Student activists at the University of Puerto Rico, who have shut down UPR for two months in a massive strike, are declaring victory today.

The university’s board of trustees approved a settlement agreement a little before 10 pm last night.

The agreement reportedly extends tuition waivers, cancels a major new fee, and abandons a list of university privatization initiatives.

Thursday afternoon update | The Daily Sun, an English-language Puerto Rican newspaper, is reporting that the issue of university retaliation against the strikers was the last sticking point in negotiations with the trustees, and that the students prevailed on their primary demands in that area after a former president of the university intervened on their behalf in a “heated debate.”

The trustees did not agree to a blanket amnesty, and the students appear not to have asked for one. Instead, they secured a variety of procedural safeguards — no summary suspensions, speedy appeals of administrative rulings, protection of academic standing during the disciplinary process. A lawyer for the students said the agreed-upon process is one “that guarantees fairness, impartiality and legality, far beyond the current dispositions of the UPR student rules.”

The agreement was the result of a court-ordered mediation that began last Saturday, and must be approved by the students of each of UPR’s eleven campuses at mass meetings to be held within five days.

Strikers won important substantive victories as well, as discussed in the Daily Sun article. More on those in an upcoming post.

Saturday morning update | Commenter Maritza Stanchich, a professor of English at UPR, has provided links to coverage of the strike’s conclusion in news outlets ranging from the New York Times and the Miami Herald to the Huffington Post and Democracy Now!

More soon…