bridge.

“It’s something I could point to in years to come, and say to my grandchildren, ‘this is where you come from.’

“It’s a monument to the cotton trade history of this area, and many people will have ancestors who used to work there.

“I’m a firm believer that when something’s gone, it’s gone, and we must stop that happening.

“The building is beautiful and strong, and I look at it every time I go past.
“I believe it could be made into apartments, like they have done in New Hall Lane. Perhaps there could also be a gym or and shops.
“People do say that it’s an eyesore, and I can understand where they’re coming from because of the vandalism, but it’s only broken windows.
“I am 100 per cent confident that when the economy picks up there will be someone ready and willing to come in to transform the mill.”

The building, which is the former home of Bamber Bridge Spinning and Weaving Company, was one of the largest in the Preston area, with 135,000 spindles. It closed as a working mill in 1959.

Charlotte, who says she has always had a strong interest in history, is now calling on interested people to attend a planning meeting at South Ribble Council in West Paddock, Leyland, at 6pm on Wednesday.

A Save Wesley Street Mill group on Facebook has nearly 90 members.

Source: http://www.lep.co.uk/news/teenager-fights-to-save-iconic-mill-1-5603423

[TheGodlessUtopian]

EARTH DAY PROJECT: YOUTH&REUSABLE WATER BOTTLES


NORTH ANSON — A group of students in an environmental studies class at Carrabec High School are trying to reduce waste by encouraging students and faculty to drink tap water from reusable water bottles.

Carrabec High School students Ashlee Knight, Fresca Pray and Molly Gray stand with their environmental studies teacher, Susan Hellewell, second from left, in a classroom on Monday. The environmental studies class, which also includes Leah Poivier, has obtained a grant for the school to purchase reusable water bottles for students and faculty.
Staff photo by Rachel Ohm

The students, along with two teachers at the school, have started a program called Carrabec Takes Back Tap, through which they plan to buy reusable stainless-steel water bottles for all students and staff and to upgrade the school's aging water fountains. They recently received a grant to help with the first part of their two-phase project and are hoping to make a difference in their community and the state.

"I was so struck by the amount of plastic that ends up in landfills and the ocean. We wanted to do something to change it and to change our community," said Ashlee Knight, 18, a senior.

Knight is one of four students, all senior girls, in an elective environmental studies class. She said that at the beginning of the year the class involved a lot of book-based learning and that she and her classmates wanted to do something more hands-on to raise awareness.

According to a survey the girls conducted among the school's 265 students and faculty, 32 percent said they drink bottled water every day.

The girls said that bottled water is marketed as a healthy alternative to soda but that no one ever encourages them to drink tap water. The school also has aging water fountains that need to be replaced and deter people from refilling water bottles, said Knight.

"A lot of people say they don't like to drink out of them because they're old and gross," she said.

All of these things contribute to a buildup of waste in the environment and harm ecosystems, said Francesca Pray, another student in the class who is involved with the project.

"We wanted to do something and we started thinking about how we could reduce plastic bottle use," she said.

Lisa Savage, a faculty member who specializes in writing skills, and environmental studies teacher Susan Hellewell agreed to help the girls with the two-part project they came up with: buying reusable water bottles and getting new water fountains. The girls conducted research and wrote and submitted grant proposals for their ideas.

"They are a small group of really sharp students that are cooperative with each other. They did an awesome job," said Savage.

As a result, the school recently received a $965 grant from Pine Tree Youth Organizing in Belgrade to buy the water bottles and is applying for another grant to get the water fountains.

On Monday, which was Earth Day, a day of national awareness of preserving and caring for the planet, the school placed its order for the stainless steel water bottles, which are expected to arrive in about two weeks. They will come in yellow, blue and orange and display the "Carrabec Takes Back Tap" slogan.

Principal Regina Campbell said she is proud of the students for collaborating to solve a problem.

"It's an amazing idea and its not just about the bottles. They saw a problem and instead of wringing their hands they did something about it," she said.
Anson-based School Administrative District 74, which also includes the towns of Embden, New Portland and North Anson, anticipates a loss of $30,745 in state subsidies during the 2013-14 school year, according to superintendent Ken Coville. They are also facing the prospect of paying for teacher retirement costs and additional costs to send some students to charter schools.

"It's nice to see our own kids doing something rather than saying we don't have the money in the budget," said Campbell. "We can look for that money."
Source: http://www.kjonline.com/news/Project-to-provide-reusable-water-bottles-to-Carrabec-High-School-population.html?searchterm=carrabec

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And now for some history...

NORTH KOREAN AFRICAN STUDENTS PROTEST FOR CLEAN WATER



In the summer of 1984, a group of African students who were receiving improperly treated water at Wonsan Agricultural College decided to protest against their inadequate conditions and march to Pyongyang.
The African students were receiving water that was a “milky, white color,” often boiled and served in kettles. Although they were allowed to purchase beer and cider with Korean Won and Coca-Cola using foreign currency, bottled water remained a rare luxury for the visiting Africans. They were unsure what their fellow North Korean students drunk, because segregation at the university meant they could never share a meal or even eat in the same cafeteria together.
In 1984 Guinea did not have an embassy in Pyongyang, so Aliou Niane and his Guinean friends first contacted the nearest embassy in Beijing to explain their problem. “We told the embassy that we were not going to school unless we got bottled water” Aliou said. “In Guinea, we never complained about the water as it was never an issue.”
http://www.nknews.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/aliou-in-north-korea-2-620x897.jpg (http://www.nknews.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/aliou-in-north-korea-2.jpg)Aliou dancing with a stranger, assigned to him, on Kim Il Sung’s Birthday, 1984

Despite complaining to Beijing, inaction forced the Guinean led group to consider alternative action. The group soon decided to go on a hunger strike to underscore their frustration to the North Korean hosts. But when that also failed to gain the attention of authorities, the students decided to try and board a train to Pyongyang in order to talk directly to North Korean officials in the capital city. But that didn’t work either – upon trying to enter the gated train station, military guards prevented the students from boarding the train. A skirmish ensued and all the students were forced to return to their campus.
Unable to take the train, the Guineans soon hatched a plan to march all the way from Wonsan to Pyongyang, a move they thought would surely get the attention of the North Korean authorities. Learning of the planned march, students from Zambia, Tanzania, Mali, and Lesotho decided to join the Guinean contingent. And although some of the foreign students at Aliou’s university chose not to participate, he remembers that in total nearly 50 finally agreed to march.
http://www.nknews.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/aliou-in-north-korea-3-620x452.jpg (http://www.nknews.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/aliou-in-north-korea-3.jpg)Fellow African students in front of the Wonsan campus (Left to right): Aliou (Guinea), a Zambian student, and other fellow guinean students: Nyankoy Sagno, Koleah Sylla and Raphael Loua

As they embarked on the nearly 100 mile march to Pyongyang, local North Koreans looked at the protestors with a mixture of confusion and amazement.
“Our minders were worried. We could tell by their faces, their voices; they continued to plead with us to stay and not to take to the streets. Once we started protesting, they disappeared. The whole street was full of African students walking and shouting,” Aliou explained, recalling their impressions at the start of the march.
“Where could we even purchase the materials for a riot in North Korea?”

As the march took shape, Aliou and his friends shouted “Down with Wonsan Agricultural College…Down with Korean Universities!”
Of course, the students knew better than to shout, “Down with Kim Il Sung!”
But the protestors only had their voices – for none of them had banners or signs to highlight their grievances. Aliou remembers, ”There were no such materials. Where could we even purchase the materials for a riot in North Korea?”
The students marched nearly 12 miles toward Pyongyang before approaching a tunnel that marked the beginning of the end for the young protestors.
“While marching, we saw four to five military trucks with fully geared military men passing us. We saw they had guns. We students understood that the best place for the military to stop the protest would be before entering the tunnel. But we continued walking.”
“The military’s plan was to stop us from going through the tunnel, but also psychologically to wait until we were tired, thirsty, and hungry before they came for negotiation. This tells you exactly how well they know and use psychological tactics,” Aliou explains.
Before the group entered the tunnel, a high-ranking military officer stepped out of his Mercedes Benz and asked to talk. Aliou’s first impression of this military officer were his “well-polished shoes, many medals, and his immaculately clean look.”
http://www.nknews.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/aliou-in-north-korea-4-620x452.jpg (http://www.nknews.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/aliou-in-north-korea-4.jpg)Aliou with high school girls and their teachers in Wonsan

The military officer told the students to sit down on the ground so that they could talk. Aliou said, “Psychologically, the officer controlled everyone by sitting on the dirt off the side of the road with two of his aids standing at his side.”
The military officer, with a broad smile, asked the students to sit down. While some did, others were still angry and continued to stand in protest.
“What do you want?”, the military officer asked. “Bottles of water,” the students responded.
“You are right, water is very important. You will get water if you get into the bus and go back to school”, the officer responded. But having heard it all before, Aliou remembers the students replied, “It is always the same promises that have never been delivered.”
Calmly, the military officer replied, “If you listen to me, you will get water tomorrow.”
The officer’s tactics worked. Instead of entering the tunnel the tired and hungry students got on to a bus to go back to Wonsan. As soon as they got on the bus the students started to argue, with some wanting to continue to Pyongyang and others believing the officer was telling the truth.
For his part, Aliou knew that the North Koreans on the bus were eavesdropping on their conversation.
“The common language among African students was Korean. The North Koreans always knew what we were saying and they also knew who was saying what. They knew who the troublemakers were.”
http://www.nknews.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/aliou-in-north-korea-5-620x452.jpg (http://www.nknews.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/aliou-in-north-korea-5.jpg)Aliou and his good friend and fellow Guinean Sylla under the ‘Juche Agricultural Method’ monument in Wonsan, 1984

The following morning, all the African students – and even those who did not protest – finally received their bottled water. Their action was a success – and the students would continue to receive bottled water three times a day, until they left in 1987. They would receive a bottle in the morning, one in the afternoon, and one at night. Water was no longer an issue.
In the fall, a Guinean ambassador, “His excellence Habib Diallo,” met with the students in Pyongyang. He told them, “Water was on the agenda with the North Koreans and they have assured me that you will continue to receive bottled water and that it will never be discussed again.”
http://www.nknews.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/aliou-in-north-korea-6-620x452.jpg (http://www.nknews.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/aliou-in-north-korea-6.jpg)Aliou with a French-speaking the Cambodian student

Although they got what they wanted, Aliou recalls that not everyone remain unscathed from the protest. Their minder, Mr. Lee from the Ministry of Education, had been demoted. When Aliou saw him later that year, he remembers, “Mr. Lee looked completely different. He lost weight. He used to give orders but he was now the one that was being ordered. He was just happy to be alive.”
For their part the African students knew that they would not be killed for protesting because they were a valuable propaganda asset to the North Koreans and rest of the communist bloc. But things were different for the locals, and following the protest Pyongyang’s message to the North Koreans was clear: “Don’t do what the Africans did.”
Freezing Winters, Food Shortages and Ineffective Acupuncture

Despite their success in obtaining bottled water, the student’s general situation would never improve. Due to a lack of coal, the students continued to endure cold showers during the winter months. And although water never became an issue again, the scarcity of food concerned the foreign students who lost weight and fell sick.
http://www.nknews.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/aliou-in-north-korea-7-620x452.jpg (http://www.nknews.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/aliou-in-north-korea-7.jpg)Aliou receiving a decoration for obtaining a perfect score whilst at Wonsan University

When ill there were alas no antibiotics in the Wonsan hospital to treat the students. “The students were often treated with acupuncture for whatever reason. Only when things became worse could we get some treatment for a day or two.”
Meat became a rare luxury and Aliou “remembers smelling meat walking to school” if a shipment were ever to arrive.
To make things worse, the students soon ran out of socks and pens, leaving them to take the 22-hour train ride to Beijing where Aliou remembers the Guinean embassy would finally provide socks, pens, toothpaste, and toothbrushes.
http://www.nknews.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/aliou-in-north-korea-8-620x452.jpg (http://www.nknews.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/aliou-in-north-korea-8.jpg)Thanking the University and the Dear Leader, 1984

“The North Korean pens were hard to use during the cold winter months as the ink would not come out. The notebook paper was yellowish and very fragile. So China was the best place to get our six month supply thanks to the Guinean embassy officials and their wives who often gave us what we needed,” Aliou says.
http://www.nknews.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/aliou-in-north-korea-1-620x897.jpg (http://www.nknews.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/aliou-in-north-korea-1.jpg)Aliou walking to get a prize for achieving a perfect score whilst a student in Wonsan

In the 1980s, successive Guinean governments were not much better in treating their own people and the North Koreans knew it. A common phrase used amongst the North Koreans on the Wonsan campus were that “Zambians are rich, Guineans are studious.”
“The Guinean students jokingly interpreted that sentence meaning “the students are studious but poor.” Because when we Guineans enjoyed Beijing, the Zambians often went to Hong Kong.”
Aliou concludes, “I love the North Korean people, I just hate their government as I hated my own government for sending me there to study.”
If you know of or were an African foreign student in North Korea during the Cold War, please contact the author of this article, Benjamin R. Young, at [email protected]: http://www.nknews.org/2013/04/the-african-student-protest-for-clean-water-in-north-korea-1984/

[TheGodlessUtopian]

STUDENTS DEFEND MULTICULTURALISM


At noon on Tuesday, April 23rd, students from several student organizations came together to rally against the administration and Jim Tressel's decision to cut the Office of Multicultural Development. Students demanded 1) that their voices be heard in decisions affecting them, 2) research to back up the administration's claims that changes would increase student success, and 3) that the Office of Multicultural Development remain as is until students' concerns are adequately and publicly addressed

https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/72855_448671748555403_2023743883_n.jpg


https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/46180_448671801888731_1152068724_n.jpg


Source: Ohio Student Association
(https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=448671801888731&set=a.448671718555406.1073741831.339676482788264&type=1&theater)

[TheGodlessUtopian]

STUDENTS DEMONSTRATE AGAINST RACISM


WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Purdue University students, faculty and staff upset by the recent discovery of the words “white supremacy” written on a mirror inside the campus’ Black Cultural Center turned their grievances into a protest march that ended outside the school’s main administration building.

A mix of more than 200 Black, White, Asian and Hispanic men and women marched Monday afternoon past the West Lafayette campus Memorial Hall to the steps of Hovde Hall, which houses the offices of Purdue’s top administrators.

The Journal & Courier reported ( http://on.jconline.com/13TQiUf) that the protest started quietly before the group erupted with energetic chants, shouting “This is what diversity looks like!” “The people are the power!” and other slogans.

The protesters are upset by an incident last Friday in which the words “white supremacy” were found written on a mirror inside the Black Cultural Center.
Purdue’s University News Service said in a statement released Monday, however, that Friday’s incident was not an act of vandalism but was an unintentional transfer of words from a sticky note during an educational seminar.

Nonetheless, organizers of Monday’s protest said the incident, whether intentional or not, follows after a series of race-related incidents on campus.
FBI statistics rank Purdue second in the nation among public and private universities for the number of reported hate crimes. Those rankings are not objective, however, because reporting of hate crimes by universities is inconsistent.

During Monday’s protest, members of the group shouted a list of demands compiled by Purdue’s Anti-Racism Coalition.

Among them was a request that university President Mitch Daniels should “articulate a zero-tolerance stance against all racist acts.” In addition, they called out for a doubling of the number of minority faculty and students over the next 10 years and requiring an undergraduate course on race and racism.
“All diversity means is difference, unlikeness,” said Christopher Warren, who instructs courses on African-American studies and sociology at Purdue, during the protest. “Who cares about diversity when there is no equality?”

Provost Tim Sands watched the demonstration from the sidelines and walked up to the first step of Hovde Hall and addressed the gathering when the crowd called his name.

“We are not an inclusive environment,” said Sands. “We have not figured that out yet … . I’m really excited to see this momentum building. I’m sorry it’s based on the fact that Purdue is not yet a psychologically safe place to study for many people. It is for some but not for everyone.”

Daniels, who did not attend because he was in Washington, D.C., at a conference, released a statement apologizing for being out-of-state and unable to attend.

His statement said the incident at the Purdue Black Cultural Center “presents an opportunity to reaffirm our common commitment to a Purdue environment that is completely respectful of all and not accepting of behavior that falls short of that standard.”
Source: http://diverseeducation.com/article/52882/#

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MEXICAN AUTHORITIES READY TO RETAKE OCCUPIED CAMPUS


MEXICO CITY -- Mexico's (http://www.latimes.com/topic/intl/mexico-PLGEO00000613.topic) top law enforcement agencies said Tuesday that they were poised to order the removal of a group of masked individuals who have occupied the main administrative building of the national university since Friday.

The occupation of the university's rectory tower is linked to a relatively minor political dispute at one of the campus' public feeder high schools, yet the incident has struck a nerve at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, or UNAM by its Spanish acronym, which has an enrollment of more than 330,000 students this year.

Students have gathered outside the rectory to vigorously debate the merits of the building's occupation. Some argue in support of those inside; others say their right to an education is being infringed.

UNAM, whose autonomy from the country's political structure is fiercely defended and is seen as a symbol by many in Mexico, has experienced numerous student-led occupations over the years at its facilities in south Mexico City.

The longest started in April 1999, when a general student strike lasted 10 months and shut down the campus after the administration attempted to raise fees for students able to pay them. Hundreds were detained after federal officers raided strike encampments. Ultimately, changes in the university's fee structure were kept, but they were made voluntary.

On Friday night, a group of about 15 people -- most of whom have not been positively identified -- broke into the rectory, demanding that the expulsion of five students at the Naucalpan campus of one of the university's preparatory high schools be retracted.

The five students were involved in violent protests in February at the Naucalpan campus of the College of Sciences and Humanities, or CCH (http://www.cch.unam.mx/) in Spanish, officials said. Students there have been protesting proposed changes to the CCH general curriculum, which would include making English instruction a requirement.

Jose Narro Robles, UNAM's rector, said Monday that he would not negotiate with the occupants of the rectory until they allowed campus employees to resume work there.

Narro said he had asked the federal attorney general's office to investigative the takeover and warned "there shall be no impunity" against those who "violently" took over the administrative headquarters. He said various university functions, including payments to contractors and enrollment for new students, were being affected.

"To those directing this embarrassing incident, I tell you, don't you dare sack the patrimony of the nation once more," Narro said, referring to the CCH clashes in February.

In images shown on news broadcasts, the masked occupants were seen breaking glass windows and doors to set up camp in the rectory.

One of the occupiers has been identified in news reports (http://laprimeraplana.com.mx/2013/04/23/jose-uriel-sandoval-es-uno-de-los-encapuchados-en-rectoria/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter) as Jose Uriel Sandoval, a student demonstrator injured during violent confrontations (http://articles.latimes.com/2012/dec/05/world/la-fg-wn-mexico-police-protests-20121204) between federal police and opposition and anarchist groups at the Dec. 1, 2012, inauguration of President Enrique Peña Nieto. Sandoval lost his right eye in those clashes.

On Tuesday, Manuel Mondragon y Kalb, national commissioner for public security, told reporters that he was awaiting word (http://www.jornada.unam.mx/ultimas/2013/04/23/12194312-espera-pf-indicaciones-de-pgr-para-intervenir-en-rectoria-mondragon) from the attorney general on whether to order the rectory cleared out.

The UNAM's internal tribunal announced Tuesday that it had upheld the expulsion of the five CCH Naucalpan students. The protesting students said they would be willing to "liberate" the rectory tower by 5 p.m. Wednesday if their demands were met.
Source: http://www.latimes.com/news/world/worldnow/la-fg-wn-mexico-university-rectory-20130423,0,5660289.story

[TheGodlessUtopian]

students walk-out to protest possible mass-closure


hundeds of chicago public school students walk-out in protest against high-stakes testing and impending mass school closures. Many will join a large group of striking fast food and retail workers which shut down sears this morning. Solidarity!
https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-frc1/310713_611308858897359_1918571835_n.jpg



More on the walkout from a participant...


I'm a senior at Paul Robeson high school, and I'm an organizer with Chicago Students Organizing to Save Our Schools (CSOSOS). We are led by students from across Chicago in 25 different high schools and we believe in justice and equality for all. Today over 300 Chicago students are boycotting, including 100 juniors who are boycotting the state exam, to tell Chicago Public Schools and Mayor Rahm Emanuel that we are over-tested, under-resourced and fed up! http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/living-in-dialogue/assets_c/2013/04/briansturgis-thumb-285x336-4954.jpg (http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/living-in-dialogue/briansturgis.jpg)
Mayor Emanuel and his Board of Education want to close 54 grammar schools around the city, all of which are in black and Latino communities: this is racist. These schools are also being judged based on assessments and tests given throughout the year: this is foolish. These school closings will leave neighborhoods dismantled, parents lost, students unaccounted for, and more importantly, will put children in harmful situations: this is dangerous.
My alma mater, Benjamin Banneker elementary, is one of the 54 schools on the list. But Banneker built a community around the school and around me. Although I started at Banneker as a troubled inner city child, growing up in this school taught me the transition into the real world, and how to be a man. Even now, four years after receiving my 8th-grade diploma, I still routinely visit the school to show my appreciation for what they did for me and many other students in my neighborhood.
But this boycott is about more than just Banneker, and more than just me. It's about every child in every neighborhood. Mayor Emanuel and the Chicago Board of Education are supposed to make the CPS system work for all of us. But instead they are putting too much pressure on standardized testing and threatening to close schools that don't have high test scores. When schools are under so much pressure to raise test scores it leads to low-scoring students being neglected, not supported. This is what happened when 68 low-scoring juniors were demoted to sophomore status at a southwest side high school in Chicago last month, right before the state test.
We are over-tested, under-resourced, and fed up with the policies put in place by Mayor Emanuel and the Chicago Board of Education. Today, students from across the city are fighting back! CPS officials have tried to threaten and intimidate us but students and the community have been silenced for too long. We know this is an action that puts us at risk of retaliation, but it's a risk we are willing to take to make sure our voices are heard. Now is the time to fight for what is right! http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/living-in-dialogue/First%20march2.jpg
We are the Chicago Students Organizing to Save Our Schools (http://www.csosos.org). If you are ready to fight back, then join our boycott today, Wednesday April 24th, and make history with us!

For those of you across the country sharing similar beliefs, we ask that you choose a standardized test to boycott too as we fight against this unjust and excessive testing. We would also ask that you reach out to us, so that this movement can become even bigger. The day will come when students will finally have our voices heard. School board officials will finally realize that we as students can assemble in a professional manner to accomplish a goal. And we will have the power nationwide to assemble, and fight against any injustice we are subjected to and create the school system we all deserve.

Source: http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/living-in-dialogue/2013/04/we_are_chicago_students_and_we.html

[TheGodlessUtopian]

FIGHTBACK RE-CAP: OHIO&MACALESTER



1. Ohio Board of Trustees Disrupts Peaceful Student Gathering
Last year, the Ohio University Board of Trustees voted to increase tuition (http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2012/04/20/OU-tuition-increase.html) while shelling out (http://thepost.ohiou.edu/content/board-trustees-approves-salary-raise-bonus-mcdavis) half a million dollars in raises and bonuses to administrators and continuing to pay athletic coaches up to nearly $500,000. Since then, the Ohio University Student Union has worked to build student power on campus through demonstrations, teach-ins and educational and awareness-building events. On April 16, 200 students clashed with police in protest against the tuition hike. Three days later, fifteen students engaged in spirited civil disobedience (http://thepost.ohiou.edu/content/student-protesters-disrupt-board-trustee-meeting) to disrupt the Board of Trustees meeting, and four were arrested (http://thepost.ohiou.edu/content/civil-disobedience-student-protestors-are-charged-disruption). We are demanding that all administrator and athletic coach salaries over $100,000 be frozen until our tuition is frozen. On April 25, 200 students demonstrated to reiterate these demands.
—Ohio University Student Union

2. Hundreds of Chicago Students Boycott State Exam
On April 24, high school students across Chicago (http://inthesetimes.com/uprising/entry/14912/chicago_11th_graders_walk_out/) mobilized against the educational injustices faced by the city’s youth. The Chicago Students Organizing to Save Our Schools (https://www.facebook.com/csosos?fref=ts) facilitated a citywide boycott of the state exam, the PSAE, which is used to evaluate schools, and simultaneously protested the fifty-four school closures (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/27/chicago-teacher-strike-against-school-closures-and-privatization) in low-income, black and Latino communities. A press conference was held outside CPS headquarters where hundreds of students chanted and held signs—asserting that standardized tests and school closures deteriorate education. A second demonstration was held in front of Benjamin Banneker Elementary School, one of the fifty-four schools on the hit list. Parents, alumni and students spoke at the event, which ended with a human chain and a poem by Malcolm London. The CSOSOS anticipates larger demonstrations in May and aims to establish itself next fall as a city-wide Chicago Student Union.
—Israel Munoz

3. Undaunted by Arrests, Michiganders Demand Tuition Equality
On April 17, the Coalition for Tuition Equality (http://tuitionequality.org/) stood in solidarity (http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2013304170154) with One Michigan (http://1michigan.org/) and the 29,000 (http://www.migrationpolicy.org/pubs/DREAM-Update-December2010.pdf) undocumented youth in the state of Michigan. We mobilized and participated in an action of civil disobedience which led to the arrest of eight students (http://michigandaily.com/news/students-arrested-following-protest-tuition-equality-undocumented-students). As University of Michigan students, we stand against our current residency policy (http://www.ro.umich.edu/resreg.php), which systematically discriminates against undocumented Michiganders by denying their right to in-state tuition. The goal is to ensure that Michigan’s 29,000 undocumented students command equal access to a university education.
—The Coalition for Tuition Equality

4. After 45 Years, Black Students at Wittenberg Keep Rallying for Diversity
Concerned Black Students (https://www.facebook.com/pages/Wittenberg-Concerned-Black-Students/300222686671164) was founded to provide a stable support system for black students at Wittenberg University, a predominately white school. To date, there are only 112 African-American students among a student body of 1,750. In 1968, thirty-eight of the school’s forty-five black students set a precedent for action. On April 24, CBS held its forty-fifth annual walkout (http://www.springfieldnewssun.com/news/news/local-education/students-rally-for-equality/nXWz4/) around a set of demands relating to the lack of campus diversity—including bolstering the multicultural affairs office and recruiting more students of color. Sadly, the ten demands from 2013 demands are similar to the original thirteen from 1968. Nonetheless, the primary goal of the movement has been to promote campus and community awareness around issues and concerns of diversity and inclusion, a goal we will continue to pursue.
—Karlos Marshall

5. National Collective Launches Campaign to Educate Students on Title IX
As recent headlines from UNC (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/16/unc-sexual-assault_n_2488383.html) to Swarthmore (http://daily.swarthmore.edu/2013/04/18/12-students-file-federal-complaint-against-college-for-clery-violations/) to Occidental (http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-occidental-college-rape-20130418,0,5075089.story) have demonstrated, US colleges are disregarding their responsibilities under Title IX, including federal requirements to combat sexual violence and accommodate survivors’ needs. Such abuses have been rampant on campuses since coeducation, but students are finally pushing back as they learn their rights. That’s why we’re working with an online collective (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/20/education/activists-at-colleges-network-to-fight-sexual-assault.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0) of young activists across the country to build Know Your IX, an educational campaign to make sure that, by the start of the Fall 2013 semester, every student knows what he or she is guaranteed under Title IX. The campaign will rely on a robust website, an aggressive social media campaign to disseminate the information virally and full-page educational ads placed in campus newspapers the first week of school. Right now we’re crowdsourcing (http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/know-your-ix/x/2734684?c=home) funds to support our efforts, and will launch Know Your IX in full over the summer.
—Dana Bolger and Alexandra Brodsky

6. In Newark, Students Face Retaliation for Walking Out
On April 9, the Newark Student Union organized a mass, district-wide walkout (http://stream.aljazeera.com/story/201304102124-0022669) in which students voiced their grievances at the New Jersey Assembly Budget Committee’s hearing on the state education budget. The budget would take $1.4 billion from students across New Jersey, with $56 million dollars (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/04/09/newark-students-plan-walkout-to-protest-cuts-closings/) from Newark itself. The deeper travesty is that students were either intimidated from walking out or given direct disciplinary action for doing so. Alongside sixty other students, Angel Plaza, student union ally and student representative for the Newark Board of Education, was suspended for three days as a result of walking out—and giving testimony before the budget committee. Moving forward, we as students won’t let this blatant display of force deter us from our simple goal of rejecting Governor Christie’s cuts and ensuring a good education.
—Newark Student Union

7. At Macalester, Sit-In Keeps Wells Fargo on Hold
Last year, working in solidarity with Occupy Homes MN (http://www.occupyhomesmn.org/) and Minnesotans for a Fair Economy (http://www.mnfaireconomy.org/), students at Macalester College launched a campaign demanding the school cut its ties with Wells Fargo, the bank responsible for the most foreclosures and worst predatory lending practices in Minnesota. Currently, Macalester runs its purchasing card system through Wells Fargo. Students and administrators have been meeting for months to explore feasible banking alternatives, and have identified a community bank (https://www.sunrisebanks.com/) that reflects Macalester’s values and can handle the school’s business. On April 22, the Macalester administration ended a months-long process by deciding not to cut the school’s contract with Wells Fargo. But after two days of sitting in, protesting and blocking (https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.547823468596349.1073741829.469488666429830&type=1) administrators from entering the main administrative building (http://themacweekly.com/2013/04/kwoc-occupies-weyerhaeuser-in-response-to-contract-decision/) on campus, a meeting with college President Brian Rosenberg was negotiated on terms set by the protesting students. On the table at the meeting, scheduled for April 26, is the renewed possibility of terminating the contract.
—Macalester Kick Wells Fargo Off Campus

8. On the Brink of Striking, Illinois Grads Settle Their Contract
The Graduate Employee Organization (http://uic-geo.net/mainsite/) at the University of Illinois at Chicago has held multiple rallies (http://uic-geo.net/mainsite/?p=509) and letter-writing campaigns, (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=311y3KrVExI) ultimately calling a strike authorization vote (http://uic-geo.net/mainsite/?p=526) to demand a fair contract. After a year of negotiations, thanks to the sustained efforts of its membership, the GEO has reached a tentative agreement with the university. The organization has been requesting that the university pay its graduate students a living wage (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3X-dECIWrj8), reduce additional fees and provide affordable access to healthcare (http://uic-geo.net/blog/?p=167). While wages remain low, tuition and student fees continue to rise (http://infogr.am/d490e33d84ee-1089/)—which means students take on an increasingly large debt load. This undermines the University’s stated commitment to social justice (http://www.uic.edu/depts/oaa/sji/). The GEO will continue to fight for a living wage for its members and lower fees and tuition for all UIC students.
—Davis Brecheisen

9. “School Safety” at the Cost of Education?
Los Angeles is known for school and public safety practices (http://www.alternet.org/education/where-are-student-voices-gun-control-debate)—like zero tolerance codes, school police, metal detectors and random searches—that lead students to drop out or be pushed out of school. In South and East LA, less than half the students graduate. What we need (http://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/5438/images/YouthResponsetoSchoolShootingsFinal.pdf) is to bring in peace builders, or people from the neighborhood who can resolve conflicts and build relationships with students; counseling and mental health services for young people in school as well as those transitioning from juvenile halls and probation camps; and transformative justice practices, where those affected by a conflict are quickly separated and later brought into a circle to talk about the real issues that caused the incident. As a young person of color, organizing for me is a very difficult task. Not only am I a target for police harassment, but my family also runs the risk of being deported back to Mexico because of their immigration status. Still, I’m working with the Youth Justice Coalition (http://www.youth4justice.org/) to push for transformative practices and peacebuilders in schools (https://www.facebook.com/youcantbuildpeacewithapiece), because young people’s lives are at stake in school safety—including my own.
—Leslie Mendoza

10. Immigration Reform for All Orientations?
GetEQUAL (http://getequal.org/) is a national LGBT organization fighting for full equality under the law. This includes “the pursuit of happiness” by LGBT immigrants, people like me who came to this country seeking a better life and instead found oppression and fear. We have been organizing actions all over the country (http://miamiherald.typepad.com/gaysouthflorida/2013/04/young-activists-demand-us-sen-marco-rubio-include-lgbt-people-in-possible-immigration-reform.html) demanding the full inclusion and protection of LGBT immigrants in comprehensive immigration reform. For us, full inclusion of LGBT immigrants in the bill means a direct pathway to citizenship for an estimated 267,000 undocumented LGBT immigrants (http://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/research/census-lgbt-demographics-studies/us-lgbt-immigrants-mar-2013/), protections for 40,000 same-sex binational couples living in fear of deportation and separation, the end of the one-year filing bar for asylum seekers and of harsh enforcement that has expedited deportations. Over the next ten months, we will push the Senate Judiciary Committee to improve the current bill, and we will continue organizing a grassroots movement of LGBT people (http://bit.ly/ZkWh0L) to fight for full inclusion in immigration reform.
—Felipe Sousa-Rodriguez
Source: http://www.thenation.com/blog/174056/ohio-u-and-macalester-sit-chicago-and-wittenberg-walk-out#

[TheGodlessUtopian]

Here is the video for the latest student protest in Chile where thousands of students demonstrated in force:

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[TheGodlessUtopian]

NORTH CAROLINA STUDENT UNION PLANS MAY DAY ACTION



A single person doesn’t have the ability change his or her government, but as history shows, there is power in numbers.

In 2011, Egyptian citizens overthrew their corrupt dictator after 30 years in office through the power of protest, starting a wave of demonstrations, civil wars and revolutions that flooded the Arab world.

In 1963, more than 200,000 protesters marched on Washington D.C. demanding civil and economic rights for African-Americans, leading to the signing of the Civil Rights Act.

While the words of Martin Luther King Jr., Mahatma Ghandi and other visionaries have been relegated to the history books, the spirit of activism and protest is alive, even in North Carolina.

However, activists in the state aren’t revolutionaries trying to stage a coup or overhaul the political system — they are students fighting back against cuts to public education.

The North Carolina Student Power Union was created by UNC System students in the summer of 2012 to organize students, promote their interests, and “take the power back from the administrators and the corporate interests that they represent,” according to the group’s website.

The NCPSU has no formal leadership, but instead focuses on the collective voice of students working together.
Hannah Allison, a graduate student in social work at N.C. State and NCSPU member, says the union’s goals revolve around student representation at a state level.

“The important thing for us is forming a powerful voice for students and creating an organization that is student led and student run,” Allison said. “It’s really important for students to have representation is decisions are made about their future.”

While the NCSPU is less than a year old, the group was formerly known as the North Carolina Defend Education Coalition, which defined student activism for years in the state.

The NCDEC was founded in 2010 by college students after budget cuts and tuition hikes, among other measures, were enacted by the North Carolina General Assembly and the Board of Governors.

The group organized several actions throughout the next two years, advocating equal access to public education for undocumented students, and protesting cuts to education as well as far right efforts to re-segregate Wake County schools.

Despite using peaceful methods to enact change, the NCDEC wasn’t simply a collection of picketing students, casually protesting the state government.

Numerous members were arrested during a civil disobedience action in 2011, setting a tone of dedicated advocacy.
Perhaps the coalition’s defining moment came at the UNC Board of Governor’s meeting at Chapel Hill in February 2012, where the board voted to remove a tuition cap set in 2006.

Outside the meeting, the NCDEC along with 200 students from across the state, as well as other unions, demanded representation.

“The constitution of North Carolina says that all political power is supposed to be used for the good of the whole, not the whims of a few,” William Baker, president of the NC-NAACP said at the protest. “When you cut budgets in the General Assembly that make education less and less something that everyone can afford...you are not governing for the good of the whole, you are undermining the constitution and we are going to challenge you on that.”

When the meeting started students were denied access to the BOG room and protested in the lobby.
“Those seats are our seats,” and “shame on you,” students chanted.

Andrew Payne, former N.C. State student body president, was among them.

Payne, who graduated from the University with a degree in watershed hydrology in 2001 and a degree in political science in 2003, was a member of the BOG at the time and reserved a seat at the meeting.

Payne was initially inside observing the conference but left to use the restroom. When he returned, he was barred from entering.

“I tried to get back to my seat and next thing you know, I was getting arrested,” Payne said.

Payne can’t recall what he was charged with, but it was “something along the lines of trespassing.” The charges were ultimately dropped.

“It’s odd getting arrested for trespassing at an event where you reserved a seat,” Payne said.

Eventually, the protesters forced their way into the meeting room and took it over, criticizing the tuition increase. They continued with their own meeting as BOG members exited.

While the BOG still voted to increase tuition (more than $7,500 over four years for N.C. State and UNC Chapel Hill and hikes across the board for UNC System schools) the group says it was successful, “illustrating what an education that was run by and for the people would look like,” according to the NCSPU website.

The coalition changed their name to the NCSPU in the summer of 2012 to reflect their new goal: To build unions of workers and students in order to give the suppressed a voice.

The decision to join forces with other activist groups is the reason the power union is effective compared to other student organizations, like Student Government, according to sophomore economics major at UNC Charlotte, Tyler Copeland.

“Student Government is important, but the Student Power Union works with other organizations, like the NC-NAACP, workers unions and other student organizations directly, and we’re actually involved in activism,” Copeland said.
Payne, a former member of SG himself, agrees, although he “[hasn’t] really followed SG that much” since graduating.

“It seems like to me the student power union people care about the issue and are willing to do something about it, SG would rather be a part of a social club,” Payne said. “It’s pretty sad because I haven’t heard them doing anything about the issue, especially when you pay student fees for the organization to represent you and they don’t do anything about you. It seems to be a theme of governments in general.”

Recently, the NCSPU has focused on Gov. Pat McCrory’s proposed budget, which recommends a $138 million cut to the UNC System. They are also

The group is also a critic of McCrory’s Budget Director, Art Pope, and Republican- suggested legislature, like the Senate bill 666, which would force students to vote in their hometown.

Otherwise, their parents will forego $2,500 in tax benefits, effectively cutting out the student vote.

The power union’s efforts to combat the budget and other proposed measures will culminate in an organized rally on Wednesday, May 1, also known as May Day or International Workers’ Day.

Unions across the world use this day to celebrate the international labor movement, where workers fought for better conditions from their employers and government.

The NCPSU and other activists will meet at the N.C. State Bell Tower, march to the Civitas Institute (a conservative think tank in downtown Raleigh) for a mini-rally and join with other protesters at Moore Square before finally arriving at the North Carolina General Assembly.

Dhruv Pathak, a freshman history major at UNC Greensboro, is looking forward to protesting the state government’s stance on higher education at the May Day rally.

“A lot of people feel like they’ve been oppressed for a long time, and they can finally get together and share their beliefs,” Pathak said. “It’s empowering to feel like your voice is actually being heard.”

The group may be against heavy odds in their attempt to limit cuts to education, but they have succeeded in unlikely situations before, according to Molly McDonough, a freshman in women’s and gender studies at N.C. State and member of the NCPSU.

“This year there was a general public outcry against the idea of closing certain campuses (as recommended by Republican lawmakers),” McDonough said. “The NCSPU played a big part in getting them to back off from that idea.”
This success, and the fact that students are organizing for a cause has garnered appreciation from N.C. State faculty, like Barbara Zelter, a clinical assistant professor in the Department of Social Work.

According to Zelter, the Student Power Union is prominent not only as a student group, but as an activist movement in general.

“The NCSPU is one of the most impressive student-led organizations I have seen since the sixties,” Zelter said. “These student leaders are serious, sacrificial and smart. They are doing some of the best organizing in the state against the current regressive legislature, pushing back against its anti-public education initiatives in particular.”
The NCSPU have proved that students have a voice and can make a change, and although downtown Raleigh is a far cry from Tiananmen Square, the NCSPU is working to ensure that voice will always be heard.

Source: http://www.technicianonline.com/news/article_5461d906-b07b-11e2-9577-001a4bcf6878.html



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[TheGodlessUtopian]

Now for an article from Socialist Organizer which goes into detail concerning the I.U strike...


Earlier this month, on April 11-12, a great number of students, teachers and staff walked out of class at Indiana University(IU). These actions were centered mostly at IU Bloomington, but there was smaller support from satellite campuses at South Bend, Indianapolis and Indiana University Southeast in New Albany. The strike had been planned since December, when a strike proposal was drafted. The Indiana branch of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) played a significant role in organizing the strike. Students took action in protest to the Board of Trustees policies of rising tuition, increased exploitation of teachers and campus workers, for fair treatment for students of color and undocumented students, and in defense of public education against privatization.
The strike raised six key demands. These demands were:


Immediate reduction of tuition and elimination of fees
An end to privatization and outsourcing
End the wage freeze for workers on campus
Make the University promise to increase its enrollment of African American students to 8%
Abolish the racist, anti-immigrant HB1402 and SB590, and protect the rights of undocumented students
No retaliation for participating or supporting the strike

These demands represent the growing consciousness of students, teachers and campus workers of the attacks on them perpetuated by the austerity measures that characterize the current worldwide economic crisis. The strikers at Indiana University took to the streets to defend public education, and to bring to the forefront the social issues intensified by austerity, namely racism and immigrants rights.
This strike, although not a strike in a true sense, is the catalyst for future actions by students at Indiana University to demand a greater voice on campus and to challenge the attacks on public education by the Board of Trustees and the Indiana state government.
Students take a stand
On the morning of April 11, around 250 students who went on strike as planned gathered at IU Bloomington’s Woodburn Hall. Students walked out of class, chanting anti-austerity slogans such as “raise hell, not tuition!” Students began marching through the streets of Bloomington campus, wearing felt red squares. The red square has become an international symbol for students protesting attacks to public education and austerity. The march was cheered on by supportive students, who leaned out the windows to shout cheers of solidarity at the strikers. The march wound throughout the campus, past academic buildings, dorms and administration buildings, enthusiastically proclaiming the strike. The IU strikers demonstrated to all that there is confidence when people take to the streets to have their voices heard.
The police wasted no time in assembling their forces to intimidate the strikers, but their efforts were in vain. On the morning of April 11, when students occupied Woodburn Hall, the police evicted all of the students from the building and arrested one protester. The police hoped to break the spirits of the strikers, but instead they only strengthened the movement’s resolve. On the second day of the strike, students once again occupied Woodburn Hall, and 100 strikers assembled with locked arms to defend themselves against police repression. As they stood guard, they chanted the classic anti-fascist anthem “Bella Ciao.” By the time of the April 11 march, an estimated 400 students swelled the ranks of the strike. After the march, the campus was alive with pickets, demonstrations and festivities celebrating the strike and the students revived self-confidence in their ability to engage in mass action. Students even held free classes on a wide range of topics that face the working class and the oppressed all over the world, with topics ranging from austerity to the women’s movement in the United States. April 11th and 12th has proven that more and more students and workers are getting tired of austerity, even in the heart of traditionally conservative Indiana.

http://socialistorganizer.org/wp-content/uploads/IU-on-Strike-April-1112-Two.jpg (http://socialistorganizer.org/wp-content/uploads/IU-on-Strike-April-1112-Two.jpg)
Socialist Organizer comrades spread the struggle to satellite campus
Students from Indiana University’s satellite campuses also heeded the call of the strike. There were demonstrations of solidarity at campuses in South Bend, Indianapolis and at Indiana University Southeast (IUS) in New Albany, just across the river from Louisville, Kentucky.
Members of the Southern Indiana branch of Socialist Organizer, of which one member attends IUS, helped to spread the word about the strike and gather support at this satellite campus. IUS is a school that is currently in a transition phase from being a commuter school to an actual university, and this change has hardly been solidified. The culture of IUS still resembles that of a commuter college, which makes it harder to build student organizations and organize demonstrations. Because of this, the strike at IUS was modest, consisting of an open “Strike Picnic,” organized in part by a member of Socialist Organizer, where students gathered at the central plaza of the campus with a large banner in support of the strike, eating pizza, playing union and revolutionary songs and discussing the issues of austerity, attacks on public education, the need for increased diversity on campus and ways that students, teachers and workers can organize to have a stronger voice at IU. Socialist Organizer members and their allies actively spread the word about the strike throughout IUS, passing out flyers, holding tables, speaking to other student organizations and getting recognition from the school’s local media. The IUS newspaper The Horizon twice published front page articles about the strike.
Although the demonstration at IUS was modest, its very existence on this semi-commuter campus is arousing questions amongst many students, teachers and workers, and is inspiring dialogue about the current state of public education and the policies of austerity that threaten it. Reaching students at the satellite campuses will be a necessary challenge that radicalized students in places like IU Bloomington will have to face. Students at campuses like IUS often lack the self-confidence in mass organizing and action. The example of the students at Bloomington, along with the efforts of organizations like Socialist Organizer and the IWW, will prove to be valuable weapons in this challenge. It will also take a higher level of organization, and as will be explained later in this article, the eventual building of a student union to create a bastion for which students throughout the IU system can look to and see that there is power when the people strike and take to the streets.
The IU Board of Trustees vs. the students, teachers and workers of IU
The IU Board of Trustees has every reason to fear the anger in the streets. Tuition at IU has increased 45% in the past six years, and tuition currently makes up 51% of IU’s budget. This means that the Board of Trustees are taking money directly out of the pockets of students, and making cuts and budget decisions without their input. As it currently stands, the average student debt for students graduating from IU is a whopping $27,000. The Board is marching lock-step with the Indiana government to cut funding to public education, and push forward the move towards privatization. The State of Indiana has cut $100 million to public education, and currently State funding makes up only 18% of IU’s budget. In December last year, the Board made a phony “concession,” saying it would offset the cuts by freezing tuition for students already “on-track” to graduate. Supporters of the strike rightly pointed out that in reality, this would further penalize students who are already having difficulties paying for school.
Immigrants’ rights and the fight against racism, crucial to fighting austerity
The IU strikers raised demands that concern people of color, particularly undocumented students and African Americans. Two of the strike’s demands included doubling the enrollment of African American students and defending the rights of undocumented immigrant students and abolishing the anti-immigrant and racist HB1402 and SB590 laws in the Indiana legislature. They also demanded that undocumented students not be barred from receiving in-state tuition.
The strikers demanded that the university honor its promise to double the enrollment of African American students at IU to 8%. This is a promise that has been made repeatedly by the administration, but in practice the first programs to be cut in the IU budget are the ones that benefit students of color. African American enrollment at IU is currently below 1976 levels, when de-segregation of schools had just started to take hold.
The IU strikers understood that the fight against austerity cannot be separated from the fight against racism and for immigrants’ rights. An injury to one is an injury to all, and when the most oppressed and disadvantaged are the first to be victimized, it paves the way for further austerity. Still, continued efforts will be needed to bring Black and Latino students and other oppressed nationalities into the struggle, and students will have to connect with the organizations of these students to draw them into the struggle, and give Black and Latino students a genuine, independent place in the struggle to defend public education.

http://socialistorganizer.org/wp-content/uploads/IU-on-Strike-April-1112-Three.jpg (http://socialistorganizer.org/wp-content/uploads/IU-on-Strike-April-1112-Three.jpg)
The need for a student union
The IU strike has demonstrated the level of consciousness that is being achieved by many American workers and students about the onslaught of austerity. The strikers at IU covered all of the major points necessary to wage an effective class struggle against the Board of Trustees and the state bureaucracy which seeks to dismantle and privatize public education. But this strike, which cannot be called a true strike since it did not embrace the majority of the student body, is only the beginning of a struggle that must be developed further. Still, more steps are needed to go forward in this struggle, in particular is the need to develop a student union to present, fight for and defend the demands and rights of the students, to connect the students with organized labor and teachers on campus and to organize a collective voice for students to have a say in how their university is run. At the 11 th National Convention of Socialist Organizer, the party adopted the following stance on the necessity of building student unions:

“Our position on building a student union is that this is an important and necessary goal given that students currently lack an authoritative voice to organize and negotiate with the admin and state. But it is necessary to go step by step patiently in this direction, on the basis of the actual conditions within the movement.”
The struggle against austerity cannot be solidified by isolated actions or movements without stable organization. While having no illusions that the fight for a student union will be easy, Socialist Organizer stresses that movements like the IU strike should seek to consolidate its forces and build transitional forms of organizations that can lay the framework for a student union. This will be the next crucial step forward to challenging austerity and uniting the groups of students, workers and the oppressed who are victimized by it.

Source: http://socialistorganizer.org/indiana-university-strikes-against-austerity/

[La Guaneña]

Students in Porto Alegre win, and stop the bus fares' rise.

One big victory has been achieved in southern Brasil in the national struggle against abusive bus fares, where a large front composed by students and workers has gone to the streets, and confronted the city and the transport companies.


Transporte Público de Porto Alegre: Sobre a conquista nas ruas e o desafio de manter-se nelas!

Foto: Ramiro Furquim/Sul21
Foram algumas negociações entre fantoches do poder público e empresários, até que concretamente os donos do transporte público de Porto Alegre decidissem aumentar o preço da passagem para R$ 3,05.

A partir dai, os ensaios reais de saídas às ruas por parte, em grande maioria, de estudantes, avançou da característica informativa para um caráter imbuído de informação, mas que ganhou um saldo material no questionamento sob o estado das coisas. São tantos os porquês em torno de um direito legítimo, que salta à questão do transporte ingredientes muito importantes para o momento que Porto Alegre vive e viverá nos próximos tempos.

Presenciamos nos meses de março e abril, os resultados do efetivo e constante assalto ao bolso do trabalhador de Porto Alegre e região metropolitana. Assim como o resultado do trabalho de formiga operária de muitos grupos e organizações políticas e demais militantes sociais. Combinados estes dois componentes, aliado ao espontâneo das mobilizações e também aos chamados, via redes sociais, originou-se a faísca necessária para acender o pavio, cuja chama o país já pode perceber, via grande mídia manipuladora, mas principalmente via mídia alternativa, ou seja, pela internet tanto em forma escrita quanto por audiovisual.

Existe um sentimento comum nesses fins de tarde, sentimento que nasce ao crepúsculo, que coincide com o inicio da maioria dos atos públicos realizados desde janeiro. E esse sentimento reverbera também durante os dias que antecedem a próxima data de ato, um grito muito escutado, é em coro dito, “Amanhã vai ser MAIOR!!!”

Uma parcela do povo da metrópole se sente a vontade nas ruas. Já obteve uma conquista parcial – R$ 2,85 é o preço que se conquistou nas ruas - mas esta mesma conquista já sofre ameaça, e se assim for, devido a irracionalidade dos empresários sedentos por lucro, teremos um retorno ao preço de R$ 3,05.

Infelizmente não somos os únicos a trabalhar na história. O Estado democrático de direito é intrinsicamente repressor! E seus braços operantes de maneira efetiva, violenta e inteligente tem uma investida clara para desbaratar este processo de lutas que Porto Alegre vive.

Como disse em relato o camarada cartunista Carlos Latuff , em vídeo que segue.

“As pessoas têm que continuar mobilizadas!”

A juventude comunista avançando – JCA - trabalha e acredita na fortificação desta importante questão social que hoje o povo de Porto Alegre experimenta, mas sabemos e estamos atentos que em outras cidades e capitais do Brasil também se experimenta e faz-se manifesta tal questão.

25/04/13, Porto Alegre.
Ricardo Mincarone

J2x29co2cFA



Source: http://www.jcabrasil.org/2013/04/transporte-publico-de-porto-alegre.html?utm_source=BP_recent

In the video, the cartunist Latuff talks about how people need to stay mobilized. He's an awesome dude.

[La Guaneña]

60 thousand students say NO to the privatization of the university hospitals in Brasil, in a popular plebescit done inside the education institutions.

http://www.jcabrasil.org/2013/04/plebiscito-nacional-mais-de-60-mil.html?utm_source=BP_recent


Students in João Pessoa win the Free Pass onto the public transportation after many struggles in the streets.

http://www.rebeliao.org/2013/04/11/a-luta-da-juventude-e-correnteza-e-vence-mais-duas-barra-o-aumento-de-passagens-em-poa-e-conquista-o-passe-livre-em-joao-pessoa/

[TheGodlessUtopian]

STUDENTS PROTESTERS ARRESTED!


HAPPENING NOW: 5 students have just been arrested in Raleigh, NC as part of a May Day action demanding an end to budget cuts, racist voter laws, and attacks on workers. The five are: Zaina Alsous (UNC-CH) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Dj2w6_D_Zs), Dhruv Pathak (UNCG) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6NjHmmKT48&feature=youtu.be), Jessica Injejikian (UNCC) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awid8i_HxYg), Carissa Morrison (UNC-CH), and Tristan Munchel (UNCG) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUQBqHO20ik&feature=youtu.be). Click there names to hear their stories!

Please see below a statement the 5 released explaining why they took this action today and make an urgently needed donation to get them out of jail (https://www.wepay.com/donations/legal-defense-fund-for-nc-students)!

As North Carolina students, we have watched our beloved state taken over by dangerous and backwards political leadership. Instead of serving the people of North Carolina by providing healthcare, education, and jobs, Speaker of the House Thom Tillis, Governor Pat McCrory, Senate Pro Tem Phil Berger, and Deputy Budget Director Art Pope have proposed a racist, backwards vision for NC.

From cutting 170,000 North Carolinians from jobless benefits to blocking Medicaid expansion that would have provided 500,000 low-income North Carolinians health care, from attacks on worker and union rights, to racist voter suppression, right-wingers in the legislature have made it clear: our needs have no place in their agenda.

Public education should be as affordable and accessible as possible as outlined by our state’s constitution, Article 9, “Education must be made as free as practicable”. Yet after a devastating cut of over $400 million to the UNC System budget, this year’s proposed budget calls for another almost $200 million in additional cuts. This will result in hundreds of workers being laid off, thousands of dollars in tuition increases putting students further into debt, and over 8,400 North Carolina students losing their financial aid completely, denying students the opportunity to attend college in our state.

While the governor’s proposed budget cuts nearly $200 million from education it also eliminates the estate tax — which only applies to just 23 of the richest estates in NC but will cost the state over $50 million in lost revenue per year. In addition to the removal of the 'earned income tax credit' which has already hurt low-income families; those in power continue to raise that they will gut the tax system to further shift the burden to working people and give the rich and corporations a free ride.

We have tried using “proper” channels to communicate our grievances and demands. Hundreds of phone calls have been made to legislators and Governor McCrory, thousands of signatures were delivered to the state budget office from students, faculty and community members urging our leaders to not cut public education funding, but we have consistently been ignored, repressed, and shut out of the process. We have been left no other option than to take action.

We believe it is our time, and our duty, to fight for our futures and the futures of all youth in NC. We are mobilizing to take back the power from the failed leaders on Jones Street.

History has shown us that the only force capable of overturning a social context is the power of people. Thus on Wednesday May 1st, historically celebrated as the International Workers Day: May Day, we are taking back Jones Street. We are joining with workers, immigrants, and community members mobilizing from all corners of the state to raise our voices and protest the vicious attacks on workers, public education and services, and the people of North Carolina.

We are tired of the attacks on our communities and we will not watch silently as our futures are stolen away from us.

We hope you will join us. Source: http://us5.campaign-archive2.com/?u=060ce4c877e96e7e11c0008b7&id=e64e4b9b37&e=289a02592b

- - - - - - - - - -

STUDENT PROTESTERS PLEAD GUILTY TO REDUCED CHARGES



Three of the four student protesters arrested during an Ohio University Board of Trustees meeting April 19 pleaded to reduced charges in Athens County Municipal Court this morning (Thursday), with the fourth scheduled to do so this afternoon.

Megan Marzec, Ellie Hamrick, Jessica Lindner and Eden Almasude were part of a group of 16 students who staged a protest at the meeting, at which the trustees voted unanimously to approve a 1.6 percent hike in undergraduate tuition. The OU Student Union organized the demonstration.

In a statement read aloud by Marzec during the protest, she called the tuition hike an upward transfer of wealth to highly paid OU administrators and coaches, and called on OU to freeze all employee salaries above $100,000.
Most of the student protesters left the central meeting area they had occupied after being ordered to by OU Police Chief Andrew Powers. Marzec, Hamrick, Lindner and Almasude, however, chose to stay past a clock deadline Powers had set, and were arrested and charged with interfering with a lawful meeting.

On Thursday morning, Hamrick, Lindner and Almasude, represented by defense attorney Patrick McGee, all pleaded no contest to a reduced charge of disorderly conduct. Judge William A. Grim fined each woman $100 and court costs.

Almasude, a graduate student, read a statement before her sentencing Thursday morning, in which she promised that if OU persists in raising tuition, it will see more student protest.

During her life in Athens, she said, she grew up "thinking of education as a path to opportunity and personal liberation." However, she said, "our (OU) administration does not see it the same way. They see students as customers… They continue to exploit us while they make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year… We are paying more to the university, even while the quality of our education is in danger."

She went further, alleging that by OU's actions, it is helping to marginalize poor students and people of color, and reinforce the notion that a college degree is for "only for young people from white, middle and upper-class families, and that people like me have no place in higher education."
(OU officials have been informed of this aspect of the statement, and their response to it will be added when it is received by The NEWS.)

Students "have to make our voices be heard," Almasude insisted, adding that on April 19, "16 students joined the history of civil disobedience at Ohio University, and I am proud to be one of them." And "if our university refuses to listen," she warned, "then we will make ourselves heard by any means necessary."

When Hamrick took her plea and the judge asked her if she wished to make any statement, she told him, "I second what Eden said."

McGee, managing attorney for the Center for Student Legal Services at OU, said after the court session that Marzec was scheduled to take the same plea that afternoon and do a bond forfeiture to resolve her case.

Athens City Prosecutor Lisa Eliason told Grim that the plea deal was worked out after Athens Law Director Patrick Lang discussed the cases with OU's Chief Powers.
Source: http://www.athensnews.com/ohio/article-39734-student-tuition-protesters-plead-to-reduced-charges.html

[TheGodlessUtopian]

HAPPENING NOW! Students in Chicago walk-out of class and participate in a sit-in to protest the proposed closure of their school!

"Whose schools? OUR schools!"

LINCOLN PARK — Hundreds of Lincoln Park High School students walked out of class Friday morning in support of teachers who will lose their jobs next year when the school transitions to a wall-to-wall International Baccalaureate program.

https://fbcdn-sphotos-c-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-prn1/943331_597657986925633_1659101523_n.jpg

http://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/20130503/lincoln-park/lincoln-park-hs-students-walk-out-support-of-fired-teachers.

[TheGodlessUtopian]

STUDENTS CHALLENGE HATE AT UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO


On the evening of Thursday April 3rd, students from the Toronto Revolutionary Students Movement (RSM) and several other progressive campus groups at University of Toronto (U of T) gathered at the corner of St. George and Harbord. They stood on the manicured lawn and shouted, “Down with misogyny! Down with U of T! Down with the bourgeoisie!”

What were the students protesting? Once again, U of T had lent its halls to Men’s Rights Activists (MRAs), inviting them to do its fourth event on campus since September 2012. The prim bourgeois facade of the university provided a good cover for the ugly misogyny being hosted inside.

The vilest of the MRAs are associated with the website, A Voice for Men (as if men lacked a voice in our society!). The members of this website are best known for posting photographs of female students who protested their event back in November 2012, publishing their names and other personal information and going so far as to encourage people to “track down and harass” the students. Amusingly referring to themselves as non-violent and civil, they incite hatred against women who dare to speak up against them.
The men came together on a talk that examines how society has changed from being misogynistic to misandrist (yes- this is a serious concern of MRAs). Of the 40 or some people who attended the event, about 40+ came to protest. The group of protestors were modestly sized but effective and garnered a great deal of support from people passing through the area. Several students spoke, but it was the member of the RSM who revealed the true nature of men’s “oppression” – laying the blame squarely at the feet of capitalism.

At 7 pm, the students entered the building where the MRA were hosting their event. They banged on the doors behind which locked MRAs were too scared to come out. Campus pigs were called in to defend them. The students’ chanting thundered down the hallway of the building, “One struggle, one fight! Women, men & trans people unite!”

By 8 pm the MRAs had been flushed out by a fire alarm. The protesters and the MRAs converged outside the building. The students chanted and shouted through their megaphone and one MRA hit a student in anger. The student fought back. Several people scuffled and exchanged verbal assaults. The tension between those who wish to see liberation of all oppressed women and those who refer to women as “fuckmuffins” was understandably high.

The most interesting fact about the MRAs is how easily they have laid claim to the language of equality and anti-oppression. It is telling that this language is so effortlessly co-opted. According to the MRAs they are being silenced and oppressed, their voice drowned out by the evil feminists- they frame themselves as victims.

The RSM rejects the postmodern idea that every viewpoint is inherently valid and that reactionaries are entitled to free expression, we see how backwards politics can be easily masked by a veil of liberalism.

Segments of the population that are suddenly experiencing a loss of privilege have been retreating to reactionary politics to look for answers. Revolutionary working-class consciousness is so low that any loss of privilege is perceived as an act of oppression.

If the MRAs were genuine they would be mobilizing with anti-poverty groups to struggle for shelter beds for the homeless, or protesting the racist prison-industrial complex that kills hundreds of marginalized men. The MRAs who gathered around the U of T campus would do well to fight to save the Transitional Year Program, where many proletarian men and women alike are given a second chance to receive a university education. This is assuming the MRAs are serious when they say they care about these issues and are not just using them as excuses to rage against feminism.

There are legitimate questions that must be addressed – why are men overwhelmingly the ones inside prisons? Why do men often work dangerous jobs while simultaneously suffering poor mental health? The answer to these questions can be traced to capitalism which upholds oppressive gender roles for its own profit. It is not feminism that has made men “disposable” – it is capitalism, where human beings become mere commodities. The MRAs refuse to acknowledge that even with these issues facing men, men are still the ones with power; even the most powerless man can feel superior to women in this misogynist society. Proletarian women are still the most economically marginalized, they are still harassed and assaulted on a daily basis and burdened with childcare, care of the elderly and domestic duties in addition to their undervalued and underpaid jobs.

The modern day reactionary phenomenon known as MRAs shows the agony of the animal who does not know where his pain comes from, but also the vicious claws of a rabid dog. Communists should definitely fight the MRAs, but they should reach the masses before MRA ideology and similar backwards ideas take a firm hold. Communists should also struggle with liberal feminists to assert the correct feminist position, one that traces the root of oppression to the class struggle.

Gender and race are but class in drag!

Source: http://rsmtoronto.wordpress.com/

[TheGodlessUtopian]

NIGERIAN STUDENTS OCCUPY OVER FEES


THE dispute this time is as a result of the enforcement of the new “No fees, no lecture policy” of the university, which the university has strongly insisted it must enforce for numerous reasons. The students, however, said they were rather contented with the now familiar “No fees, no exam” policy of EKSU. The current development is as fascinating as it is intriguing. The protest of Thursday was spontaneous but on Friday, the students covered their faces with masks and even had a DJ on hand to entertain them while they blocked the institution’s main gate for the second day running.

A student source said: “The protest of Thursday was led by nobody and we came from five corners around the school namely the mini campus, Osekita Phases 1 and 11; Iworoko (which contributed the highest number of participants) and the Main Gate. The five groups marched to the main gate independently and met there at different times of about 20 minutes’ interval.”
Another novel to the protest was the fact that it was unusually peaceful and there was hardly any inkling to the common violence. “We decided not to block the road because experiences have shown that when we do, the police would move in and disperse the students with teargas. At that time too, it will cease to be a peaceful protest. It could also lead to what happened the last time when students destroyed school property and looted the farm and we paid dearly for it,” the student also informed Sunday Tribune.

After the students had trooped to the main gate of the institution on Thursday morning in their hundreds, they took over the main gate. They blocked the gates and insisted that no one would gain entry into or exit from the institution. Members of staff, who had arrived at the campus for work, could not move near the gates because of the palpable level of anger of the students, and they therefore stayed about a kilometre away and watched proceedings.

They chanted songs in anger and did not hide their disdain for both the management of the institution and the Ekiti State government. Some of them, who spoke with newsmen, said they were angry because the extant (new) policy was “anti-people and undemocratic and did not put the poor ones among us into consideration.” Some of the student’s placards said it all: “Save our souls” and “Consider our parents.” They also branded some of the shuttle buses that ply EKSU.

Some of the students also said that their main argument includes the fact that the decision of the management of the institution to make them pay their fees before they could receive lectures did not conform with the policy of the state government to make education affordable to all. “The policy of the state government is that our fees should be N50,000 per session but none of us pays less than N90,000 as fees per session. There is a fault somewhere.”

They said they are also angry that the university has no student union government in place that could represent them at meetings where some of these decisions are taken. They contended that “for almost two years now, they have been telling us that soon, they would restore our union but this has remained a dream. They don’t want us to have a common front or a say in how the institution is run. Is this place a kindergarten?” Another student alleged that “they had designed their policy to ensure that there is no umbrella body under which the students could gather. They don’t want us to have a rallying point or a leader that could gather the students together.”
That activities were paralysed in the institution is an understatement because the management staff members had to move to the university guest house for an emergency meeting over the development. Some of the students even alleged that some senior and management staff members of the institution were hurriedly ferried out of the campus before the students could get at them.

However, this contention was dismissed as implausible by some other students. According to the students, “the university is non-residential and since our protest started early, none of those big men of the university would have been on campus by the time it started.”

The students said when the state government organised the education summit, among other things, it was agreed that the three universities in the state should be consolidated into one, “and that is how Ekiti State University came about.” Speaking further, they said “the argument then was that the state needs only one university it can fund well but are they doing that now? What we have now is no fees, no lectures.”

But the university authorities would have none of that and has insisted that any student that refuses to pay the required fees would not be allowed in the institution. The Vice Chancellor, Professor Patrick Oladipo Aina, who reacted to the protests, was not a happy man. “This protest is embarrassing and illegitimate. It is uncalled for. It is also a surprise to me because we have a feedback mechanism,” Professor Aina told newsmen on Thursday. He said “we will instil civilised culture among the students and I insist on that.
The students must put across their grievances in a civilised manner, why take to the streets?”

He confirmed that the trouble this time “has something to do with a new policy of the institution which is no fees no lectures; it used to be no fees no exams.” He said “we took this step because the school is being owed over N2billion” in unpaid fees over the years. He lamented that thousands students had graduated from the 31-year-old institution without paying their fees but assured that “I know it is difficult but we are going to trace them and we are already on that.”

On why students could be protesting over a simple rule: ‘Pay your fees’, the Vice Chancellor said: “The normal thing is that within two weeks of resumption, students are expected to have paid their fees but here in EKSU, the situation I met is different. The university is 31 years now and they are used to not paying fees.” He added that “I think that is what they are used to because out of the estimated 14,500 regular students, just about 1,200 have paid after five weeks of resumption.”

Prof Aina ruled out payment in instalments by the students, saying “no part payment because we have to provide electricity, water and other amenities just as we also develop infrastructure, ICT and other requirements. Besides, we don’t pay salary by instalments.” He clarified that “those who cannot pay have the opportunity to take a leave of absence. Those who do not take this step and do not pay their fees after two semesters will forfeit their studentship. The students know this. We cannot allow non-students in our campus.”

Reacting to the allegations of hidden charges they said shot their fees to about N90,000 and above as against the N50,000 announced by the state government, Professor Aina said “there are no hidden charges but some additional charges that are normal in all institutions.” He gave instances such as the fact that “Geology students would go on field work, we are not supposed to pay for that; medical students cannot be trained with just N50,000 annual fees just as engineering students and so on are expected to pay for field work, excursions and the like. So these are not hidden charges.”
Explaining further, Professor Aina pointed out that “we remain the state university that charges the lowest fees in the South West,” adding that “in actual fact, the fees they are paying remain the same, the difference is that we had to codify our payment system to ensure that the money don’t go to private pockets as it used to when they were paying through the back door.”
It was gathered that in the absence of a students’ union executive, selected faculty presidents had met with the university authorities on ways to resolve the matter. But the students have insisted that they would remain in protest until the policy is reversed while Professor Aina said there is no going back on the policy.Source: http://tribune.com.ng/news2013/index.php/en/component/k2/item/11116-when-students-ekiti-varsity-authorities-battled-over-fees

[La Guaneña]

Yesterday we cut off the 2 main avenues in the city for 4 hours demanding to give a letter to a representative from the "public" transport companies with these demands:

-No raise in the bus fares;
-Publication of the calculations and the Profit and Spendings of the concession's companies;
-The Front Against Raises' participation in the next meeting of the Deliberative Chamber responsible for the fares, representing the users;
-The next meeting of the DC must be absolutely public;


We got big support from the people who were working around the crossing we closed, so the cops stood back and negotiated. We will soon mark a public audience and next week we already have another mobilization marked.

fb.com/media/set/?set=a.249411135198331.1073741826.100003883390639&type=1

Pics here

[TheRedAnarchist23]

Fdss.

Cá em Portugal nem se a juventude fosse toda à rua o governo baixavam qualquer coisa.

[TheGodlessUtopian]

"What You should know about the Philly student walk-out" (http://www.thenation.com/blog/174401/what-you-should-know-about-philly-student-walkout#)

[La Guaneña]

After four prostests in a row with students chanting "if the fares rise, things are gonna get ugly", things got ugly.

The bus companies and the government opened no dialogue with the organizations, only opening their mouths to mock and ridicule the social movements involved.

Many comrades are being followed by undercover cops, and people are getting arrested in front of their schools/houses.

On tuesday we gathered and tried to go to the biggest bus terminal downtown, but the police blocked our path and we confronted them. By the end of the night, 16 buses were broken, with two of them and a bank being burned.

https://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=1472269

http://g1.globo.com/goias/noticia/2013/05/pms-e-estudantes-se-confrontam-durante-protesto-em-goiania.html

http://g1.globo.com/jornal-nacional/videos/t/edicoes/v/policia-investiga-a-participacao-de-gangues-no-protesto-de-estudantes-em-goiania/2604046/


No peace to the transportation companies' monopoly!

I WONT PAY

[La Guaneña]

More links:

http://revolution-news.com/violence-marks-new-protest-against-bus-fare-in-goiania-police-and-students-clashed-on-tuesday/

Main paper in town:

https://fbcdn-sphotos-g-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/294182_515601131821553_1006458144_n.jpg

Bus burning all the way on the north side of town, while the protest was on the east side:

https://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-prn2/969273_457933730964367_987615442_n.jpg

At the entrance of the university where 120 pigs locked us in (Forbidden entrance of motorcycles and bicycles and cars and police) the cops are not allowed into the Federal Universities:

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=530182877038487&set=oa.568891326466231&type=1&relevant_count=1&ref=nf

Guns to the head (this girl had her hand burned with alcohol and was verbally assaulted by the cops moments later):

https://fbcdn-sphotos-d-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/8705_472295449521897_2012517347_n.jpg


Fuck the Military Police, this is the heritage of US imperialism and their coup in 1964.

[La Guaneña]

The struggle agains fares is nationwide, and I'll write a piece on it in Portuguese soon. If anyone wishes, I could make a version in English as well.

[La Guaneña]

Shit got ugly, even the feds are on us.

BUT THE FARES WENT DOWN!


http://www.tjgo.jus.br/index.php/home/imprensa/noticias/119-tribunal/2581-transporte-coletivo-liminar-suspende-cobranca-de-r-3-00


FUCK I'M HAPPY

[La Guaneña]

ps fuck the cops

[TheGodlessUtopian]

Some more pictures from Chile as the students there continue their fight for free education...

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/6457_10151744772614451_1535807020_n.jpg


https://fbcdn-sphotos-d-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-prn2/8685_10151744772644451_2062043107_n.jpg


https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn2/8674_10151744772694451_1284773114_n.jpg


https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-frc1/1005860_10151744772704451_853354439_n.jpg


https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/1001788_10151744772739451_1048766778_n.jpg


https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn2/969074_10151744774744451_284976561_n.jpg


https://fbcdn-sphotos-g-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/297498_10151744772604451_1553430585_n.jpg


Awesome!