Monthly Archive

A friend emailed this afternoon to ask why I hadn’t put up a post commemorating the fortieth anniversary of the Kent State killings. It actually hadn’t occurred to me to write about it.

But I did speak with a reporter at length on the subject a couple of weeks ago. Her article — a solid commemoration — is worth reading. I also posted to commemorate last year’s 39th anniversary, and I’ve addressed other aspects of the Kent State story here, here, and here.

Four students were killed at Kent State forty years ago today, murdered by National Guard troops. Nine others were injured.

The dead were these four students:

Allison Krause, 19, a demonstrator, shot in the side at a distance of 33o feet.

Jeffrey Miller, 20, a demonstrator, shot in the face at a distance of 265 feet.

Sandra Scheuer, 20, a bystander, shot in the throat at a distance of 390 feet.

And William Schroeder, 19, a bystander, shot in the back on his way to class at a distance of 382 feet.

Two dozen activists launched a hunger strike on the Berkeley campus last night, calling on UC administrators to denounce Arizona’s new immigration law, drop disciplinary charges against student demonstrators, and revise the student code of conduct through a “democratic, student-led process.”

The Arizona law, SB1070, has drawn campus protest nationwide, and become a lightning rod in the debate over immigration policy.

The hunger strikers released a six-point list of demands:

• That UC Berkeley administrators denounce SB1070, and call on administrators throughout the UC system to do the same.

• That the university implement a task force on AB540, a law that provides in-state tuition rates to longtime California residents who are undocumented.

• That “any and all” disciplinary charges stemming from student protests in the 2009-10 academic year be dropped.

• That the university reverse layoffs of unionized service workers and “stop attacks against union activists.”

• That the current university code of conduct be suspended, and that a democratic, student-led process to replace it be undertaken.

• That the university “accept responsibility for the violence and escalation of the confrontation surrounding Wheeler Hall on November 20th and December 11th 2009” and meet future protests with a non-violent response.

We’ll be following this story as it develops.