There’s been a fair amount of “after March 4, what next?” talk around the internets this last few days, with the most common answer being “all sorts of stuff.” But some specific proposals are beginning to emerge.

One, out of UC Irvine, is a proposal for a new national day of coordinated action on May 4, the fortieth anniversary of the Kent State killings. (On May 4, 1970 National Guard troops on that Ohio campus fired on a crowd of student antiwar protesters at a distance of more than a hundred yards, killing two protesters and two passers-by. All four of the dead were Kent State students.)

Noting that broadly conceived days of action have brought in more previously uninvolved students than more narrowly targeted protests, the Irvine activists call for students nationwide to “hold funeral processions and silent marches this day; tell everyone to dress in black.”

One thought for Irvine activists and others to bear in mind while planning and promoting such an action — on the night of May 14, 1970, just ten days after Kent State, local and state police in Jackson, Mississippi opened fire on a dormitory building on the Jackson State campus, killing two students and injuring twelve.

The Kent State killings are far better known than those at Jackson State, but both are part of American student history, and our national amnesia about Jackson State is deeply problematic. Any commemoration of the one should make note of the other.

Idaho was one of the dozen-plus states that did not, as far as I’ve been able to determine, participate in the March 4 Day of Action for education, but its students have not been silent.

On February 25, some two hundred students at Idaho State University in Pocatello staged an on-campus protest against state budget cuts and tuition hikes, and yesterday several dozen ISU students made the 250-mile drive to the state capitol in Boise to rally and lobby legislators directly.

Eight members of the ISU student government joined the group in Boise, including the student government president. Next up for the Idaho students’ agenda is building their campaign into a statewide movement — students from two other public universities in the state participated yesterday, and the ISU folks are hoping to build on that in the future.

The Washington Post on student loan reform, this morning:

“Democratic leaders met for a second day Wednesday with administration officials … one participant said a consensus appeared to be emerging that it would be unwise to risk the health-care bill by including the education measure.”

The Washington Post on student loan reform, this afternoon:

“Senate Democrats said Thursday that they are inclined to add an overhaul of the nation’s student loan program to the final health-care bill.”

What happened in between? This. A huge coordinated student lobbying campaign, launched by phone and email by groups like Campus Progress, Rock the Vote, and the United States Student Association.

Click those links to find out more about how to get involved, and read this and this for more background.

Tuition policy for professional schools in the University of California currently requires that fee increases raise tuition no higher than those at similar public universities’ programs. The UC Regents have the power to grant exceptions to this policy, like they did last November when they raised fees at 44 programs, 24 of them to levels above the permitted averages.

But now the San Francisco Chronicle reports that the Regents are thinking about going further, much further, with an astoundingly ill-considered plan.

Currently the professional school tuition policy requires that any proposed increase conform to “the total tuition and/or fees charged by comparable degree programs at other comparable public institutions.” But according to the Chronicle, the Regents are going to be voting later this month on a proposal to drop the word “public” from that passage.

Yes, you read that right.

The UC Regents want to use private universities as their benchmark for student fees.

It’s mind-boggling. It really is. Tens of thousands of California students are taking to the streets to oppose fee increases and cuts to public support for the university. The Regents are desperately trying to make the case that it’s the state legislature, not the university itself, that’s the students’ real enemy. The concept of the privatization of public higher education is just beginning to gain traction with critics of the university’s current direction.

And now the Regents want to take the word “public” out of their tuition policies?

Really? Really?

Wow.

A Mississippi school district has cancelled next month’s high school prom rather than let a lesbian student attend with her girlfriend.

Policy at the Itawamba County Agricultural High School in northern Mississippi bars same-sex prom dates. Senior Constance McMillen approached the school last month about attending the event with her girlfriend, and was told that they would not be allowed to arrive together and that they might be asked to leave if their presence made other students uncomfortable.

The school also vetoed McMillen’s request to wear a tuxedo to the event.

In their statement announcing the cancellation of the prom, school district officials said they hoped that “private citizens will organize an event for the juniors and seniors,” a sentiment with clear echoes of Southern states’ efforts to avoid desegregation of public schools in the late 1950s.

When federal courts ordered public schools in four Virginia counties integrated in early 1958, Virginia governor James Almond ordered those schools to be closed — rather than have students attend on an integrated basis, he would provide no public education whatsoever.

As in the current Mississippi case, Almond foresaw individual initiative filling the gap, and so they did — private “segregation academies,” funded with state money and individual donations, were created to take in the white students whose schools had been closed. No similar provision was made for educating black students. The closed Virginia schools were re-opened by court order within a few months, though Virginia’s Prince Edward County later shut down its school system for five years rather than integrate.

The ACLU of Mississippi has intervened in this case, saying that “schools that discriminate against lesbian, gay, and bisexual students who want to bring same-sex dates to school dances need to know that by doing so they’re violating established federal law, and we will call them on it.”

In a similar case in Alabama last year, a school initially announced that it would cancel prom rather than allow to attend with her girlfriend, but later reversed its decision under ACLU pressure.

Update | The ACLU is suing the school district for canceling the prom, saying the action violates McMillen’s first amendment rights. They’ve asked a federal judge to order the school to hold the prom as planned.