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The United States Student Association writes with the following news:
On Thursday, the House passed the Veterans Educational Assistance Act by a vote of 256-166. The bill will provide benefits up to the level of tuition at the most expensive public in-state colleges and universities, a housing allowance based on the cost of living for the area, and a $1,000 a year textbook stipend. The bill would be paid for with a .5% tax increase on the wealthy (individuals making more than 500,000 a year or couples making more than $1M a year). To find out how your representative voted on the new G.I. bill find out here.
The Senate is expected to take up the bill next week as part of their War Supplemental. It has 57 co-sponsors in the Senate. A list of co-sponsors can be found here.
The President has indicated that he will veto any increased spending beyond his request for War Supplemental funding, stating that it is expensive and will make it harder to retain forces in time of war. However, it remains to be seen if he will carry out a veto on this bill which many veterans groups have been in support of.
We will keep you updated as Congress moves on the G.I. bill. If you have questions or would like to help take action contact the USSA office at (202) 640-6570 or at USSA@usstudents.org.
Washington University in St. Louis conferred an honorary degree on anti-feminist activist Phyllis Schlafly today, as a significant portion of the university’s 2800 graduates turned their backs.
The move to honor Schlafly was met with protest and outrage from the start. WU chancellor Mark Wrighton apologized on Wednesday for the “the anguish this decision has caused,” but refused to reverse it.
A website created by opponents of the honor calls Schlafly “someone who has spent 40 years advocating for censorship of literature and art, railing against the teaching of evolution in schools, and thwarting equal rights for women, gays, and lesbians.”
Schlafly has described the protesters as “bitter,” “tacky,” and “a bunch of losers.”
Update: The St. Louis Post-Dispatch says about a third of the graduates turned their backs on Schlafly. A Feministing correspondent estimated that 75% did.
The trustees of California’s Cal State university system voted to raise student fees by 10% on Wednesday, and a committee of the state’s UC board of regents voted to raise that system’s tuition by 7.6%. Student trustees in both systems voted against the hike, and 16 protesters were arrested at the regents’ meeting.
California’s public colleges and universities don’t officially charge tuition, but the “fees” they do charge are comparable to other public universities’ tuition rates.
Mesa State College’s student government used online voting exclusively for the first time this spring, and their method of dealing with write-in candidates caused the student judiciary to throw out the election results in the race for student trustee.
The student government constitution at Mesa State provides one nomination process for standard candidates for office, and another, with a later deadline, for official write-in candidates. This year, one student ran for student trustee in the ordinary fashion, and two others ran as write-ins.
The voting software the student government used for the election had no provision for write-in candidates, however, so student election officials and advisors agreed to place the names of all three candidates on the ballot screen, with “(write-in)” following two of them.
Write-in candidate Susanna Morris won the election by a two-to-one margin, and incumbent Ashley Mates, the sole non-write-in on the ballot, brought suit in student court.
A new election will be held in the fall.
Two stories:
Reflections from African-American woman who, as a Columbia student, participated in the protests that wracked that campus in the spring of 1968. And a review of the year in student protest at Columbia, 2007-08.
studentactivism.net 
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