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A dispute over a controversial issue of a conservative student newspaper is boiling over at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
The March-April issue of The Minuteman, a right-wing UMass student publication, contained both an investigative article on the budget of a campus group called Student Bridges and an insipid humor piece that ridiculed the appearance of one of that group’s leaders.
The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education has distributed a video in which, it claims, “hundreds of copies of The Minuteman are stolen out of the hands of a student intending to distribute the paper.” The student holding the video does not appear to resist or object when other students take copies of the paper from him, however, and in one of the few clear pieces of audio in the footage a conservative student is heard saying, with amusement, “This is amazing. This is amazing footage, I’ve gotta say.”
Subsequent to that videotaped confrontation, the UMass student government association passed a resolution calling upon the Silent Majority, publishers of The Minuteman, to apologize for what it characterized as “slanderous defamation of character,” and raising the possibility of the suspension of the group’s charter if it didn’t comply.
At the next week’s meeting of the SGA, this past Wednesday, a member of the student government was ejected in the wake of a dispute over whether a second resolution, rescinding the first, could be placed on the agenda.
This story doesn’t look like it’s done yet. Check back for more in the days to come.
British student activists are holding a “National Student Co-ordination” meeting today in London.
This winter saw a wave of university occupations sweep across the UK, most of them engaged with conditions in in Gaza. Today’s meeting is intended to co-ordinate that ongoing organizing as well as to “broaden out the movement to include other struggles and post-occupation activities.”
The NSC’s website/blog is here. There’s also a Facebook event page, and the blog of the student occupation at the London School of Economics has a feed for info from other UK student activist groups. Check back with all three sites for more news going forward.
studentactivism.net 
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