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Yesterday I tweeted a link to a photo of a 1967 sit-in at Duke University, but it wasn’t until just now that I followed up to see the story behind the protest.
Wow.
In the fall of 1967, the Duke student government proposed a regulation that would have barred student organizations from patronizing segregated off-campus establishments. The regulation was put to the Duke student body in a referendum … and it failed by a 60-40 margin.
In response to the vote, members of the campus Afro-American Society staged a sit-in in the hallway outside the offices of the university president, and the university senate quickly agreed to impose the ban that the students had rejected.
The Civil Rights Act banned discrimination in public accommodations in 1964, but Duke had not enrolled its first black undergraduate students until the fall of 1963, and the university did not hire its first black professor until 1966, so it’s perhaps not surprising that the college’s white student majority would still be so hostile to integration in 1967.
Shocking, perhaps, but not surprising.
Washington governor Christine Gregoire is considering allowing the state’s universities to impose a temporary tuition surcharge.
The governor’s proposed budget for higher education already includes a seven percent tuition hike and a thirteen percent budget cut, but campuses are bracing for more bad news in light of the economic downturn.
A tuition surcharge would be up to each university to impose, and it would expire after two years. Money from the surcharge would go directly to the campuses rather than into the state’s general fund.
A survey of more than six hundred American colleges found that more than half knowingly admit students who are in the United States illegally under at least some circumstances.
The survey, conducted by American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers, found that 54 percent of the 613 schools responding knowingly admitted undocumented students, although some said they only did so if the student had graduated from an in-state high school or had certified their intention to seek legal status. Public community colleges were the most likely to admit students known to be undocumented, with 7o percent of those respondents saying they did so.
Just a heads-up: the link above leads to the website of the Chronicle of Higher Education, and the comments on that article are just as creepy as one would expect.
Reader Suzanne passed along word last night that there’s going to be a massive statewide rally in California tomorrow against higher ed budget cuts and fee hikes, with students from across the state busing in to Sacramento. Between six and seven thousand are expected to participate.
Accordng to iwillmarch.com, the march will begin at 10 am, with a rally at the State Capitol at noon and lobby visits beginning at 2 pm.
The omnibus budget bill that the Senate passed last night may make low-cost birth control available from campus health centers after a four-year absence.
The bill incorporated the Affordable Birth Control Act, which overturns provisions of a 2005 law that, in the words of Choice USA,
stopped pharmaceutical companies from providing prescriptions at lower than market costs to health clinics and College and University health centers. Previously, companies were supplying schools and safety-net providers with low cost or no cost birth control. As a result of the [Deficit Reduction Act], low income women and college students were forced to pay market price, approximately $40-$50 per month.
The Affordable Birth Control Act was the subject of intense organizing by campus groups, making its passage a victory for students and for student activism.
Quoting Choice USA again, “This is an example of the power we as young people have to make real change that directly impacts our lives. Congratulations everyone!”
studentactivism.net 
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