Student Activism

Newark Students Camping Out At School District HQs For Days

February 21, 2015 Rebecca Klein, www.huffingtonpost.com Resist! Education, Student Activism

Instead of going to class or eating dinner at home with their parents, a group of New Jersey students has been living inside the headquarters of Newark Public Schools this week. Since Tuesday evening, eight students have occupied the office suite of NPS Superintendent Cami Anderson. The students -- who belong to a group called the Newark Students Union -- do not intend to leave until Anderson meets with them and hears their concerns about how the district is being run, Thais Marques, a local community organizer who has been staying with the students, told The Huffington Post. The students also want Anderson to agree to go to the next district advisory board meeting. Anderson stopped attending these public community meetings last February, after facing verbal attacks.

Next For Fossil Fuel Divestment Campaign: Escalate

February 20, 2015 Divestment Student Network, www.commondreams.org Resist! Divestment, Education, Fossil Fuels, Student Activism

Whether they are trustees who ask Harvard students to "thank BP," or presidents who believe that turning off light bulbs can help solve climate change, administrators have revealed themselves to be out of touch with reality. Presumably in the fantasy world of college boardrooms, the fossil fuel industry neither poisons hometowns nor receives $88 billion in corporate welfare a year. Yet back on planet Earth, students know that university endowments gamble away our futures with investments that undermine everything higher education stands for. At this crucial juncture in history, to value critical thinking and academic credibility is to value climate justice. That is why this spring, we will ask our administrators, "Whose side are you on?"

Newark Student Sit-in Heads Into Its Second Night

February 19, 2015 Naomi Nix, www.nj.com Resist! Education, New Jersey (NJ), Student Activism

The impasse between the Newark youth staging a sit-in at Newark Public Schools' headquarters and the school system will reach its second straight night, activists and officials said. While the district continues to urge students to go home and attend class, the Newark Student Union reiterated their call for superintendent Cami Anderson's resignation "At this point it's non-negotiable," Thais Marques, one of the union's co-founders and a Rutgers student, said in a phone interview this evening. "She is incapable of engaging with students. She is incapable of engaging with the community." The student demonstration, which includes about six Newark Public School students, received a groundswell of support from Newark community groups who have been vocal critics of Anderson's leadership and the school district's controversial reforms.

Campus Divestment Campaign’s Investment In Young Activists

February 15, 2015 Moira Donovan, www.rabble.ca Resist! Climate Change, Coal, Divestment, Oil & Gas, Student Activism, Youth

As with many student-led movements, divestment campaigns have been dismissed by critics in the fossil fuel industry as nothing more than naïve idealism. Some researchers have also suggested that divestment campaigns, focused as they are on investments that directly relate to fossil fuels, would have limited economic impact. The economic tethers of fossil fuels, they say, stretch throughout the economy, including to the sites of investment that some divestment movements have suggested as alternatives. Yet for the students involved, understanding divestment as a strictly economic tool misses the point. Compared to private companies or governments, says Malkolm Boothroyd of Divest UVic, universities are a realistic starting point for divestment. Just as importantly, he adds, "Universities are well respected. When a university comes out and says it is not moral to invest in fossil fuels, that creates momentum." Like the campaign for divestment from South Africa in the 1980s or tobacco in the 1990s, the current movement seeks to strip fossil fuels of their social license. For James Hutt of Divest Dal, the purpose of divestment is not just to economically undermine fossil fuels, but to promote the idea that that they're socially unacceptable.

Unions, Students Rally On UWM Campus Against Cuts

February 13, 2015 Graham Kilmer, www.mediamilwaukee.com Resist! Austerity, Labor Unions, Student Activism, Wisconsin

A group of about 60 students gathered in Spaights plaza Wednesday at a rally organized by the Progressive Students of Milwaukee to protest the recently proposed cut of $300 million to the UW-System. Speakers addressed the crowd and fired them up for a march around the campus. At the protest, students participated in chants calling for an end to the cuts proposed by Gov. Walker, as well as chants to show solidarity and pride in their message. Mott expressed serious concern about the cuts to education in Walker’s proposal. He even questioned Walker’s credibility to make a decision like this being that Walker never graduated college.

Demanding Divestment, Protesters Remained In Mass. Hall

February 13, 2015 Mariel A. Klein and Theodore R. Delwich, www.thecrimson.com Resist! Divestment, Fossil Fuels, Student Activism

Roughly 20 students remained in Massachusetts Hall, home to the office of University President Drew G. Faust, late Thursday night after a group of more than 30 stormed and occupied the building that morning, demanding that Harvard divest its $35.9 billion endowment from fossil fuels. Though the group, Divest Harvard, detailed plans on Thursday night for a Friday afternoon rally outside of Mass. Hall, co-coordinator Talia K. Rothstein '17 said that the remaining protesters had no immediate plans to leave the building. The occupation began Thursday morning at about 10 a.m. when more than 30 members of Divest, many dressed in orange, entered the building and followed an administrator through a door that would otherwise have been locked.

Cornell Students Occupy Building Protesting Health Fee

February 12, 2015 Sofia Hu, www.cornellsun.com Resist! Health Care, Student Activism

Over 100 students occupied Day Hall for at least four hours Monday, clashing with administrators as they packed offices and opposed the new $350 annual health fee. Throughout the hours-long Day Hall occupation, students and administrators found themselves in numerous heated confrontations over University policy. The protest — named “#FightTheFee” and organized by the Save the Pass coalition, which previously held protests in support of free first-year Tompkins Consolidated Area Transit bus passes — started slowly in Willard Straight Hall at noon. Before the protest began, several administrators were already at the site. Denise Cassaro, associate director for student leadership, engagement and campus activities, was the event manager for the protest and said she wanted to ensure the “safety” of all students at the protest.

Ingredients For Building Courage

February 12, 2015 George Lakey, www.wagingnonviolence.org Strategize! Civil Rights, Media, Student Activism

The students’ stated mission was to teach in Freedom Schools and organize African Americans to try to register to vote despite heavy repression. Their unstated mission was to draw the attention of the North to hardcore segregation and force the federal government against its will to support the right to vote. Northern students taking large risks would be attention-getters, and might even offer some measure of protection to the embattled field workers with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, or SNCC, who had been in Mississippi since 1961. Even to take the bus to the training, most students would have endured strong opposition from family and friends fearful for their safety.

13 Protesters Arrested After Taking Over UMN President’s Office

February 10, 2015 Paul Walsh and Libor Jany, www.startribune.com Resist! Education, Police, Racial Justice, Student Activism

About 16 University of Minnesota students alleging on-campus racial and ethnic discrimination took over school President Eric Kaler’s second-floor office in Morrill Hall Monday afternoon. They discussed their issues with Kaler, Provost Karen Hanson and Katrice Albert, vice president for Equity and Diversity, said university spokesman Steve Henneberry in a statement. The action began about 11:30 in the morning. By 7:15 p.m., three protesters opted to leave the office, while 13 others who declined to leave were arrested and removed by police. A group of students with signs stood outside Morrill, which was locked. Anyone needing to enter the building, at 100 SE. Church St., had to show identification, said Henneberry, speaking from his first-floor Morrill Hall office.

Wisconsin Students Protest Budget Cuts

February 7, 2015 Mteaching All Children, www.mtea.weac.org Resist! Education, Student Activism

“Money for public education, not for tax cuts to corporations!” Chants rang as the UW Board of Regents walked into their meeting this morning. UW students lined the entrances of the meeting to let Regents know where they stood on Gov. Walker’s massive budget cuts to public education. Five minutes before the meeting began, the group organizers announced they would go into the meeting to sit in silent protest with their signs held high. However, many demonstrators were not allowed into the meeting. As the number of protestors grew, the University Police shut the doors and said the room was at capacity.

Students Force 16 Universities To End Sweatshop Contracts

February 3, 2015 Julia Wang and Morgan Currier, www.portside.org Resist! Capitalism, Student Activism

United Students Against Sweatshops has successfully pressured 16 colleges and universities to end their contracts with VF Corp – owner of Jansport, North Face, and Vans – over the company’s refusal to sign the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh, a legally-binding agreement between brands and unions – now signed by over 180 brands and retailers – that holds the promise of putting an end to mass fatality disasters in the garment industry VF Corporation, the largest maker of branded apparel in the world, is the parent company of popular brands including the North Face, Vans, Jansport, Timberland, and 32 others. In Bangladesh, VF Corporation sources from 90 factories, employing over 190,000 garment workers.

Students Save Palestine

January 31, 2015 David Swanson, www.worldbeyondwar.org Organize! BDS, Israel, Palestine, Student Activism

In proposing that Congress Members boycott or walk out on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s planned speech to Congress, expected to push for sanctions if not war on Iran, activists are drawing on actions engaged in by college students in recent years, as they have boycotted or walked out on or disrupted speeches by Israeli soldiers and officials on U.S. campuses. Netanyahu’s noodle-headed move — oblivious, apparently, to the U.S. government’s effective evolution into a term-limited monarchy — may provide a boost to both the movement to free Palestine and the movement to prevent a war on Iran. Peace activists sometimes marvel at how young people have taken up environmentalist activism (with very little emphasis on the environmental destruction caused by militarism). Why, antiwar activists ask, don’t young people get active opposing wars?

Peter McLaren: Putting Radical Life In Schools

January 26, 2015 Paul Street, www.truth-out.org Strategize! Capitalism, Education, Privatization, Student Activism

"School reform" has a very bad reputation among left thinkers and activists for some very good reasons in the neoliberal era. Captive to corporate-backed school privatization activists, contemporary "school reform" sets public schools, teachers, and teacher unions up to fail by blaming them for low student standardized test scores that are all-too unmentionably the product of students' low socioeconomic status and related racial and ethnic oppression. Its obsession with test scores assaults imagination and critical thinking, narrowing curriculum and classroom experience around the lifeless task of filling in the correct bubbles beneath droves of authoritarian multiple-"choice" questions crafted in distant, sociopathic corporate cubicles.

Meet the ‘Radical Brownies’ – Girl Scouts For The Modern Age

January 24, 2015 Jorge Rivas, www.fusion.net Resist! Student Activism, Youth

Not all girl scouts are concerned with peddling shortbread cookies. There’s one troop of young girls in Oakland that discusses matters of racial inequality and wear brown berets in an homage to radical civil rights groups. The girls, ages 8-12, are part of the “Radical Brownies,” an edgier, younger version of the Girl Scouts, where girls earn badges for completing workshops on social protests, and a beauty workshop that celebrate racial diversity. Radical Brownies is dedicated to providing young girls of color relevant life experiences, explains the group’s co-founder Anayvette Martinez. Martinez, a community organizer, created the Radical Brownies with Marilyn Hollinquest because “there aren’t enough spaces [for young girls of color] in our society.”

Police Tear Gas Kids Protesting Removal Of Their Playground

January 21, 2015 Brian Ries, www.mashable.com Resist! Education, Kenya, police brutality, Student Activism

Police in Kenya on Monday tear gassed a group of schoolchildren who were demonstrating against the removal of their school's playground by powerful politician. The children eventually toppled the wall. Moments later, however, police shot tear-gas canisters into the crowd, sending the children scrambling. Local TV footage showed children writhing in pain, screaming and choking because of the tear gas. A group of students from Langata Road Primary School — between the ages of six and 14 and clad in their green and blue school uniforms — pushed down a wall erected around their playground. It was acquired by a private developer said to be a powerful politician, according to Boniface Mwangi, a Kenyan photojournalist at the scene.

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