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Brown SDSers Get Probation for Protest

December 28, 2008 in Students | by Angus Johnston | 1 comment

Seven members of Brown University’s chapter of Students for a Democratic Society have been given probation by a university disciplinary board for their roles in an October protest.

Each of the seven will have to perform fifty hours of community service, four will have to write papers on university governance, and one will have to write a paper on privacy issues. In addition, the university will formally notify each student’s parents about the ruling and the punishments.

The charges stemmed from a protest at an early October meeting of the university’s governing “Corporation,” at which one group of students rushed the door of the building in which the meeting was being held, and another attempted to enter through an upper-floor window with a ladder. The students were expressing “concerns about the Corporation’s exclusive decision-making procedures and lack of transparency.”

The hearing on the charges lasted 19 hours. Eight students were named in the complaint, but one was exonerated after he produced witnesses showing that he had not been among those who stormed the meeting.

Top Youth Organizing of 2008

December 27, 2008 in Students | by Angus Johnston | Leave a comment

WireTap magazine has posted a list of its Top Youth Activism Victories of 2008.

The list is capped by the Obama election, of course, but it also incorporates campaigns around labor environmental organizing, farmworkers’ rights, immigration, juvenile justice, education, and anti-violence work.

Check it out.

The Atlantic on the Griots

December 27, 2008 in Campus Protests, History, Politics, Student Power, Youth | by Angus Johnston | 1 comment

Via Arts and Letters Daily comes an Atlantic essay on the causes and implications of the Greek youth and student riots. Why are they happening? Why now? And what can we expect in 2009?

Excerpts:

“Youth unemployment is high throughout the European Union, but it is particularly high in Greece, hovering between 25 and 30 percent. With few job prospects, rampant poverty in the face of nouveau riche prosperity, a public university system in shambles, a bloated government sector in desperate need of an overhaul, and a weak, defensive conservative government with only a one-seat majority in parliament, it is a ripe period for protests…”

“The first real crack in the military regime came in November 1973, when protests at the Athens Polytechnic led to the downfall of one junta leader and the ascension of another, whose regime was toppled the next year with the reinstitution of democracy. From then on, student protests in Greece have had a particularly poignant legitimacy to them, as well as a distinctly leftist edge, laced with the left’s uniquely effective ability to question authority…”

“Yes, youth alienation in Greece is influenced by a particular local history that I’ve very briefly outlined here. But it is also influenced by sweeping international trends of uneven development, in which the uncontrolled surges and declines of capitalism have left haves and bitter have-nots, who, in Europe, often tend to be young people. And these young people now have the ability to instantaneously organize themselves through text messages and other new media…”

“Pay close attention to Greece; at a time of world-wide economic upheaval, it might eerily presage disturbances elsewhere in 2009.”