SDS Holds 5th National Convention, Lays Plans to Build Student Movement

The following article by Mike Gold is from Fight Back! News:

Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) 5th National Convention, October 2010, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. (Fight Back! News/Staff)

Milwaukee, WI – On Oct. 23-24, around 100 student activists from across the country converged here for the fifth Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) National Convention.

From Diablo Valley and Los Angeles, California, Dallas, Texas, Gainesville, Florida and College Park, Maryland, SDS chapters came together to share their experiences organizing locally and to discuss the two major campaigns – education rights and anti-war – that SDS has been leading nationally and to talk about the next steps for the student movement in the U.S.

Interview with FRSO student leader on the campus movement and October 7 protests

Education rights protest in Milwaukee, WI. (Fight Back! News/Staff)

The following is from Fight Back! News:

Interview with FRSO student leader on the campus movement and October 7 protests
States more students are becoming revolutionaries and communists

Fight Back! interviewed Kas Schwerdtfeger, a co-chair of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization student commission.

Fight Back!: What are the big issues on campus this fall? Where is the student movement at right now?

Kas Schwerdtfeger: Like last year, students are facing the effects of budget cuts on their campuses – from fee and tuition hikes to cuts in services. Most schools have only been in session for a few weeks, but already we are seeing students protest at the University of New Orleans over budget cuts, ending in a occupation of the chancellor’s office and confrontations with police. On some campuses the mood may be simmering resentment, on others, outrage, but students across the country are realizing that each semester brings more cuts, making education more and more expensive, inaccessible, and of less and less quality.

Justice for Kofi! Gainesville students protest police shooting

Community members speak out on the University of Florida campus before marching over to the Board of Trustees meeting. (Allan Brooks)

The following article by Jared Hamill is from Fight Back! News:

Gainesville, FL – Over 400 angry protesters – a coalition of students, local residents and university professors – rallied and marched to protest the racist police shooting of Kofi Adu-Brempong.

Adu-Brempong is an international graduate student from Ghana who was shot in the face by a University of Florida policeman. After receiving a call from a neighbor concerned that Adu-Brempong was screaming, due to stress over his studies and his immigration status, campus police stormed his apartment, tased him three times and then shot him in the face with an assault rifle.

SDS Holds 4th National Convention

The following is from Fight Back! News:

by Chapin Gray

Murfreesboro, TN – Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) held its fourth annual national convention here, July 11 -12, bringing together around 100 students and youth activists from across the country.

Protesters were right to shut down the racist Tancredo

The following commentary by Kosta Harlan is from Fight Back! News:

Students at University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill made national headlines last week when they confronted the racist ex-congressman Tom Tancredo. 200 students marched, shouted down, or silently protested Tancredo. When 60 students chanted in the lobby of the building where he was to speak, police attacked the demonstration with pepper spray. Two women were thrown to the floor, another protester had her hair pulled by a cop and several people were pushed into the walls. The police drove the students out by threatening them with tasers. Shortly after we were pushed out, a window was broken and the event was shut down.

Thousands of articles, commentaries, and editorials have been written on this event. Most of it is a waste of everyone’s time. In typical mainstream media fashion, most of the coverage has completely turned reality on its head. Like Malcolm X would have said, they make the victim look like the villain and the oppressors look like the oppressed.

Chapel Hill: An Open Letter to Chancellor Holden Thorp

The following open letter, along with numerous other letters of support and statements of solidarity, is from the UNC Chapel Hill SDS website. Though I may not agree with every word of it, I am reposting here as it gets into some of the debate about ‘free speech’ raging over UNC students recent and heroic protest of white supremacist Tom Tancredo. For more information, please see UNC Chapel Hill students stand up for Immigrant Rights.

An Open Letter to Chancellor Holden Thorp

April 16, 2009

Dear Chancellor Thorp:

I want to express my concerns over the events of April 14, 2009. Currently, I am a Doctoral Candidate and Teaching Fellow in the Department of Communication Studies specializing in the rhetoric of social protest. I have been a part of the UNC system for 6 years and a student and member of the UNC-Chapel Hill community for over 4 years. During that time I have witnessed some of UNC’s proudest, shining moments and consider those less shining to be opportunities for growth and progress. As a member of this community, a first-hand witness to the protest events on April 14th, and as a scholar of free speech issues, I believe it is my responsibility to address what I see as precisely one of those opportunities.

Victory for Students Occupying Rochester University in Solidarity with Palestine

The following article is from Fight Back! News:

By Kosta Harlan

Rochester, NY – Students at the University of Rochester declared victory and ended their sit-in protest after the university administration agreed to several of their key demands. On Jan. 6, over 75 students occupied an auditorium in the Goergen Biomedical and Engineering building, in a show of solidarity with the Palestinian people in Gaza. Students for a Democratic Society at the University of Rochester organized the sit-in to raise pressure on the administration to meet their demands.

Fight Back! Interview on occupation of New School

Fight Back! interviewed Eric Eingold, a member of the New School chapter of Students for a Democratic Society and one of the leaders in the New School in Exile. The New School in Exile was an occupation of a campus building to demand the resignation of president Bob Kerrey, among other demands (see Students Occupy New School, Demand President Kerrey Resign, Fight Back! December 2008). The occupation lasted for two days and won significant victories that have strengthened the student movement in the United States.

Students Occupy New School

The following article is from Fight Back! News:

Students Occupy New School, Demand President Kerrey Resign

By Doug Michel

New York, NY – Over 100 students are occupying the 65 5th Avenue building of the New School. The occupation began Wednesday, Dec. 17 and has the broad support of faculty and staff at the university. The New School in Exile, as the building occupation is called, is organized by the Radical Student Union (RSU), a coalition of Students for a Democratic Society, Student Environmental Action Coalition and United for Peace and Justice at New School.

New School University is Now Occupied!

The following demands from the students occupying the New School University are from http://www.newschoolinexile.com/:

• The removal of Bob Kerrey as president of our university

• The removal of James Murtha as executive vice president of our university

• Students, faculty, and staff elect the president, EVP, and Provost.

• Students are part of the interim committee to hire a provost.

• The removal of Robert B. Millard as treasurer of the board of trustees.

• Intelligible transparency and disclosure of the university budget and investments.

• The creation of a committee on socially responsible investments.

• The immediate suspension of capital improvement projects like the tearing down of 65 fifth Ave.
• Instead, money towards the creation of an autonomous student space.
• Instead, money towards scholarships and reducing tuition.
• Instead, money for the library and student life generally.

Sign the petition calling for President Kerrey’s resignation, http://www.petitiononline.com/nokerrey/petition.html.

Please also read this open letter and statement from the occupying students to the New School Community: