Yemen: Protests After Soldier Kills Student On Campus

March 20, 2009 in Students | by | Leave a comment

The shooting death of a 20-year-old student at Yemen’s Sana’a University has sparked massive protests against the militarization of the campus.

Saleh al Houti, 20, was shot by a soldier acting as a guard at the university gate on Tuesday as he drove onto campus. As word of the shooting spread, student protesters swarmed around the car of a university official, pelting it with shoes and bottles and breaking its windows. Armed kinsmen of the victim blocked all entry and exit from the university until Yemen’s minister of higher education arrived on campus making personal assurances that the shooter had been arrested.

Thousands of students marched on the Yemeni parliament the following day, demanding an end to armed guards on campus grounds.

Ridhwan Masood, the head of the university’s student union, said that students would “continue to organise protests inside the university campus and in front of the cabinet and parliament, using all legal means to kick out these soldiers and intelligence agents who repress our activities and abuse us out of the university … The government should stop militarising the university life. This is an academic institution and not a security compound.”

Quote of the Day.

March 20, 2009 in History, Politics, Quotes, Race | by | Leave a comment

“Biologists and anthropologists now agree that dividing humanity into different races is fabricated and fraudulent; racial categories are scientific fictions. Yet scientific fictions can become social facts with deadly consequences. Malcolm used to say that racism was like a Cadillac, they make a new model every year. Just as it is impossible to fix a 1990s Cadillac with a 1960s owner’s manual, we will not address the racism of the 1990s and beyond with a 1960s philosophy and approach. Our challenge is to develop a civil rights vision appropriate to our own time, to the challenges presented to us by the injustices inscribed in our everyday lives through racial inequality.”

— George Lipsitz, “Libraries and Memories: Beyond White Privilege 101.”

Vietnam: Student Protest Rolls Back Tuition Hike

March 20, 2009 in Access, Campus Protests, Finances, Student Power, Students, Tuition and Fees | by | Leave a comment

A Vietnamese university has cancelled a 19% tuition hike in response to student protest.

Students arrived at Hong Bang University in Ho Chi Minh City on Wednesday morning to discover that their fees for the upcoming semester had been raised with no notice. Several hundred of them rallied all day in 95-degree heat at the university gates, snarling local traffic.

College officials met with student representatives at the end of the day, and emerged with an agreement to drop the tuition increase.

The increase was announced at a time of rising unemployment in Vietnam, as the worldwide economic crisis depresses the country’s exports.

Students at Center of Massive French Protests

March 19, 2009 in Access, Campus Protests, History, Labor, Politics, Student Power, Youth | by | 2 comments

France was hit by its second general strike of 2009 today, with millions of French workers leaving work and hundreds of thousands taking to the streets. Many schools and universities closed as teachers and professors joined the strike.

Thousands of students marched through Paris on Tuesday night in the latest protest against President Nicolas Sarkozy’s economic policies and proposed changes to the country’s university system. Bottles were thrown, property was damaged, and four students were arrested, but there were no reports of violence. French universities have been wracked by demonstrations and occupations in recent months.

As the weather grows warmer, French leaders are said to fear the possibility of a repeat of the massive student-worker protests that toppled the French government in May 1968.

Update: Here’s a background article on the current situation in France’s universities.

Late Update: Here’s a slideshow of today’s protests.

Organizing Against Russell Athletic Still Going Strong

March 19, 2009 in Campus Press, Campus Protests, College Sports, Labor, Student Government, Student Power, Students, The Corporate University | by | 3 comments

It’s been almost two weeks since the University of North Carolina became the twenty-first campus this year to break with Russell Athletic over labor violations. No other schools have dumped Russell since then, but the campaign against the apparel manufacturer is still going strong. 

A few highlights of the last two weeks’ organizing:

  • Activists at the University of Minnesota are building on their victory there — now that UM has axed Russell, they’re pressing for the university to join the Worker Rights Consortium’s Designated Suppliers Program.
  • Villanova University’s athletics program has announced a temporary freeze in purchasing from Russell while they investigate the situation, and the campus newspaper published an editorial last Thursday calling on the university to break with Russell permanently.
  • Campus activists attended last Friday’s Associated Students UCLA meeting to press the case for dumping Russell. 

Meanwhile, Russell Athletic is inviting the presidents of the colleges and universities that have cut their ties with the company to visit Honduras on an RA-hosted “fact-finding trip.”

March 20 Update: USAS is tweeting that the Montana State University Bozeman has become the 22nd campus to drop Russell in 2009. Also, there’s a major story on the campaign going out over the AP wire. Also, USAS reports that MSU-Bozeman and Santa Clara University have both dumped Russell. That makes 23 campuses.

May 1 Update: Boston College and the University of California make FIFTY-SEVEN campuses. Wow.

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

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