| Page 314

Obama’s Student Aid Budget Looks Good

February 27, 2009 in Students | by Angus Johnston | Leave a comment

Obama’s proposed budget is full of big victories for students.

As the New York Times reports, the budget would guarantee full funding of Pell Grants, and index the grants to inflation. It would raise the maximum grant by more than $600 for this year, and by another $200 in 2010.

And it would save $4 billion a year by eliminating the Federal Family Education Loan Program, which provides subsidies to banks that offer student loans at discounted rates. It would replace those subsidies with an expansion of the government’s direct lending program.

Carmen Berkeley, president of the United States Student Association, says the budget “answers the call for change millions of young people made in the 2008 election … and would change the face of financial aid in America.”

The budget was released as a 134-page outline on Thursday, and it will be delivered to Congress in its final form in April.

NYU Profs Call for Due Process for TBNYU

February 25, 2009 in Students | by Angus Johnston | 1 comment

In my post on what Take Back NYU’s critics got wrong, I noted that amnesty for students who participate in sit-ins protects such students “from excessive and arbitrary retribution,” and argued that such protection ” is particularly important at a private university, where protesters’ due process rights are are often limited.”

Tonight Faculty Democracy, a group of NYU professors, is arguing that the administration’s handling of the TBNYU aftermath is demonstrating just such a disrespect for due process:

As NYU faculty, we call on the Administration to reinstate those students who have been summarily suspended for their recent protest at Kimmel, pending proper hearings by NYU’s disciplinary board. If there is disciplinary action, it should follow—not precede—fair hearings, in which both sides are represented and the faculty consulted.

Wednesday night update: NYU Local is reporting that all of the TBNYU suspensions will be lifted on Friday. We’ll keep an eye out for confirmation.

Thursday morning update: The NYU administration is apparently offering to end suspensions of TBNYU 18 on Friday, with conditions. At least one student has confirmed she will accept the offer.

Friday morning update: TBNYU says all the protesters will be back in class on Monday.

Russell Athletic Loses Thirteen Campuses In Labor Scandal

February 25, 2009 in Campus Protests, Labor, Student Power, Sweatshops | by Angus Johnston | 2 comments

Three weeks ago, we reported that the University of Wisconsin had cut ties with clothing manufacturer Russell Athletic over findings that RA had violated workers’ rights at a Honduras factory. Since then Duke, the University of Washington, Purdue, Columbia, Penn State, Cornell, and Michigan have all followed suit, bringing to twelve Russell’s total university disaffiliations since the end of January.

This evening, United Students Against Sweatshops announced on its twitter feed that the University of Minnesota has become the latest institution to end its contract with Russell.

The New York Times took notice of the wave of disaffiliations yesterday, quoting the executive director of the Worker Rights Consortium as saying that RA had “over a period of two years … engaged in the systematic abuse of the associational rights of its workers in Honduras, thereby gravely and repeatedly violating the universities’ codes of conduct.”

The disaffiliations have come in response to tremendous local student pressure on each campus, and that pressure is continuing to build. Check out the USAS blog Rein In Russell to follow the story as it develops.

March 2 update: The total is up to nineteen.

March 5 update: Now it’s twenty.

Second March 5 update: Hello USAS twitterers! Our feed is here.

March 19 Update: Here are some highlights of the last two weeks’ organizing.

Five Things Take Back NYU’s Critics Got Wrong.

February 25, 2009 in Administration, Campus Protests, Dorms, History, Media, Student Power, Student vs. Student | by Angus Johnston | 2 comments

The folks behind the Take Back NYU protests have come in for a lot of abuse in the last week, and though some of it has been on-target, quite a bit has fallen wide of the mark. I’ll be posting my own take on the occupation itself soon, but before I do that I want to explore a few of the critics’ more telling errors and misstatements.

Read the rest of this entry »