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Police at Northwestern University will no longer notify federal authorities when they encounter suspected undocumented immigrants except in cases involving felonies or human trafficking.
Student groups had been pressing for a new policy since NU police stopped Ramiro Sanchez-Zepeda on suspicion of DWI on April 26 and turned him over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement when he was unable to produce a driver’s license or visa.
Students had planned a Thursday rally to push for the reform, but NU police chief Bruce Lewis requested a meeting with student leaders on Tuesday and announced the new policy on Wednesday.
The planned protest rally was recast as a celebration of the change in policy and a call to continued activism.
Bucknell University’s administration has denied a conservative student group permission to hold an affirmative action bake sale.
Such sales, in which cupcakes and cookies are offered at full price to white male students and cheaper for women and students of color, have become a common attention-grabbing tactic for right-wing campus groups in recent years. Clashes with administrators over the sales have been common too, with sponsors claiming that they’re protected speech and universities noting that they’re — by design — a discriminatory practice.
Wikipedia has a pretty extensive article on affirmative action bake sales, including mention of a nice move by the Graduate and Professional Students of Color student organization at the University of Illinois, which responded to one such sale by holding a white privilege popcorn giveaway in which white white men were given a full bag of popcorn, while women and people of color got a mostly-empty bag.
Congress passed the federal budget last week, and though there are still some issues to be hammered out before final approval, the United States Student Association is celebrating.
In its latest Legislative Update, USSA calls the budget “a sweet victory for students,” as it contains provisions that would eliminate student loan program subsidies to private lenders and convert Pell Grants to an entitlement program — both of which mean more support for students in need. The budget also includes $89.4 billion in discretionary spending for education.
For updates on the implementation of these budget provisions and info on how you can get involved, reach out to USSA at their website or check out their new blog — the newest addition to the Student Activism blogroll.
A yearlong drug investigation at the University of Illinois culminated in more than two dozen arrests last week.
But all the cops found was six ounces of pot and some Xanax.
The UI campus police launched “Operation Thunder Strike” last fall, and the force decided to make “a little bit of a splash” before the end of the semester, according to Lt. Roy Acree. They obtained search warrants and arrest warrants for seventeen people, and swept in on three fraternity houses and several apartments starting last Tuesday.
They made twenty-five arrests, twenty-one of UI students, but Acree said the total haul was “180 grams of cannabis, numerous pieces of drug paraphernalia, cocaine residue, and some Xanax pills.” Cops also confiscated two vehicles, three television sets, two computers, and about three thousand dollars in cash.
Spring classes end tomorrow at UI, and final exams start this Friday.
(The Chronicle of Higher Education swallowed the campus cops’ line on this bust, by the way, but the comment thread on their story is turning into a real doozy.)
The mayor of Providence, Rhode Island is looking to close a $17 million budget deficit on the backs of the city’s college students.
Mayor David Cicilline is proposing a new tax of $300 per year on all undergraduate and graduate students in the city’s four private universities. The flat tax, which he’s calling a “student municipal impact fee,” would — if he gets his way — be paid as part of students’ tuition bills.
Story via the usually-excellent blog The Kept Up Academic Librarian, which unfortunately gave it the pointlessly anti-student headline “You Attend College Here So You May As Well Pay Taxes.”
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