Unanimous!

April 3, 2009 in Access, Civil Liberties, Feminism, Gender, Health Care, Immigration, International Students, Litigation, Politics, Reproductive Freedom, Sexual Orientation, Students | by | Leave a comment


Iowa’s supreme court has unanimously granted legal recognition to same-sex marriages!

More cool details:

  • The ruling will take effect on April 24, three weeks from today.
  • Two of the justices behind the unanimous opinion were appointed by Republicans.
  • The decision is based on the Iowa state constitution, so it cannot be appealed to any other court.
  • It appears that the earliest the decision could be overturned by constitutional amendment is November 2012. 
  • Such an amendment would require approval by the Iowa state legislature prior to a popular referendum.

The majority leaders of both houses of the state legislature can be expected to oppose any effort to overturn the decision by constitutional amendment — they released a joint statement today hailing the ruling as an example of “Iowa common sense and Iowa common decency.” 

It’s been a long, long time coming, but I know … a change is gonna come.

Anti-Porn Legislators Lend a Hand to Pornographers’ Campus Marketing Campaign

April 3, 2009 in Administration, Civil Liberties, Media, Politics, Students | by | 3 comments

So it turns out that the porn flick that state legislators managed to get banned from the University of Maryland College Park has been playing on college campuses across the country.

And it turns out that the reason it’s been playing on college campuses across the country is that the movie’s distributors have been giving it away to campus groups for free.

And it turns out that the reason they’ve been giving it away for free is that they’re trying to build some buzz around their product at a time when the porn industry is suffering huge losses.

Nice work, doofuses. You just gave a bunch of pornographers a bunch of free press, and the revenue that goes with it.

Sunday update: The Student Power Party, a slate of candidates in UMD’s upcoming student government elections, is planning to screen the film and host a free speech forum tomorrow night.

New School In Exile … What Happened? (Part Two)

April 2, 2009 in Administration, Campus Protests, Media, Student Power, Students | by | 2 comments

(This is part two of a four-part series. Part one is here and part three is here.) 

On February 10, the New School In Exile threw down the gauntlet. Bob Kerrey would quit by April 1, or they would bring the New School’s operations to a halt. The ultimatum, delivered at a public meeting, was broadcast to the world by the New York Times and picked up by everyone from the Chronicle of Higher Education to Indymedia.

Some NSIE members were coy about whether the threat was meant to be taken at face value, but they left no doubt that they were serious about their goals. “The students, with the faculty’s backing, are trying to get Kerrey out of the school,” one said. “Setting a deadline raises the stakes.”

In the immediate aftermath of the February announcement, NSIE moved effectively to keep their momentum up. They held teach-ins on February 24 and March 4, and posted video from the first online. NSIE supported and publicized an NYU occupation that was modeled on the New School’s own. 

But their energy seemed to falter in March. There were fewer events, and less follow-up. Posting on the NSIE website was infrequent, and that decline seemed to reflect a broader retreat in the group.

Read the rest of this entry »

College Vetoes Porn Screening After Legislators Freak Out

April 2, 2009 in Administration, Civil Liberties, Finances, Gender, Media, Politics, Students | by | 2 comments

A student programming committee’s decision to show the porn film Pirates II: Stagnetti’s Revenge in the University of Maryland College Park student union this weekend has been overruled by the university’s president.

UM President C.D. Mote Jr. took the action after Maryland state legislators raised the possibility of cutting state funding to the institution.

Republican state senator Andrew Harris proposed amending the state budget to cut off funding to any college or university that screened an adult film other than as part of coursework, and senate president Thomas Miller indicated that he would support such an amendment. “That’s really not what Maryland residents send their young students to college campus for, to view pornography,” he said.

The college’s vice president for student affairs, Linda Clement, said the decision to cancel the screening wasn’t made on any one basis. “People were concerned about portrayal of women, concerned about violence, concerned about our students and decision-making processes,” she said. “It just seemed like the best thing to do.”

Discussion of the issue in the legislature was halted several times this morning as student groups on class trips filed through the senate chamber. “If you kids are wondering what we’re doing, we’re waiting for you to leave the room,” Miller said at one point. “We’re going to talk about some bad stuff.”

Update: Big shock — the legislators got played for fools by the movie’s distributors.

New School In Exile … What Happened? (Part One)

April 2, 2009 in Administration, Campus Press, Campus Protests, Faculty, Media, Student Power, Students | by | 3 comments

At the end of last year The New School In Exile was the most famous single-campus student activist group in the country. Waging a confrontational campaign against former Senator Bob Kerrey, the New School’s deeply unpopular president, they won concessions from administrators — and major media coverage — by staging an audacious 32-hour occupation of a university building.

As the spring semester got underway, the wind seemed to be at NSIE’s back. In an emergency meeting in February, New School faculty unanimously declared their “strong and continuing … sentiment of no confidence” in Kerrey’s administration. Later that month, NSIE members participated in an NYU sit-in modeled on their own. New York magazine ran a damning portrait of Kerrey as an administrator at sea in the face of an extraordinary student and faculty “insurrection,” and in mid-March an NSIE activist was arrested as he spray-painted “Bye Bob” on the door of Kerrey’s residence.

The spring’s grandest gesture came in the course of the February emergency meeting, when graduate student Geeti Das read a statement from NSIE. The group was calling on Kerrey to resign by April first, she said. “If on that date he has not resigned, we will shut down the functions of the university. We will bring it to a halt.” 

Her ultimatum was was reported by the New York Times, as was the applause it received.

April first was yesterday. Kerrey is still in place, and the New School is still functioning. According to the NSIE itself, yesterday passed “more or less without incident.” The group held a few small events yesterday (about which more below), but they engaged in no direct action, and haven’t announced any follow-up. 

So what happened?

(This is part one of a four-part series. Part two is here and part three is here.)

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

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