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Student Activism

Cornell Workers Strike For The First Time In Decades

As students moved into campus, Cornell University’s 1,200 dining, custodial, and maintenance workers in Ithaca, New York, walked off the job August 18. “When you’re not getting paid a living wage in a place that certainly has the money to pay, it feels disrespectful,” said Josh Dexter, a cook. “It can burn out the flame for people.” The university emailed professors, administrative staff, and retirees, urging them to pick up scab shifts. Students reported a hectic start of classes and terrible dining hall food. Cornell also brought in scabs from temporary work agencies like Stafkings and Express Employment. Even Cornell President Michael Kotlikoff was spotted working the dining halls.

CUNY Workers And Students Will Write A New Chapter Of Class Struggle

Another school year is starting at the City University of New York (CUNY). We’ll arrive on campuses that are dilapidated and falling apart. Broken elevators and escalators plague campuses across the city. Some departments are in a last-minute scramble to hire adjuncts for classes. It’s an affront to us as workers and to our students who deserve a quality education. Even though I’ve spent all week preparing for the semester, adjuncts and many others don’t get paid until two weeks into the semester. I have $30 in my bank account and I have to borrow money from friends again. Some adjuncts are on food stamps.

Students, Community Members Battle Repression Of Pro-Palestine Protesters

George Washington University, Washington, DC – On Thursday, August 22, over 300 people gathered at James Monroe Park in downtown DC to support the student intifada. Last semester, students and community members from across the DMV set up an encampment at The George Washington University (GWU), called “Shohada’ Square.” Those involved have been facing charges from the courts, repression from the university, and brutalization by the police. August 22 marked the first day of classes for the 2024 fall semester at GWU, and student organizers planned a protest to remind administration that they will not back down.

As Classes Start, Universities Begin A New Wave Of Repression

The University of California and the California State University system – which is the nation’s largest public university system – have both announced they will enforce a “zero tolerance” policy toward new encampments. Both Rutgers University and George Washington University have suspended Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at their campuses, with George Washington also suspending Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP). Meanwhile, Columbia University, which was the epicenter of the student movement, maintains a near-total lockdown that has closed the campus off to the public and is considering granting campus police the power to arrest students.

‘Summer School’ Activists Plan Pro-Palestinian Protests At US Colleges

Student activists are planning a fresh wave of pro-Palestine protests at US colleges this fall, boosted by a “summer school” led by organizers over the break, ramping up coordination and strategy in the wake of police crackdowns on campuses this past spring. Despite academic suspensions, doxing attempts and the arrests of more than 3,000 students nationwide, the students who occupied their campuses’ lawns with tents last semester are gearing up for another – possibly bigger – round of demonstrations “on all fronts, by all means”, calling once again for a ceasefire in Gaza and for their colleges to divest from financial ties to Israel.

The Crackdown On Campus Protests Is Just Beginning

On April 24, as students were wrapping up their semester at Indiana University (IU) in Bloomington, the school’s provost convened an ad hoc committee to discuss a planned protest against the war in Gaza that was set to begin the following day. It was less than a week after Columbia University had called in the NYPD to break up an encampment in Manhattan, arresting more than 100 students, and tensions were running high nationwide. Already, over the winter, Indiana University had suspended a professor for sponsoring a talk by the student Palestine Solidarity Committee and canceled a major retrospective exhibition — in the works for years — by the 87-year-old Palestinian American painter and IU alumnus Samia Halaby, an outspoken critic of the Israeli occupation.

Divestment At The University Of Edinburgh

This Monday 17th June 2024, the University of Edinburgh Court rules on a historical decision on whether or not to begin an active and immediate process of divestment from ‘controversial weapons’ complicit in Palestinian dispossession and Israeli settler colonialism, which the University has been entangled with for well over a century.  The ruling of the court could mean immediate divestment from companies like Amazon and Alphabet as their ‘AI solutions’ might be plausibly in use in the mass targeting of civilians in Gaza. This would set a grand precedent and would serve as a concrete step to reducing our institutional complicity in violence against Palestinians.

UC Santa Cruz Chancellor Unleashes Police Mayhem Against Students

Before midnight on May 30, 2024, police officers from across California descended on the Gaza Solidarity encampment at UC Santa Cruz. Numbering in the few hundreds, police from the UC Santa Cruz, UC San Francisco, UC Davis, UC Riverside, as well as San Jose, San Bruno, San Mateo, Daly City, Pacifica, South San Francisco, Santa Clara, and Watsonville police departments, the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office, and the California Highway Patrol responded to a request, authorized by UCSC Chancellor Cynthia Larive, for “mutual aid.” What ensued was a brutal multi-agency assault by CHP and other police against unarmed protesters that lasted for nine hours and resulted in significant injuries.

Students, Gaza And A New Vision Of Safety

The sign hanging over the student encampment at Chicago’s DePaul University bore a slogan that has echoed through almost all of the justice movements over the past several years: ​“We Keep Us Safe.” The tents beneath it fragile, just a thin layer of canvas between the students and the rest of the world. A statement of purpose and of solidarity; a reminder of the tents so many Palestinians in Gaza are living in right now as they move, and move again, and move again from homes destroyed by U.S.-made bombs delivered by Israeli planes into supposed safe zones. But is there a safe zone when its safety is declared by the people who have declared war on you?

Corporate Media Push Conspiracy Theories To Discredit Students

Across corporate media, journalists and pundits introduced conspiracy theories to discredit the pro-Palestine student protest movement, particularly that they are funded by foreign countries or “outside agitators.” MSNBC‘s Joe Scarborough (5/9/24) went on a rant about the college students who have been staging the protests, suggesting to guest Hillary Clinton that they were influenced by China or Qatar: I’m going to talk about radicalism on college campuses. The sort of radicalism that has mainstream students getting propaganda, whether it’s from their professors or whether it’s from Communist Chinese government through TikTok, calling the president of the United States “Genocide Joe.” Calling you and President Clinton war criminals. Eventually, he called the students “extremists—I’m sorry—funded by Qatar.”

Every Single Day, Biden Chooses To Continue Funding Genocide

A dozen Debt Collective members were arrested when a coalition of students, debtors and cease-fire activists gathered recently in Washington, D.C. with a simple demand: ​“Fund Education, Not Genocide.” Pointing to the Biden administration’s use of executive powers to approve millions of dollars in arms shipments to Israel — and his refusal to use that same authority to advance student debt relief — Debt Collective organizers marched from the Department of Education to the Capitol to make their voices heard. Democratic Congresswomen Cori Bush (D-MO) and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) addressed the crowd, urging attendees to keep the pressure on the Biden administration. ​

Lessons From The Wayne State University Encampment

Amid the latest military offensive in Rafah, the movement in solidarity with Palestine has remained active. Students across the country have been at the vanguard, setting up encampments and demanding that their universities divest from the Israeli war machine. The response from university administrations has been repression so intense that it has sparked broad outrage and condemnation because of its chilling effect on the right to protest and dissent. The intense crackdowns have led sectors of the movement to take up the issue of repression as a central part of the fight for Palestine.

Pro-Palestinian Protesters Re-Establish An Encampment

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania - At least 200 Pro-Palestinian protesters gathered outside of the Cathedral of Learning lawn on Sunday evening to re-establish a “Palestine solidarity encampment.” At least one person was arrested. This comes over a month after the previous “Gaza solidarity encampment,” which saw a large group of protesters set up camp in Schenley Park for nearly a week. The protests began at the Cathedral lawn around 5:30 p.m. on Sunday evening. The protestors set up wooden barricades and fences to block police from entering the encampment. As the evening went on, more protesters joined the initial group.

Chicano Students Walkout For Principal To Get Job Back

Los Angeles, CA – On the morning of May 28, over 100 Chicano students at Mendez High School walked out of their classes. Students were demanding that their school principal Mauro Bautista be brought back after mysteriously being removed for more than a month now from the school. Starting at 9 a.m., the students walked out of their classes and marched along the front of the school, holding a banner that read, “Free Jefe!” After the march and coming back to school premises, the students refused to return to classes and staged a sit-in, where organizers read their demands and made speeches. Their demands were clear

Union Power Can Change Campus Protests Forever

Strikes are different from protests. Though protesters frequently say that they are making ​“demands,” it is more accurate to say they are making requests. Protests rely on persuasion. Their persuasion may be gentle, or it may be aggressive. It may rely on moral shaming to get its point across, or it may rely on the elevation of awareness, or it may rely on the pure intimidation of numbers. But protests, for all of their righteous fury and necessity, lack the legal ability to shut things down until change is achieved. Strikers, on the other hand, can truly make demands. Their proposition is simple: No work will get done until a change is made.
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