You are currently browsing the category archive for the ‘Campus Protests’ category.
Tens of thousands of French students and professors took to the streets on Tuesday to protest government plans to reform the nation’s universities. The proposals call for job cuts and new reviews of faculty research by university administrators.
The Guardian, Britain’s most prominent left-leaning daily newspaper, has a substantial article out today on the UK’s recent wave of protests. Here’s how it starts:
A new wave of student activism sparked by events in Gaza has seen dozens of university buildings occupied in Britain, with some of the UK’s top educational establishments agreeing to set up scholarships for Palestinians or disinvest in arms companies linked to Israel.
Though the assault on the territory ended three weeks ago, lingering anger over the attack has prompted students to stage sit-ins at 21 universities, many organised via blogs, Facebook and text messages.
Students at Glasgow and Manchester are refusing to leave the buildings until their demands are met, after similar occupations at other universities provided tangible results in what is being seen as a new era of highly organised student activism.
You can read the whole thing here.
Students at the State University of New York at Potsdam are gearing up a protest over the state government’s decision to divert new tuition revenue away from SUNY.
In the deficit reduction bill passed last week, only 10% of this spring’s $310 tuition increase is slotted to be used to support SUNY, and in Governor Paterson’s proposed budget for next year, only 20% of the $620 tuition hike will stay on campus.
The Potsdam student government mounted an on-campus rally against the policies this week, and they are organizing a lobby visit to Albany to bring the message directly to state government.
More drama for York University, attempting to rebound from its recent three-month shutdown. Students on the campus are organizing a recall of the five officers of York’s student government, the York Federation of Students.
The impetus for the recall is YFS’s support for striking faculty in recent months, but Middle East politics has come to play a role as well — many YFS leaders are outspoken critics of Israel, and many of those who are seeking to remove them from office are defenders of Israeli policies. Tensions flared between the two groups at an event on Wednesday.
Saturday Update: Here’s a new article on the dispute from the Toronto Star.
New School president Bob Kerrey has been under fire from students and faculty for months, but at a meeting yesterday a representative of student activist group New School in Exile upped the ante.
Reading from a prepared statement, she said that if Kerrey and vice president James Murtha don’t resign by April 1, “we will shut down the functions of the university. We will bring it to a halt. We will make it stop.”
“Through our civil disobedience,” she continued, “we will reclaim the university as a center of academic and political action … we will continue to struggle until we have restored the legacy and integrity of the New School!”
studentactivism.net 
Recent Comments