Anti-Gay Student Govt Prez Rejected By Students

May 4, 2009 in Campus Protests, Civil Liberties, Finances, Politics, Sexual Orientation, Student Bashing, Student Government, Student Power, Student vs. Student, Students | by | Leave a comment

Last fall, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs student government president David Williams refused to sign a $2100 budget allocation for a National Coming Out Day event sponsored by Spectrum, a LGBT student group on campus. His action didn’t block the money from being disbursed, but did delay its release.

Williams said that the decision reflected his personal beliefs. Other students said it violated the student goverment constitution, and launched a campaign to remove him from his position.

The removal effort drew broad support, but ran into various bureaucratic and procedural stumbling blocks. Six months later, Williams remains in office, and he even ran for re-election this spring.

That election campaign gave the students of the campus the chance to weigh in on the controversy directly, however, and the result was decisive. Not only did Williams and his running mate lose, they lost to Daniel Garcia and James Burge, who are both gay men of color.

The effort to impeach Williams, whose term ends June 1, continues.

Kent State: May 4, 1970

May 4, 2009 in Campus Protests, Guns, History, Media, Politics, Students, Town and Gown | by | Leave a comment

An excerpt from my dissertation:

President Nixon revealed the US invasion of Cambodia on April 30, 1970, in a televised speech. At a news conference the next day National Student Association president Charles Palmer, flanked by ten collegiate student body presidents, denounced the invasion and Nixon’s “odious disregard of the constitution” and called for his impeachment. 

The nation’s first student strikes in response to the invasion had already been called by the time Palmer spoke, and by Monday walkouts had begun, with NSA’s enthusiastic support, at dozens of campuses. Throughout the weekend NSA staff worked with an impromptu national strike center at Brandeis University to coordinate, encourage, and publicize strike activity as best they could.

Many campuses closed as the protests escalated, but Kent State in Ohio stayed open, and that state’s governor — facing a deteriorating situation on campus in the final stages of a tight re-election race — called out the National Guard. On Monday, a little after noon, Guard troops on the campus fired on a crowd of protesters. The gunfire killed four people, including two students who were walking past the protest on their way to class.

This was not the first time, or even the first time in recent years, that American students had been killed by agents of the government in the course of a campus protest. In early 1968 police had fired on anti-segregation activists at South Carolina State University, killing three. And it would not be the last — nine days after Kent State, two students at Jackson State College in Mississippi were killed in circumstances similar to those of the South Carolina shootings.

But unlike in South Carolina and Mississippi, the students killed at Kent State were white. And crucially, the Kent State killings were documented on film — a Kent State photography major took two rolls of photos of that day’s protest and its aftermath, and his photographs went out over the AP wire that night. One image — of a young woman kneeling over the body of one of the dead, screaming with arms outstretched — appeared on the front pages of newspapers all over the country the next day. The Kent State killings unleashed an unprecedented wave of protest, forcing hundreds of campuses to close for the semester.

Quote of the Day

May 4, 2009 in Campus Protests, History, Media, Politics, Quotes, Student Power, Students, Youth | by | Leave a comment

“In several educational institutions during the last few years manifestation of student activity in riots has been exciting the country. To the conservative mind, these riots bode no good. As a matter of fact student riots of one sort or another, protests against the order that is, kicks against college and university management indicate a healthy growth and a normal functioning of the academic mind.

“Youth should be radical. Youth should demand change in the world. Youth should not accept the old order if the world is to move on. … There must be clash and if youth hasn’t enough force or fervor to produce the clash the world grows stale and stagnant and sour in decay. If our colleges and universities do not breed men who riot, who rebel, who attack life with all the youthful vim and vigor, then there is something wrong with our colleges. The more riots that come on college campuses, the better world for tomorrow.”

–William Allen White, newspaper editor, 1932.

Race and Student Government at the U of Alabama

May 3, 2009 in Access, Campus Press, Fraternities and Sororities, Gender, Race, Student Government, Student Power, Student vs. Student, Students | by | Leave a comment

Steven Oliver and Kendra Key met in the contest for the student government presidency at the University of Alabama this year.

More than fourteen thousand students, well over half the campus population, voted — the most in UA history. The race was close, with less than two percentage points separating the two candidates. But in the end Olvier, a white man, defeated Key, a black woman, by two hundred and sixty-one votes.

UA is the flagship campus of Alabama’s state university system, and it has never had a black student body president. In the fourteen years since its current student government was established, seventeen students of color have run for campus-wide office. All have lost. 

Race is not the only factor in Alabama’s student government elections, of course. (The campus’s student body is more than eighty-five percent white, to start with, which means the majority of Key’s support came from white students.) Oliver ran with heavy support from fraternities and sororities, and the divide between greeks and independents played a major role in the campaign.

But the fact that UA’s student officers have been — and remain — all white has significant consequences for the student government, and the campus as a whole. UA’s student newspaper, the Crimson White, grapples with those consequences in two articles — here and here.

Kentucky School Bars Gay Students from Bathrooms?

May 3, 2009 in Administration, Campus Protests, Civil Liberties, Gender, High School, Sexual Orientation, Student Bashing, Student Power, Students | by | 2 comments

Note: I’m still digging on this story. Follow me on Twitter to keep up with new info as I get it.

fc605d261f77ce3d1fb6e8812bddbe78a5b47d41_rally_flag050109hsThe tremendous Pam Spaulding writes at Pandagon about an administrator at a Kentucky high school who allegedly told teachers to prohibit gay and lesbian students from leaving class to use school bathrooms after two female students were caught kissing in the girls’ restroom.

What she doesn’t mention, though, is that fifteen students held a public protest against the ban in front of the school on Friday.

I’m repulsed by the administrator’s actions here, of course, if the story is true. But I also find it fascinating that high school administrators in Franklin County, Kentucky would assume that teachers would know who their gay and lesbian students were.

And I’m thrilled that these students — gay, straight, both, or neither — were willing to stand up publicly against such nonsense.

1:00 pm update: I’ve found an article on the incident from the Frankfort, Kentucky State Journal. In it, the principal of Franklin County High School says “we would never send out an e-mail that had anything to do with sexual orientations,” which is almost, but not quite, a denial that such an email actually was sent. Assistant principal Karen Buzard, who allegedly sent the email, was unavailable for comment.

The State Journal article also included the above photo from the protest, along with some new details — the protesting students painted “Gay Pride” and rainbows on their faces, and held signs that said  “Honk if you’re gay” and “We have a right to pee.” 

3:00 pm update: Several anonymous commenters at the State Journal website claim that Buzard’s email restricted the bathroom privileges of specific students, not all gays and lesbians. I have reached out to school officials for comment, but have not yet had a response.

It’s also worth mentioning that if school officials did restrict bathroom privileges of gays and lesbians as a group, what they did is likely legal, as Kentucky has no LGBT civil rights law.

May 4 update: I’ve just received an email from Harrie Buecker, superintendent of the Franklin County Public School system. She says the district is “continuing our investigation” of the email incident. More as I get it.

May 5 update: The principal of Franklin County High School has posted a statement on the school’s website saying that no email was ever sent “barring any specific group of students from using the restrooms.” According to the statement, teachers were told that “certain students should not be allowed to leave the classroom during class because they had been in violation of school rules,” but “all students have time between classes to use the facilities.”

About This Blog

n7772graysmall
StudentActivism.net is the work of Angus Johnston, a historian and advocate of American student organizing.

To contact Angus, click here. For more about him, check out AngusJohnston.com.