Author Archive

On May 9, 1960, fifty years ago today, the Food and Drug Administration announced that it would be granting approval to the birth control pill. As the sixties progressed, sex and gender relations in the United States were irrevocably transformed.

It would be an exaggeration to suggest that the Pill created that transformation on its own. As historian Elaine Tyler May notes, it was women’s activism that unlocked “the revolutionary potential of the Pill” — feminism and women’s new ability to control their fertility went hand in hand. But May 9, 1960 was nonetheless a milestone moment in women’s liberation.

A student strike that has shut down the university of Puerto Rico for two weeks shows no signs of ending anytime soon.

English-language reporting on the strike has been almost non-existent — the most recent relevant Google News hit on “university puerto rico protest” is a University of Minnesota campus paper’s April 29 story on the strike’s effect on three U of M students.

But the Puerto Rico Daily Sun (which is in English, but isn’t on Google News, for some reason) is covering the story, and recent developments suggest the strike may continue to drag on for quite a while.

On Monday, the university trustees refused a student offer to negotiate. On Tuesday, police forcibly removed twenty student demonstrators and a journalist from the gates of the university’s Río Piedras campus, injuring six. That afternoon, student representatives delivered an updated list of demands to the university president. On Wednesday some students left the campus and demonstrated at the offices of individual trustees.

More news on this story as I get it — feel free to post links in comments.

May 17 update | My coverage of the situation in Puerto Rico is ongoing — click here and scroll down to see the latest news.

Word out of UC Berkeley this afternoon is that two university employees — a custodian and a gardener — have added their bodies to the campus hunger strike we reported on earlier this week.

The workers, both AFSCME Local 3299 members, are joining about twenty other hunger strikers who have been camped out with several dozen supporters for the last four days.

A planned meeting between representatives of the demonstrators and university administrators was called off yesterday, one activist said, because the administration refused to allow an employee to join student representatives in the sit down.

The demonstrators say they will remain in place until their demands are met, while university officials say they are welcome to remain camped out … as long as they stay awake. If any of them fall asleep at the demonstration site, a campus police representative told the Daily Cal, the nappers will be “lodging” in violation of university rules, and subject to disciplinary action or arrest.

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.