Category Archive

Students at the University of Puerto Rico staged massive protests this morning, at the start of a planned 48-hour student strike. The students are opposing budget cuts and program changes.

English-language news on the situation is scarce so far, but a brief Associated Press story reports that the university’s Rio Piedras campus has been closed “indefinitely” after clashes between protesters and security guards allegedly left nineteen guards injured.

There’s a Facebook page in solidarity with the occupation, and the website Emancipating Education for All is posting info as they get it. The Twitter feed for the protests is #ParoUPR, and some background on the strike can be found here.

I’ll be posting updates as I get them.

Evening update | It’s midnight in Puerto Rico, and the latest reports on the Facebook solidarity page say that SWAT teams who had earlier appeared to be readying to break up the occupation have been “pulled back.” Media reports (thanks, Google Translate!) suggest that both sides are hunkering down for the night.

Early morning update | Reports from Twitter here and here suggest that the night passed peacefully on campus. Rough translations:

@MST_PR: 6:03 am, fairly quiet inside and outside the Rio Piedras Campus, but the militancy of the students is high.

@eldifusor: It’s about 5:30 am and all is calm. Students in their tents, the university guards making rounds.

May 17 update | My coverage of the situation in Puerto Rico is ongoing — click here and scroll down to see the latest news.

The recently-dismissed president of the Duke chapter of the College Republicans made national news yesterday when he claimed that his ouster was the result of fellow Duke Republicans learning that he is gay.

Justin Robinette was impeached last Wednesday, just three weeks after he was re-elected as the group’s president, and just days after several members of the group learned of his sexual orientation. He says that members of the group called him “disgusting” and a “faggot,” and that their anti-gay bias led to his dismissal.

Last night the Duke student government’s judiciary took up the case, and this morning, after a ten-hour meeting in which they heard testimony from nearly two dozen people, they rejected his claims in a three-to-one vote.

In its ruling, the committee’s majority found that the College Republicans impeached Robinette because of “dissatisfaction with [his] leadership” of the organization, and that there was “no strong evidence” that that dissatisfaction stemmed from his sexual orientation.

The committee declared that the impeachment process had begun “long before” Robinette’s orientation became generally known, and that any discriminatory comments directed at him were made by individuals who were not acting in an organizational capacity at the time.

In dissent, justice Carissa Mueller wrote that Robinette’s sexual orientation “played a role” in the impeachment proceedings, both as an impetus for them and in influencing the way in which the impeachment was conducted.

The student government president at California’s Chico State University was stabbed late Saturday night in what police are calling a bias crime.

Joseph Igbineweka, a Nigerian immigrant, was accosted on his way home from a party by two men yelling racial slurs. One of the two is said to have attacked Igbineweka with a knife, causing injuries to his arms, torso, and neck.

Igbineweka, a 23-year-old political science major, immigrated to the United States eight years ago. He is said to be recovering from his wounds, and spoke to a local reporter earlier today.

This is the second apparent bias incident to hit the Chico State student government this month. Just a week ago, campaign signs for a candidate of Middle Eastern descent were defaced, one with the word “Arab.”

Update | Several hundred students rallied in support of Igbineweka on Friday.

Note | The original version of this post identified a local community college student as having been named by police as a perpetrator in the stabbing. That student has since been released without charges.

Last Friday students who were involved in a March 3 building occupation at the California State University, Fullerton received notice that they would be charged with misdemeanor trespass. One student blogger claims that the students were told by police on March 3 that there would be no criminal charges filed against them.

The CSUF development is just the latest in a string of actions by California administrators and public officials in recent weeks intended to squelch student protest by any mechanism available. Elsewhere in the state …

• UC Santa Cruz is imposing fines of $944 each on 36 students who participated in an occupation of the campus’s Kerr Hall last semester.

• UCSC student Brian Glasscock is facing expulsion for his involvement in several non-violent campus actions, including the Kerr Hall takeover.

• San Francisco State University is imposing fines of more than $700 on eleven student activists.

• The ACLU of Northern California recently sent Berkeley administrators a letter charging that disciplinary proceedings against two student activists there violate the students’ constitutional rights to due process.

• Dozens of other Berkeley activists are facing severe punishments under murky judicial proceedings.

I’ll have more about all these stories going forward. If you have news about developments on other campuses, let me know.

Update | A UC Irvine student writes to say that he received a letter this afternoon indicating that he is being brought up on student conduct charges relating to his participation in a November budget demonstration on campus.

It’s shameless self-promotion Smonday again!

Last week, readers posted links to a racial resentment quiz, a story in a Latvian newspaper, a video about university privatization in Finland, and a report on plans for this Thursday’s Climate Camp at the University of Vermont.

What do you have for us this week?