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On the first day of classes since last Friday’s protest at Howard University, journalists from the Hilltop, Howard’s student newspaper, sat down with university president Sidney A. Ribeau.
Ribeau went through the protest’s demands point-by-point. He said he would implement a couple of them, and that a few had already been addressed. For most, though, he said that he needed more information, or that the proposal wasn’t feasible for logistical or financial reasons.
Leaders of the Howard University Student Association (HUSA), which helped organize the protest, were invited to meet with Ribeau yesterday as well, but they declined, saying that public dialogue, not closed-door meetings, were what was needed.
Last week the protesters set today as Ribeau’s deadline to respond to their demands.
As of 11:30 pm on Monday, talks to resolve America’s first faculty strike of the 2008-09 academic year were still ongoing.
Michigan’s Oakland University, which had been scheduled to begin the fall semester last Thursday, has yet to start classes because of a strike by the local chapter of the AAUP. The two sides are said to be close to a deal, however, and a message on the OU website encourages students to check back in the early morning to learn whether classes will be held on Tuesday.
Tuesday morning update: Oakland University faculty and administrators suspended strike negotiations at 4:30 this morning, after overnight talks failed to produce an agreement. The two sides are scheduled to come to the table again early this afternoon, but this morning OU announced that it would be seeking a court order to force faculty back to work.
Tuesday evening update: Representatives of OU’s faculty and administration are meeting in court tomorrow morning for hearing’s on the university’s claim that the Oakland strike is illegal. Classes for Wednesday have been officially cancelled.
Thursday morning update: Classes are back in session after the two sides reached a tentative deal last night.
The PA State Police sent fifteen cops dressed as college students to a Haverford dorm party Thursday night, citing more than thirty students for underage drinking.
Drinking in the dorms is allowed for over-21s at Haverford, and the party was advertised on Facebook. But cops planned the raid after checking out the profiles of students who’d put themselves down as planning to attend and finding that many of them were underage.
Police showed up at the party 10:30, hoping to arrive as it was getting underway, but by the time they got there most of the alcohol was gone. They hung around for half an hour, observing, then announced themselves and started asking partiers for ID. They detained about forty students, and issued citations to 31 of those.
One interesting tidbit: The cops didn’t give the university a heads-up before crashing the party. Haverford’s president, Stephen G. Emerson, learned about the raid when a student called him after the police started asking for ID, and Emerson arrived on the scene himself about half an hour later.
University of Michigan Near Eastern Studies professor Yaron Eliav is teaching again at the university, eight months after he publicly admitted slapping a Michigan law student whom he had paid for sex.
Eliav met the student, who was then 22 years old, through Craigslist, and paid her $300 for a sexual encounter in April 2008. After their meeting, she filed a complaint with police, saying he had slapped her twice in the face. (He later admitted to slapping her and hitting her with a belt, but claimed the acts were consensual.)
Police refused to charge Eliav with assault, and one officer publicly mocked the student for filing charges, saying that since she had been engaged in illegal sex work at the time, “she should have cracked a legal textbook before coming in to the police station.”
The incident became public last December when Eliav and the student both pled guilty to misdemeanor prostitution-related charges. Each was fined and made to pay court costs. Eliav, who has tenure, was placed on paid leave last semester while the university investigated the incident.
See bottom of post for updates.
The first major American student protest of the new academic year has erupted at Howard University.
Hundreds of Howard students gathered outside the historically black university’s administration building on Friday, demanding that Howard address problems with financial aid, campus housing, and other issues. Rapper and entrepreneur Diddy, a Howard graduate, urged the students on via Twitter, telling them to “Do what we did and take IT OVER!!!!”
Classes began nearly two weeks ago at Howard, but many students say their financial aid is still in limbo. Students also complained about a shortage of on campus housing and about administration censorship of the student newspaper, the Hilltop.
The Hilltop reported on Twitter that after campus security locked the administration building down the protest moved on to the university chapel, where Howard student government officers addressed the crowd.
A thirteen-point list of demands presented to the administration included
- The resignation of the leadership of the Office of Student Affairs.
- Immediate reforms to financial aid policies.
- Bringing campus buildings into compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
- Budgetary transparency within the university.
- Expansion of on-campus housing.
The protesters asked that the administration respond to their demands by next Wednesday, September 9.
More on this story as it develops…
Update: Here’s a YouTube clip from the protest, and a longer, edited YouTube vid, which includes an explanation of the demands.
Tuesday morning update: The Hilltop, Howard’s student newspaper, is going to meet with university president Sidney Ribeau at 12:30 pm this afternoon. Today’s Hilltop reports that more protests are planned if Ribeau does not adequately address the students’ demands by tomorrow.
studentactivism.net 
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