The 1967 Duke Sit-In Against Segregation

March 19, 2009 in Access, Administration, Campus Protests, Civil Liberties, History, Race, Student Power, Student vs. Student, Students | by | Leave a comment

Yesterday I tweeted a link to a photo of a 1967 sit-in at Duke University, but it wasn’t until just now that I followed up to see the story behind the protest.

Wow.

In the fall of 1967, the Duke student government proposed a regulation that would have barred student organizations from patronizing segregated off-campus establishments. The regulation was put to the Duke student body in a referendum … and it failed by a 60-40 margin.

In response to the vote, members of the campus Afro-American Society staged a sit-in in the hallway outside the offices of the university president, and the university senate quickly agreed to impose the ban that the students had rejected.

The Civil Rights Act banned discrimination in public accommodations in 1964, but Duke had not enrolled its first black undergraduate students until the fall of 1963, and the university did not hire its first black professor until 1966, so it’s perhaps not surprising that the college’s white student majority would still be so hostile to integration in 1967.

Shocking, perhaps, but not surprising.

Gay Teen Banned from Wearing “Rainbows Are Gay” Wristband

March 18, 2009 in Administration, Civil Liberties, High School, Sexual Orientation | by | 2 comments

Chris Quintanilla, a 14-year-old eighth-grader in Peoria, Arizona, says he was told by his principal to remove a rainbow wristband that carried the slogan “Rainbows Are Gay.” 

The student’s mother says that when she talked to the principal about his action, he told her that some teachers found the phrase offensive. 

This is not the first time Natali Quintanilla and the principal have clashed over the school’s treatment of her son. She says that when she told him that Chris was being harassed at school for being gay earlier this year, she was told that he wouldn’t be picked on “if he didn’t put it out there the way he does.”

Unable to secure protection of her son’s free-speech rights directly through the school, Natali Quintanilla took the issue to the ACLU.

The ACLU sent the school district a three-page letter reminding them of students’ free speech rights in school, and asked them to “confirm … within 10 days” that “the District will now allow Chris and other students to wear or otherwise display messages or symbols expressing their support of LGBT rights.” 

The district has not yet responded.

April 20 update: Quintanilla has been cleared to start wearing the wristband again.

Fifty Years Ago Today: Students Riot Over Chemistry Test

March 18, 2009 in Campus Protests, Faculty, History, Students | by | Leave a comment

From the New York Times, March 19, 1959:

Calcutta Students Protest

CALCUTTA, India, March 18 (Reuters) — Thousands of students here attacked examination officials today, smashed furniture and tore up answer papers in protest against a stiff question in an intermediate chemistry examination. The trouble broke out simultaneously at all examination centers except two. About 15,000 to 18,000 students were involved.

Pfizer, Grassley Mum on Student Spying Docs

March 18, 2009 in Campus Protests, Civil Liberties, Health Care, Media, Student Power, Students, The Corporate University | by | Leave a comment

Harvard’s medical student activists are still waiting.

Earlier this month, word broke that a representative of pharmaceutical giant Pfizer had been caught photographing a student demonstration against drug companies’ influence over the Harvard medical school. 

In response to the revelations, Senator Charles Grassley set a one-week deadline for to Pfizer to provide him with all internal corporate documents relating to “Harvard medical students demonstrating and/or agitating against pharmaceutical influence.”

Grassley’s demand made headlines, and Pfizer promised to comply. That was fifteen days ago, however, and since then Grassley has made no further public statement on the matter.

Temporary Tuition Hike In WA?

March 18, 2009 in Access, Finances, Politics, Students, Tuition and Fees | by | Leave a comment

Washington governor Christine Gregoire is considering allowing the state’s universities to impose a temporary tuition surcharge.

The governor’s proposed budget for higher education already includes a seven percent tuition hike and a thirteen percent budget cut, but campuses are bracing for more bad news in light of the economic downturn.

A tuition surcharge would be up to each university to impose, and it would expire after two years. Money from the surcharge would go directly to the campuses rather than into the state’s general fund.

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

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