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We reported yesterday on an anti-sweatshop sit-in at the University of Montana. Now comes word of a similar sit-in on Tuesday at Penn State that ended with 31 arrests, another at Appalachian State University last week, and a fourth underway yesterday at the University of North Carolina. All of the protests are directed at convincing the universities to adopt the Designated Supplier Program for university licensed apparel.
Update: The UNC sit-in continued overnight, and an article in the campus’s Daily Tar Heel quotes university Chancellor James Moeser as saying the protesters “are probably not going to be arrested.” The protest, he said, is “part of our tradition of free speech.”
Further Update: The University of Montana sit-in was reportedly the first on that campus since the Vietnam War. In related news, Washington State University averted protests this week by agreeing to sign on to the Designated Suppliers Program.
Yet Another Update: A detailed rundown of the Appalachian State sit-in can be found here. That blog, wataugawatch, is continuing to follow the story in the aftermath of the arrests.
The Tapped blog reported today that the Daily Pennsylvanian of the University of Pennsylvania had endorsed Hillary Clinton, calling the nod Clinton’s first “major college paper endorsement.”
Actually, according to the University Wire, the Pennsylvanian is the fourth college paper to endorse Hillary, joining the UT Daily Texan, Boston University’s Daily Free Press, and the George Washington University GW Hatchet.
That doesn’t mean it’s a contest, though — UW says Obama has 45 campus newspaper endorsements so far.
Nine student protesters at the University of Montana were handcuffed and arrested Wednesday evening, ending a sit-in in the university president’s office that had begun at noon that day. According to the Missoulian newspaper:
The nine people arrested are members of Students for Social and Economic Justice, a group that wants the university to adopt the “Designated Suppliers Program” promoted by the Workers Rights Consortium, a nonprofit labor rights group that monitors and investigates working conditions around the world. The DSP identifies manufacturing companies and factories that provide good working conditions.
The protesters were charged with misdemeanor counts of criminal trespassing and disorderly conduct and released.
In the wake of a series of campus protests, the administration of the University of Ottawa is circulating a draft code of student conduct that defines a new class of “non-academic” infractions. The last two years have seen an unusual upsurge of activism at Ottawa, with students organizing around issues ranging from “high tuition fees to language rights and campus safety. The most recent protests have concerned the corporatization of the campus and the elimination of “a controversial course on social activism” taught by a physics professor.
The vice president of the Ottawa student government is described as concerned that the university is “trying to push through the code of conduct while students are preoccupied with exams and anticipating the summer break.”
May 24 Update: A follow-up report on the code struggle appears here.
Large quantities of student newspapers have been removed from distribution points in unrelated incidents at four college campuses in the last week.
At Ball State in Indiana, more than half of the print run of an edition featuring a story about the arrest of a member of the college’s soccer team were stolen while distribution was in progress.
At Loyola Marymount in California, stacks of a paper with two controversial stories were found in a campus recycling bin.
Approximately 300 copies of the University of New Orleans <i>Driftwood</i> were found in a trash can after an argument between newspaper staffers and student government officials. The issue in question contained an article critical of two student government officers.
And approximately 2,500 copies of an edition of the Kent State student newspaper were stolen for reasons that remain unknown.
studentactivism.net 
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