Higher Education

The Student Movement Awakes With A Roar In Argentina

October 17, 2024 Juliana Yantorno, Left Voice. Resist! Anti-Austerity, Argentina, Higher Education, Javier Milei, Student Activism

When far-right president Javier Milei intervened to veto a Congressional bill to fund public universities and keep his slashes to the education budget intact, he had no idea that he would wake up the sleeping beast of Argentina’s student movement. Between October 14 and 15, students and faculty held more than 100 assemblies to decide how to organize the fight against the far right government’s attacks and many voted to occupy their universities. Students are now occupying 72 different schools and departments across the country and they are holding public classes in the streets in 30 universities across Argentina.

BU Graduate Students Reach Deal End Seven-Month Strike

October 13, 2024 Diti Kohli, Portside. Resist! Boston, Graduate Students, Higher Education, Massachusetts, Strikes, Unions, Victory, Worker Rights and Jobs

Boston University and its graduate student union have agreed on terms for a new contract that would raise the graduate students’ pay, benefits, and job protections and end the longest such strike in American history. The agreement, announced jointly on Friday afternoon, concludes seven months of sparring between the administration and the union that represents 3,000 graduate students. Many teach classes, grade papers, and conduct research, and argued the school severely underpaid them for essential work. Now the first-of-its-kind contract includes provisions to raise the annual stipend PhD workers receive to at least $45,000, or $20 an hour for graduate students, which would be as much as a 60 percent bump for the lowest paid PhD students.

Utah Students Win Victory Against Israeli Study Abroad Program

October 9, 2024 Fight Back! News. Resist! BDS Movement, Campus Movement, Higher Education, Israel, Palestine, Palestine Solidarity, Salt Lake City, Utah

Salt Lake City, UT – On October 3, 50 students and community members gathered on the campus of the University of Utah to demand an end to the school’s study abroad program with the University of Haifa, an Israeli military college that practices discrimination against its Arab and Muslim students. Organizers also called for the University of Utah’s full divestment from companies involved in the Israeli genocide in Gaza, reinvestment in student resources, and for the University of Utah to respect students’ right to protest for Palestine. The rally also celebrated the Palestinian resistance. Chris Loera-Peña of Mecha de U of U said, “It’s been a year of genocide, but also a year of non-stop resistance and fighting from the Palestinian people and the entire world.”

Long Beach Demands Return Of Puvungna To Indigenous People

October 6, 2024 Abraham Quintana, Fight Back! News. Resist! California, Higher Education, Indigenous Rights, Landback Movement

Long Beach, CA – On September 28, a crowd of about 20 people, including faculty, students and community members gathered near the Walter Pyramid at California State University, Long Beach (CSULB) while the school started an event to celebrate its 75th anniversary. The protesters chanted “land back!” and made chalk art to advocate for the protection of Puvungna, a 22-acre site located on campus, sacred to the Acjachemen and Tongva peoples of California. The university is bound by a 2021 settlement with the tribes and its representatives to return the land to indigenous custodianship by September 2023, but the administration failed to do so and refuses to make progress towards this goal.

University Of Michigan Moves To Eliminate Due Process For Students

October 5, 2024 Ryan McCarty, Left Voice. Educate! Campus Movement, Higher Education, Police, Repression, Student Activism, University Of Michigan

Over the last two years, the University of Michigan (UM) administration has been fiercely repressing student and worker voices on campus with a combination of police and administrative attacks. The University has conducted large-scale arrests of student protestors demanding divestment from financial ties to the Israeli military, sent campus police to the homes of graduate student union organizers as an intimidation tactic, and violently attacked the community encampment calling for an end to the university’s complicity in the genocide in Gaza. In less physically violent but no less aggressive moves, UM has attempted to discipline the activist Graduate Employee Organization (GEO) union for their 2023 strike and their substantial fights for a living wage, the dismantling of the large campus police apparatus, and divestment from Israel by changing hiring practices for graduate student workers.

University Students Rally Behind Expelled Encampment Leader

September 29, 2024 Martha Grevatt, Workers World. Resist! Campus Movement, Cleveland, Higher Education, Palestine, Student Activism, Suspension

Cleveland - Over 100 pro-Palestine activists rallied and marched to the office of Case Western Reserve University on Sept. 18 in protest of the expulsion of Yousef Khalaf, a leader of the Gaza Solidarity Encampment. CWRU students erected the encampment on April 29 and kept it up until May 10. After Khalaf appealed the discriminatory expulsion and related discipline, a hearing was held in August. There, Jewish students and community members challenged the university narrative equating anti-Zionism with antisemitism. Nevertheless, the CWRU administration upheld its original decision. The one victory was that all of Khalaf’s tuition and housing payments were refunded.

Fossil Fuel Companies Are Hijacking Our Universities

September 21, 2024 Cristen Hemingway Jaynes, EcoWatch. Educate! climate crisis, Fossil Fuels, Higher Education, University Funding

Elite universities in the United States — which conduct important climate research — are raking in millions from fossil fuel interests, potentially creating conflicts of interest. This is according to a collection of new reports compiled by student organizers and released by the student-led Campus Climate Network, as The Guardian reported. “Universities globally are often caught in a web of financial and research dependencies with the fossil fuel sector. These ties not only conflict with the ethics of academic independence but also hinder the progress of genuine climate research,” Campus Climate Network said on its website. One institution, Princeton University, seems to have actually owned an oil company — Petrotiger, named after its mascot — earning it millions of dollars, reported The Guardian.

Necessary Discomfort: The September 18 Career Fair Disruption

September 20, 2024 Nick Wilson, The Cornell Daily Sun. Resist! Cornell, Genocide, Higher Education, Israel, Palestine, Student Activism

On Wednesday, students disrupted the ILR School’s Human Capital and HR Career Fair, which featured recruiters from weapons manufacturers Boeing and L3Harris. Students organized with the Coalition for Mutual Liberation successfully shut the event down using pots, pans and noisemakers in Statler Hall until both employers left the building. They also delivered an indictment to Boeing and L3Harris recruiters finding both companies guilty of aiding and abetting human rights violations, war crimes and genocide. This action has significantly altered incentive structures at our university. For the administration, it has been made clear that inviting arms manufacturers to our campus after 70 percent of students voted to sever ties with them will also invite the risk of a negative student response.

MIT Divests From Israeli Arms Firm Funded Program

September 15, 2024 Al Mayadeen. Resist! BDS Movement, Boston, Campus Movement, Divestment, Higher Education, Israel, Massachusetts, MIT, Palestine

The MISTI-"Israel" Lockheed Martin fund has been shut down after continuous pressure from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT) staff and faculty, the MIT Coalition for Palestine announced on Friday, marking a major divestment win for the university's Scientists Against Genocide (SAGE) movement. "Under pressure from students and scientists of conscience at this Institute, the MIT administration has discontinued MISTI-Israel's Lockheed Martin Seed Fund and will not renew its contract," the organization said in a statement. "This was a major target of our divestment action. The program ends after months of protest against it last fall, including letter deliveries, sit-ins, and public information campaigns," it highlighted.

Young People Will Save The World; We’re The Last Generation That Can

September 14, 2024 Keara Sosa, Counter Punch. Strategize! climate crisis, Higher Education, Sustainability, Youth Activism

The past 20 years have been critical in the fight for bold and sustainable climate solutions. The next five years will be even more vital — and young people like me are fighting hard to make sure our leaders get it right. Research shows we have about five years left to avert global warming beyond 1.5 degrees Celsius, the tipping point when even more severe climate disruptions could exacerbate hunger, conflict and drought worldwide. Climate change — long-term shifts in temperatures and weather patterns primarily due to the burning of fossil fuels like coal and oil — impacts our livelihoods and our lives. It harms our health and well-being and threatens our access to vital resources, from water to food to housing.

WFSE Local 1488 Workers At University Of Washington Rally

September 14, 2024 Fight Back! News. Resist! Higher Education, Seattle, Strikes, Unions, University Workers

Seattle, WA – On Tuesday, September 10, over 100 members of WFSE Local 1488 walked out ahead of their current contract expiring in a few weeks. The union, representing food service, custodial, maintenance and other workers at the University of Washington, has been bargaining since the beginning of June for a strong contract, with university administration stalling. Workers rallied in front of the administration building on Red Square, as well as at a picket line in front of the University of Washington Medical Center. The walkouts at the University of Washington were part of a larger, coordinated walkout by WFSE members across the state of Washington, with thousands walking out in total.

Big Oil And Gas Infiltrate Higher Education To Slow Climate Action

September 6, 2024 Geoff Dembicki, DeSmog. Educate! climate crisis, Corporatism, Higher Education, Oil and Gas Industry, Science Denial

A former Exxon executive sits on a university’s board of trustees. Fossil fuel representatives develop undergraduate courses. Schools lease out their land for fracking. Industry-funded studies end up influencing federal energy policy. These aren’t just isolated examples of oil and gas companies partnering with academic institutions, according to a new study published in the journal WIREs Climate Change by researchers with six universities, but an international effort by the industry spanning decades with the goal of obstructing and slowing down climate action. The authors came to that conclusion by conducting a first-ever review of dozens of existing academic and civil society investigations into fossil fuel infiltration of higher education, looking primarily at institutions in the U.S., UK, Canada, and Australia.

Student Activists Vow To Continue Pro-Palestine Protests Despite Crackdowns

September 5, 2024 Sarah Prager, Scheer Post. Resist! Campus Movement, Higher Education, Israel, Palestine, Palestine Solidarity, Repression, Student Activism

Marie Adele Grosso joined the Columbia University chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) two years ago when she started at Columbia’s Barnard College. She said the group mainly did cultural awareness work back then, but the activism escalated in the spring when they created the first of the college encampments that became an international movement. College students across the country and the world demanded their institutions divest from companies connected to Israel’s slaughter of Palestinians. “I am doing what I believe is moral, and I think everyone has the responsibility to be standing up in whatever way they can,” Grosso said.

Chicago Students Start Strong With ‘Hands Off Lebanon’ Demonstration

September 5, 2024 Fight Back News!. Resist! Chicago, Higher Education, Israel, Lebanon, Palestine, Palestine Solidarity, Student Activi

Chicago, IL – On Thursday, August 29, New Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) started the week strong with a demonstration on campus, with about 90 students, demanding U.S. hands off Lebanon, an end of U.S. aid to Israel and to stand strong with Palestine. Speakers from other progressive student organizations like Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at UIC, and Anakbayan at UIC, also spoke. The rally strengthened the students’ message of funding for education – such as cultural centers and student resources – not for genocide, war and occupation in Palestine.

Universities Strategized All Summer To Suppress Student Activism

September 3, 2024 Carrie Zaremba, Mondoweiss. Educate! Campus Movement, Free Speech, Higher Education, Israel, Palestine, Palestine Solidarity, Repression, Student Activism

University administrators across the United States have declared an indefinite state of emergency on college campuses. Schools are rolling out policies in preparation for quashing pro-Palestine student activism this Fall semester, and reshaping regulations and even campuses in the process to suit this new normal. Many of these policies being instituted share a common formula: more militarization, more law enforcement, more criminalization, and more consolidation of institutional power. But where do these policies originate and why are they so similar across all campuses? The answer lies in the fact that they have been provided by the “risk and crisis management” consulting industries, with the tacit support of trustees, Zionist advocacy groups, and federal agencies.

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