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“Freedom is the right to share, share fully and equally, in American society — to vote, to hold a job, to enter a public place, to go to school. It is the right to be treated in every part of our national life as a person equal in dignity and promise to all others.
“But freedom is not enough. You do not wipe away the scars of centuries by saying: Now you are free to go where you want, and do as you desire, and choose the leaders you please.
“You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say, “you are free to compete with all the others,” and still justly believe that you have been completely fair.
“Thus it is not enough just to open the gates of opportunity. All our citizens must have the ability to walk through those gates.
“This is the next and the more profound stage of the battle for civil rights. We seek not just freedom but opportunity. We seek not just legal equity but human ability, not just equality as a right and a theory but equality as a fact and equality as a result.”
–Lyndon Johnson, Howard University Commencement, June 4, 1965.
Education Not for Sale is a radical student network in the UK. I found out about them through their work in (and against) the National Union of Students, the British national student organization, which I’ll be writing more about soon, but for now, welcome them to the blogroll and check them out.
By the way, ENS has posted the only report I’ve seen so far on the April 18 National Student Co-ordination I mentioned the week before last, so you might want to check that out too.
The Arizona Students’ Association and the Associated Students of the University of Arizona have put up a powerful slideshow on the University of Arizona’s proposed tuition increase:
The idea behind the slideshow is simple: Let students speak directly to the increase would change their lives. Real students, real impact.
The statements speak to a wide variety of effects — “a third job,” “my little brother’s ability to come here,” “a plane ticket to visit my dad.” Each tells a personal story, and each gives that story a human face.
It’s a great, powerful statement. Go look.
And if you’re running an anti-tuition campaign of your own, maybe you should bring a camera and a whiteboard (or a pad and sharpie) to your next rally.
A coalition of student groups at New York City’s Brooklyn College is calling a class walkout at 3 pm on Wednesday, April 29.
The walkout is in opposition to a planned $600 tuition hike at CUNY. As the protest organizers put it, “80% of the tuition hike goes to fill a gap in the state’s budget,” making the hike a “tax for students, the very people to whom a $600 increase makes a huge difference!”
You can find out more about the walkout at its Facebook Event page.
May 2 update: Photos!
Xavier University, the nation’s only historically black Catholic college, has invited Donna Brazile to speak at their commencement, but the Archbishop of New Orleans says he won’t be there.
Brazile, the campaign manager of Al Gore’s 2000 presidential campaign — and a one-time student activist with the United States Student Association — is a black Catholic, and a native of the New Orleans area. But she’s also pro-choice, and that’s not sitting well with Archbishop Alfred Hughes.
studentactivism.net 
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