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France was hit by its second general strike of 2009 today, with millions of French workers leaving work and hundreds of thousands taking to the streets. Many schools and universities closed as teachers and professors joined the strike.
Thousands of students marched through Paris on Tuesday night in the latest protest against President Nicolas Sarkozy’s economic policies and proposed changes to the country’s university system. Bottles were thrown, property was damaged, and four students were arrested, but there were no reports of violence. French universities have been wracked by demonstrations and occupations in recent months.
As the weather grows warmer, French leaders are said to fear the possibility of a repeat of the massive student-worker protests that toppled the French government in May 1968.
Update: Here’s a background article on the current situation in France’s universities.
Late Update: Here’s a slideshow of today’s protests.
It’s been almost two weeks since the University of North Carolina became the twenty-first campus this year to break with Russell Athletic over labor violations. No other schools have dumped Russell since then, but the campaign against the apparel manufacturer is still going strong.
A few highlights of the last two weeks’ organizing:
- Activists at the University of Minnesota are building on their victory there — now that UM has axed Russell, they’re pressing for the university to join the Worker Rights Consortium’s Designated Suppliers Program.
- Villanova University’s athletics program has announced a temporary freeze in purchasing from Russell while they investigate the situation, and the campus newspaper published an editorial last Thursday calling on the university to break with Russell permanently.
- A member of Kansas University Students Against Sweatshops wrote an op-ed for the Daily Kansan urging KU to cut its Russell ties.
- The Student Coalition Against Labor Exploitation held a Russell Athletics teach-in at the University of Southern California.
- Campus activists attended last Friday’s Associated Students UCLA meeting to press the case for dumping Russell.
Meanwhile, Russell Athletic is inviting the presidents of the colleges and universities that have cut their ties with the company to visit Honduras on an RA-hosted “fact-finding trip.”
March 20 Update: USAS is tweeting that the Montana State University Bozeman has become the 22nd campus to drop Russell in 2009. Also, there’s a major story on the campaign going out over the AP wire. Also, USAS reports that MSU-Bozeman and Santa Clara University have both dumped Russell. That makes 23 campuses.
May 1 Update: Boston College and the University of California make FIFTY-SEVEN campuses. Wow.
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.
From the New York Times, March 19, 1959:
Calcutta Students Protest
CALCUTTA, India, March 18 (Reuters) — Thousands of students here attacked examination officials today, smashed furniture and tore up answer papers in protest against a stiff question in an intermediate chemistry examination. The trouble broke out simultaneously at all examination centers except two. About 15,000 to 18,000 students were involved.
Harvard’s medical student activists are still waiting.
Earlier this month, word broke that a representative of pharmaceutical giant Pfizer had been caught photographing a student demonstration against drug companies’ influence over the Harvard medical school.
In response to the revelations, Senator Charles Grassley set a one-week deadline for to Pfizer to provide him with all internal corporate documents relating to “Harvard medical students demonstrating and/or agitating against pharmaceutical influence.”
Grassley’s demand made headlines, and Pfizer promised to comply. That was fifteen days ago, however, and since then Grassley has made no further public statement on the matter.
studentactivism.net 
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