Arizona Law Would Ban “Race-Based” Clubs

April 19, 2008 in Civil Liberties, Race | by | 2 comments

A bill passed by a committee of the Arizona state legislature would prohibit groups “based in whole or in part on race-based criteria” from operating at the the state’s public colleges and universities. The bill would also ban courses and “school sponsored activities” that, taken “as a whole,” serve to “denigrate, disparage, or overtly encourage dissent from the values of American democracy and western civilization,” and would be binding on high schools as well as colleges.

“This bill basically says, ‘You’re here. Adopt American values,'” one state legislator told a reporter. “If you want a different culture, then fine, go back to that culture.”

The text of the bill is online here.

The Right to Protest.

April 19, 2008 in Campus Protests, Civil Liberties, History, Quotes | by | Leave a comment

As I noted yesterday, three anti-sweatshop sit-ins have ended in arrests in the last week, but the Chancellor of UNC, where the most recent protest is still ongoing, is taking a different tack, at least for now. When he left his office yesterday evening, he went so far as to clap along with the chanting protesters, and wish them a “nice weekend.”

The Charlotte Observer has made an interesting response to the UNC protest — on Friday it posted an extended excerpt from the US Supreme Court’s 1969 Tinker v. Des Moines decision on its website. Tinker overturned a local school district’s ban on the wearing of black armbands to protest the Vietnam War, and is, as the paper notes, one of the court’s most important students’ rights rulings.

Here’s a quote from the Tinker ruling, snipped from the excerpt posted at the Charlotte Observer site: 

In our system, state-operated schools may not be enclaves of totalitarianism. School officials do not possess absolute authority over their students. Students in school as well as out of school are “persons” under our Constitution. They are possessed of fundamental rights which the State must respect, just as they themselves must respect their obligations to the State. In our system, students may not be regarded as closed-circuit recipients of only that which the State chooses to communicate. They may not be confined to the expression of those sentiments that are officially approved.

The full text of the Tinker decision and an audio file of the oral argument in the case can be found here.

Three More Anti-Sweatshop Sit-Ins

April 18, 2008 in Sweatshops | by | Leave a comment

We reported yesterday on an anti-sweatshop sit-in at the University of Montana. Now comes word of a similar sit-in on Tuesday at Penn State that ended with 31 arrests, another at Appalachian State University last week, and a fourth underway yesterday at the University of North Carolina. All of the protests are directed at convincing the universities to adopt the Designated Supplier Program for university licensed apparel.

Update: The UNC sit-in continued overnight, and an article in the campus’s Daily Tar Heel quotes university Chancellor James Moeser as saying the protesters “are probably not going to be arrested.” The protest, he said, is “part of our tradition of free speech.” 

Further Update: The University of Montana sit-in was reportedly the first on that campus since the Vietnam War. In related news, Washington State University averted protests this week by agreeing to sign on to the Designated Suppliers Program.

Yet Another Update: A detailed rundown of the Appalachian State sit-in can be found here. That blog, wataugawatch, is continuing to follow the story in the aftermath of the arrests.

Obama Trouncing Clinton in College Paper Endorsements

April 17, 2008 in Campus Press, Politics | by | 1 comment

The Tapped blog reported today that the Daily Pennsylvanian of the University of Pennsylvania had endorsed Hillary Clinton, calling the nod Clinton’s first “major college paper endorsement.”

Actually, according to the University Wire, the Pennsylvanian is the fourth college paper to endorse Hillary, joining the UT Daily Texan, Boston University’s Daily Free Press, and the George Washington University GW Hatchet.

That doesn’t mean it’s a contest, though — UW says Obama has 45 campus newspaper endorsements so far.

U of Montana Sit-In Ends With Arrests

April 17, 2008 in Sweatshops | by | Leave a comment

Nine student protesters at the University of Montana were handcuffed and arrested Wednesday evening, ending a sit-in in the university president’s office that had begun at noon that day. According to the Missoulian newspaper:

 

The nine people arrested are members of Students for Social and Economic Justice, a group that wants the university to adopt the “Designated Suppliers Program” promoted by the Workers Rights Consortium, a nonprofit labor rights group that monitors and investigates working conditions around the world. The DSP identifies manufacturing companies and factories that provide good working conditions.

The protesters were charged with misdemeanor counts of criminal trespassing and disorderly conduct and released.

About This Blog

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

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