USA Today has a front-page story today questioning whether tuition increases lead to better education. The article cites a new study from the Delta Cost Project that found that tuition hikes were not correlated with increased spending on instruction.
Not long after midnight on January 16 of this year, twelve pledges of Yale’s Zeta Psi gathered at the entrance of the campus women’s center. They shouted “Dick! Dick! Dick! Dick!” and held up a sign that said “We Love Yale Sluts.”
Their act was part of a pledging “scavanger hunt,” and a photo of the group holding the sign was soon posted on Facebook.
Interference with the women’s center is an annual ritual during fraternity initiations at Yale. Last year an unidentified group gathered outside the center and chanted “No means yes, yes means anal!”
Under Yale’s code of student conduct, behavior that “has the purpose or effect of unreasonably interfering with an individual’s work or academic performance or creating an intimidating or hostile academic or work environment” constitutes sexual harassment. This year women’s center members, arguing that the chants and the sign had the effect of interfering with women’s access to the center, filed charges of intimidation and harassment against the members of Zeta Psi.
The members of the fraternity were found not guilty of the charges nearly a month ago, but the committee’s decision did not become publicly known until this week, when news leaked to the Yale Daily News. Executive committee disciplinary proceedings are confidential, and no formal statement on the charges or their outcome has been made.
Story via Feministing, who have the best ongoing coverage of campus issues of any major political blog I know.
Update: In the course of filing the charges, the women’s center submitted a 26-page report on fraternity culture, university policies on frats and on sexual harassment, and the status of the women’s center on the Yale campus. That report is now available online.
This month is the 40th anniversary of the Paris uprisings of 1968, launched by students and quickly joined by workers and others. Here’s a pretty good short introduction to those events, and to their place in cultural history.
Two hundred students at Mississippi’s Delta State University walked out of classes yesterday morning to rally against planned budget cuts at the state’s small public colleges. Among those protesting were DSU’s Statesman and “Fighting Okra” mascots, both in full costume.
Mississippi’s public higher education trustees have announced plans to divert funding from several smaller institutions to the flagship University of Mississippi. Ole Miss will receive nearly $2 million in additional funding next year, while DSU stands to lose $175,000. “They are taking money away from a school that produces teachers and nurses,” undergraduate Samantha Styers said, “and giving it a school that produces lawyers and engineers.”
The incoming chair of the state’s College Board said the entire system is “grossly underfunded, and that’s making us have to make very painful choices.”
Nathan Duff, editor of DSU’s Daily Statesman and an organizer of the walkout, said that the protests were not over: “we’re going to keep the pressure on.”
The College Board is slated to consider tuition increases at its next meeting in May.
Eight students were arrested last month when an anti-war protest at New York’s Binghamton University ended in an off-campus confrontation with police.
The protest, which began on the BU campus, culminated in a march on an army recruiting center in a nearby strip mall. Police claim that the march was the cause of two accidents on a nearby roadway, and that one protester jumped in front of a moving patrol car.
When the first arrest was made, other marchers began yelling. Officers contend that there was shoving as well. Police used pepper spray, and ultimately arrested nine protesters, including eight students.
Protesters and members of Binghamton’s undergraduate and graduate student governments met with university administrators last week and received pledges that none of the students will face campus judiciary action as a result of the incident. Criminal charges, including obstructing governmental administration in the second degree, resisting arrest, and disorderly conduct, are still pending.
studentactivism.net 
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