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Just for the record, and because I haven’t seen the specific numbers anywhere else…
The York University Strike hit a milestone today: At 79 days, it became the longest strike in York history, and the third-longest in the history of Canadian higher education.
The second longest strike in Canadian higher ed history was the Laval University strike of 1976. A bunch of online sources say it lasted for “four months,” but I’ve been able to confirm that it clocked in at exactly 108 days.
The longest such strike was the 1976-77 strike at the University of Quebec, at 123 days.
To sum up:
- On January 23 the 2007-08 York University strike became the third longest university strike in Canadian history.
- On February 22 it will become the second longest.
- And on March 9 it will enter the record books as the longest higher education strike in the history of Canada.
Mark your calendars, kids.
The Obama Youth Inaugural Ball was a logistical and political disaster, says author and organizer Michael Connery.
The ball was over-booked, ticket-holders were barred from the event or sequestered in side rooms, and the whole event was locked down by police for more than an hour, Connery says. On top of all that the Youth Ball’s emphasis on service projects rather than policy issues left student and youth organizers at the “kiddie table” once again.
It’s a great piece. Go read it.
A federal judge has ruled against a high school student who was barred from running for re-election as class secretary after she called school officials “douchebags” on her blog. The ruling highlights the unsettled nature of First Amendment law as it applies to high school students’ off-campus speech, as well as the limited protections courts have granted to student government.
The court had previously found that participation in student government “is a privilege,” and that students do not have a constitutional right to run for student government office “while engaging in uncivil and offensive communications regarding school administrators.” It found that the school had punished Doninger for “vulgar language,” not for criticizing school officials’ actions, and that they were within their rights to do so.
In its latest ruling, the same court found that although an appeals court had cast their previous argument into question, the administrators were protected from legal action. The underlying question at issue in this case is whether a student has “a right not to be prohibited from participating in a voluntary, extracurricular activity because of off campus speech” that the student has reason to expect will become known on campus, the court said, and that question is unresolved.
In 1979, an appeals court ruled in strong language that students generally cannot be punished for off-campus speech. The Doninger court, however, argued that…
“we are not living in the same world that existed in 1979. The students in Thomas were writing articles for an obscene publication on a typewriter and handing out copies after school. Today, students are connected to each other through e-mail, instant messaging, blogs, social networking sites, and text messages. An e-mail can be sent to dozens or hundreds of other students by hitting ‘send.’ … Off-campus speech can become on-campus speech with the click of a mouse.”
Another update on the York University strike:
- The strike, in its 79th day, is now the third-longest in the history of Canadian higher education, according to the sidebar to this article.
- Students disrupted a meeting of the York faculty senate executive, demanding to know why the partial resumption of classes announced yesterday hadn’t been undertaken earlier or on a larger scale.
- The new labor negotiator deployed by the Ontario government spent yesterday meeting with the two sides separately. Face-to-face negotiations are slated to resume today.
- YorkNotHostage, a student group, will be holding rallies in support of back-to-work legislation next Monday and Wednesday.
January 24 Update: It looks like the strike may be over. The provincial legislature will be called into session on Sunday afternoon to consider back-to-work legislation, and the Ontario premier is hoping to have students and faculty back in the classroom at York by the end of this week.
Campus cops at East Carolina University tackled and arrested one student and used pepper spray on others while breaking up a snowball fight earlier this week.
Several hundred ECU students joined the melee after a freak snowstorm hit the Greenville, NC campus on Tuesday, and the cops attempted unsuccessfully to reach dormitory staff and team coaches before intervening directly.
The arrested student had apparently hit a police officer in the back with a snowball.
(Hat tip to Joey Coleman, who passed along the story via Twitter.)
Update: Video of the arrest has found its way to YouTube:
studentactivism.net 
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