By any means necessary.

October 8, 2008 in History, Media, Quotes, Race, Student Power | by | Leave a comment

At the 1967 Congress of the US National Student Association (NSA), the delegates present passed a resolution endorsing the Black Power movement, which they defined as a struggle for the unification and liberation of black people in America “by any means necessary.”

These last four words got a lot of attention.

One of the most prominent attacks on the resolution came from the New York Times, In an editorial entitled “Appeasing Negro Extremists.” The resolution, the Times declared, was “morally … inexcusable” because it was “insincere.” Surely the members of NSA did not, it continued, “believe that American Negroes have the right to seek something called ‘liberation’ by murder, arson and other terror tactics,” as “the phrase ‘by any means necessary’ clearly implies.”

A few days later Ed Schwartz, NSA’s newly elected president, replied in a letter to the editor. 

The Black Power resolution had, Schwartz noted, made no reference to “murder, arson, and other terror tactics.” Its authors had deliberately left the phrase vague, leaving it “to the reader of the resolution to determine what means will be necessary to achieve social progress in this country.”

“If the Times believes,” he continued, “that ‘murder, arson and other terror tactics’ have become ‘necessary means’ to social progress, then it should examine why such tactics … have become ‘necessary.’ … Those who predict violence are,” he said, “admitting that we will remain incapable of solving problems of our own creation. The National Student Association is unwilling to make such an admission.”

John McCain’s Antiwar Friend.

October 7, 2008 in Campus Protests, History, Politics | by | 2 comments

If Bill Ayers’ name is brought up in tonight’s presidential debate, don’t be too surprised if someone mentions another radical opponent of the war in Vietnam, David Ifshin.

Ifshin, a campus protest leader who was elected student government president at Syracuse University in 1969-70 and the president of the National Student Association in 1970-71, visited North Vietnam in December of 1970 to promote a “People’s Peace Treaty” calling for an end to the war.

While he was there, he recorded a speech attacking the war, saying that the US was not fighting “for democracy or to defend the right of the people, but … to murder the people of Vietnam in order to make South Vietnam into one large US military base.” That speech was later broadcast as propaganda directed at American troops, including POW John McCain.

So why would anyone mention Ifshin tonight? Well, it’s a long and strange story, but the short version is that Ifshin came to regret giving that speech, and eventually became active in Democratic party politics. He and McCain met in the mid-1980s — at an AIPAC conference, of all places — and became friends. Ifshin died of cancer in 1996, and McCain delivered a eulogy at his funeral, saying that Ifshin had “always felt passionate about his country,” and “always tried to do justice to others.”

David Ifshin and John McCain forged a friendship that was grounded in a belief in redemption and forgiveness. John McCain may very well draw a distinction between Ifshin and Ayers tonight, and if he doesn’t, it’s just possible that Barack Obama will draw a parallel between the two.

U of Illinois Sets Restrictions on Employee Speech

October 4, 2008 in Administration, Civil Liberties, Politics, Voting Rights | by | Leave a comment

Via Bitch PhD and Inside Higher Ed comes word of new directives on political speech sent out by the ethics office of the University of Illinois system to all university employees.

According to the directives, university employees are not permitted to engage in the following activities “while working, when on University property, while using University resources … or when acting as a representative of the University”:

  • Preparing for or participating in any rally or event related to a specific political candidate, party, or referendum – this includes preparation and circulation of campaign materials, petitions, or literature
  • Soliciting contributions or votes on behalf of a particular political party or candidate
  • Assisting at the polls on behalf of any political party, candidate, or organization
  • Surveying or conducting an opinion poll related to anticipating an election outcome, or participating in a recount challenge related to an electionoutcome
  • Running for political office
The message goes on to say that wearing pins or t-shirts that support specific candidates or parties, “distributing, producing, or posting flyers or other campaign literature on campus,” conducting voter registration work that is identified with a particular candidate, displaying partisan bumper sticker’s on one’s car, and attending on-campus political rallies, even on one’s own time, are all prohibited activities.

Discussion of these regulations has so far focused on their effect on faculty free speech, but they are explicitly identified as applying to all university employees, including professional and non-professional staff. On their face, the rules would appear to apply to student employees of the university as well — did the university really mean to suggest that if you work as an RA or in a dining hall or staffing the check-out desk in the library a few hours a week, you’re not allowed to wear an Obama pin to class or attend a rally for a local candidate?

We’ll be following this story.

Credit Crunch Hits Colleges.

October 2, 2008 in Students | by | Leave a comment

The New York Times reported yesterday that the troubled Wachovia bank has restricted colleges’ and universities’ access to a $9.3 billion fund in which more than a thousand American higher education insitutions have money invested.

On Monday, Wachovia announced that it has cash on hand to cover just 26% of investments in the fund, and that it would be capping withdrawals from the fund at 10% of any institution’s stake.

For some small colleges the fund represents a major portion of their short-term investments. The University of Vermont, for instance, told the Times that half of its $79 million in liquid operating funds was held by Wachovia.

Monday’s action raised concerns about the safety of other investment funds serving colleges and universities in a general climate of financial uncertainty. In an unrelated move, Boston University on Tuesday announced that it was suspending all hiring except for public safety officers effective immediately, and that it was halting all new construction on campus for the indefinite future.

“…the right of students to be masters of their own destiny…”

September 30, 2008 in Students | by | Leave a comment

It was reported last night that Sarah Palin, when asked by Katie Couric to discuss a Supreme Court case other than Roe v. Wade, couldn’t come up with a single one.

In the course of a discussion of this piece of news, a friend of mine mentioned the case Wisconsin v. Yoder, which I was vaguely familiar with, but hadn’t ever read, and so I went and looked it up.

Yoder was a 1972 case in which, to quote Wikipedia, “the United States Supreme Court found that Amish children could not be placed under compulsory education past 8th grade, as it violated their parents’ fundamental right to freedom of religion.” The case was decided in a unanimous 7-0 ruling, but Justice William O. Douglas filed a partial dissent, and it’s that dissent which makes the case relevant to this blog. 

Here’s an excerpt:

The Court’s analysis assumes that the only interests at stake in the case are those of the Amish parents on the one hand, and those of the State on the other. The difficulty with this approach is that, despite the Court’s claim, the parents are seeking to vindicate not only their own free exercise claims, but also those of their high-school-age children. … On this important and vital matter of education, I think the children should be entitled to be heard. While the parents, absent dissent, normally speak for the entire family, the education of the child is a matter on which the child will often have decided views. He may want to be a pianist or an astronaut or an oceanographer. To do so he will have to break from the Amish tradition. It is the future of the students, not the future of the parents, that is imperiled by today’s decision. … It is the student’s judgment, not his parents’, that is essential if we are to give full meaning to what we have said about the Bill of Rights and of the right of students to be masters of their own destiny. If he is harnessed to the Amish way of life by those in authority over him and if his education is truncated, his entire life may be stunted and deformed. The child, therefore, should be given an opportunity to be heard before the State gives the exemption which we honor today.

About This Blog

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

To contact Angus, click here. For more about him, check out AngusJohnston.com.