York Federation of Students Imploding?

February 13, 2009 in Campus Protests, Labor, Student Government, Student vs. Student | by | Leave a comment

More drama for York University, attempting to rebound from its recent three-month shutdown. Students on the campus are organizing a recall of the five officers of York’s student government, the York Federation of Students.

The impetus for the recall is YFS’s support for striking faculty in recent months, but Middle East politics has come to play a role as well — many YFS leaders are outspoken critics of Israel, and many of those who are seeking to remove them from office are defenders of Israeli policies. Tensions flared between the two groups at an event on Wednesday.

Saturday Update: Here’s a new article on the dispute from the Toronto Star.

Media Frames New School Crisis as Faculty/Kerrey Dispute

February 12, 2009 in Students | by | Leave a comment

The headlines of the two major articles on Tuesday’s public meeting at the New School each spin the story the same way…

The Chronicle of Higher Education: “New School Faculty Members Renew Standoff With President Bob Kerrey.”

The New York Times: “New School Faculty and President Still at Odds.” 

But as followers of this blog know, and as each of the above articles make clear, the New School breakdown is as much a result of student-administration disputes as of faculty-admin conflicts. And the big news out of the meeting, a student group’s ultimatum to Kerrey: Quit by April 1, or we’ll shut the New School down, was downplayed in both pieces.

Take a look at how the Times framed the dispute. They say “faculty members acknowledge that they have limited power to force out Mr. Kerrey,” and note that Kerrey still has broad support among the New School trustees. But when they introduce the student ultimatum, in the fourteenth paragraph of an eighteen-paragraph story, they describe it as a request from “Geeti Das, a doctoral student,” not as what it was — a demand from The New School in Exile, the activist group that Das represented at the meeting.

Does the New School in Exile have the power to shut the university down? I don’t know. But I’m going to be watching this story closely, and I have a hunch that April 1 may turn out to be a pretty big day in the history of this crisis.

Student Ultimatum to New School Prez: Quit or We’ll “Shut Down” Campus!

February 11, 2009 in Administration, Campus Protests, Faculty, Student Power | by | 3 comments

New School president Bob Kerrey has been under fire from students and faculty for months, but at a meeting yesterday a representative of student activist group New School in Exile upped the ante.

Reading from a prepared statement, she said that if Kerrey and vice president James Murtha don’t resign by April 1, “we will shut down the functions of the university. We will bring it to a halt. We will make it stop.”

“Through our civil disobedience,” she continued, “we will reclaim the university as a center of academic and political action … we will continue to struggle until we have restored the legacy and integrity of the New School!”

Alabama Frat Denies Discriminating Against Gays

February 9, 2009 in Campus Press, Civil Liberties, Fraternities and Sororities, Sexual Orientation, Student vs. Student | by | Leave a comment

A gay first-year student at Jacksonville State University in Alabama claims that he was rejected by the Pi Kappa Phi fraternity because of rumors about his sexual orientation. On one level, this is an unsurprising story. But on another, as Pam Spaulding notes, it’s very interesting indeed.

Steele Jackson says Pi Kappa Phi blackballed him when rumors that he was gay began to circulate, but chapter president Chris Stokes denies it, saying the frat doesn’t “discriminate based on … any kind of orientation.” In that, Stokes is following the mandates of the fraternity’s national body, which bars discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

So Jackson, a gay student at an Alabama state college, was willing to say so publicly. The president of the local chapter of the fraternity he pledged denied explicitly that the frat discriminates against gay pledges. And they both made their statements in an article in their campus newspaper.

As Spaulding says, “this particular story has a lot to offer in terms of observations about life in Red State America and the changes that are under way.”

Wisconsin Boots Russell Athletic

February 7, 2009 in Administration, Labor, Student Power, Sweatshops | by | 1 comment

The University of Wisconsin at Madison announced on Thursday that it was cutting its ties to Russell Athetic, the clothing manufacturer. RA has been accused of closing a factory in Honduras in retaliation for union organizing there.

In November the Worker Rights Consortium released a report finding “substantial credible evidence” of such retaliation, and in late January the Fair Labor Association found that RA had engaged in “inappropriate and unacceptable actions” in response to labor organizing.

In a statement, a UW representative said that RA had not “has not met our expectations” regarding workers’ rights.

May 1 Update: FIFTY-SEVEN campuses to date. 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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