From: lnr@blythe.org (Love and Rage) Newsgroups: alt.society.civil-liberty Subject: Rutgers Students Win Battle Over New Discipl.Code Keywords: Rutgers Unviersity, student activism Message-ID: Date: Mon, 06 Dec 93 14:58:16 EST Reply-To: lnr@blythe.org (Love and Rage) Organization: NY Transfer News Collective Lines: 178 Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit BROAD COALITION OF STUDENTS WIN BATTLE IN WAR OVER NEW DISCIPLINARY CODE AT RUTGERS UNIVERSITY A coalition of over 40 student groups ranging from the Latino Student Council to white fraternities, from College Governing Associations to CARE (the radical Campaign for an Affordable Rutgers Education, well known for stirring up trouble in many different arenas of students rights, both fiscal and otherwise) turned out over 350 militant angry students to protest proposed new disciplinary codes at Rutgers University, Friday, December 3. The proposed new codes come after months of ongoing campaigning on the part of a broad segment of students who object to the strict curtailment of rights proposed by the codes. This campaigning has had almost no effect on the final proposed codes, which restrict student power and rights to political protest just as much as an earlier version, proposed last spring, did. The codes remove the right of students to legal counsel and representation. They remove the formal rules of evidence, allowing illegally seized evidence to be used against students. They require testimony of students against themselves. Students can be suspended pending hearing on the decision of one dean, that is, assumed guilty until proven innocent (and hearings can be delayed for a long time--two students, Cliff Smith and Xavier Hansen, are still awaiting internal trial for events which took place November 13, 1992). In one of the more ludicrous provisions of the code, students can be expelled for jay walking (blocking the safe flow of human or vehicular traffic). Students spoke out against the codes, calling them unconstitutional and unjust, for over 1/2 an hour at the University Senate meeting but were cut off by the Senate (which is composed of administrators, faculty, and 28% students). Theatrics ranged from a student wearing a flag to remind Senators what country they were in, to one student gagging himself with his scarf and struggling to speak through it. The crowd was about 1/3 latino, 1/2 white, with substantial numbers of Black people and a few Asians. This is noteworthy because to date, much of the character of activism which protests student policies has been very white (although also fairly working class). To see Latino and Black people turn out in such impressive numbers and to have them be so politically empowered in what are usually white-dominated coalitions was refreshing. After students were silenced (and mikes were shut off) debate shifted to several ammendments that were offered. One of them, proposed by student senator Chris Agostini, allowed students to consult with and be represented by lawyers or law students from within the Rutgers community. This passed, although many felt that it merely put a better face on a horrendous code. In the end, some faculty and administration senators moved to vote on the whole code without allowing any discussion. About 10 student senators were waiting in line at the microphone, almost all planning to speak out against the code. The motion to vote without discussion passed and a role-call vote began. Students, both senators and those in the "spectator" area, flipped. Chanting, shouting and yelling began. One student senator, Rob Alvarez, began tearing a copy of the code to pieces, one sheet at a time. Other student senators began shouting making motions, points of order, points of information and the crowd moved into the senate area of the room, at which point the chair of the meeting declared it ajourned. It turns out the he had no such authority to unilaterally ajourn the meeting, but the chaos continued as students stopped the vote on the code that adminstrators and faculty seemed certain to support. They took to the streets. About 200 students filed out of the student center and immediately set up a rally in the middle of College Avenue, blocking city and student busses and cars in both directions. Speakers from many of the organizations active in opposing the code spoke, all with a militant and angry tone. With the help of four other students to shield him from the wind, Xavier Hansen lit a copy of the code on fire, and at least four other students brought their copies of the code to burn in a pile on the steps beside College Ave. Anti- capitalist, anti-authoritarian statements were made conjoined with threats of building takeovers, attacks on the power structure of the University, and general mayhem, if the code were to pass. It was clear that students from very different background and lives were completely united against this shameless attempt at disempowering their speech and action within the University. After rousing speaches and chants, with about 150 students sitting with linked arms or standing in the streets, Jaime Zuniga, a representative of the Latino Student Council, called on the crowd to march down College Ave towards Old Queens, the site of University Administration offices. And they did. Students marched chanting sometimes three chants at once, both old stand-bys of student activism ("the students united will never be defeated", "we're fired up, we can't take no more") and some not common, on Rutgers campuses at least, ("El pueblo callado jama's sera' escuchado") chanted by some of the Latino protesters. They took the instersection of College Ave and Hamilton Street blocking traffic and surrounding a cop in his car who had been driving ahead of protestors. When the cop car tried to back out, it was immediately blocked by students who lay down behind it and prevented in from leaving. Students chanted about student unity and power and against the coroporate, hierarchical control over their university. The rally ended with students chanting for "student power, NOW!". Ironically, nearby Old Queens was the site of a civil disobedience in which 5 students chained themselves inside of president Fran Lawrence's office to protest the previous version of this disciplinary code. Last semester, the code had been drafted and brought to a vote in the senate with no student consultation or informing. In a victory for both students and for CARE who organized the civil disobedience in Lawrences office, the Senate voted last spring to table the code. Yesterday's vote was the first time since then it has been considered by the Senate as a whole. The context for the new codes is one of militant and uncompromising activism on the Rutgers University New Brunswick and Newark campuses over the past four years. CARE (see above) has been extremely active in protesting fee and tuition hikes which are slowly driving working class students out of rutgers for financial reasons (tuition has soared to over 450 % of its 1980 figures--a rise virtually unmatched at public and private universities across the country). Since roughly 1988 CARE has engaged in civil disobedience, broad-based single-issue campaigns, vyed for electoral control of student governing associations, and just generally carved out a radical space for students to oppose the financial (and corporate-based) restructuring of the University. At times CARE has isolated itself from more conservative and middle-class students by its militant tactics, but many radicals at Rutgers find an uncompromising direct-action student group a refreshing chance from standard, liberal politics. At the same time, it is important to note that CARE is far from the only radical grouping at the New Brunswick campus of Rutgers and they are not the only ones to have engaged in civil disobedience. For four weeks earlier this year, students organizationally unaffiliated with CARE (although many were former members) staged nightly protests at the Alexander, Douglass and Livingston libraries to protest the lack of a late-night study area anywhere on campus (the only all-night study center, the Roost, which also housed computing facilities, was closed without student imput earlier this year). Students at the Mason Gross School of the Arts engaged in loud and raucous protests when tenure was denied to professor Steve Cagan on the basis of his political work (a professor of photography, Cagan photographed US-funded death squad activity in Central America). All of this sort of student action has served to destabilize the reign of University President Fran Lawrence. For more information either about this event or ongoing struggles contact: the coalition (not formally named): Jaime Zuniga (908) 545 2823 Monica Tate-Melendez (908) 246 8926 motate19@eden.rutgers.edu CARE (Campaign for an Affordable Rutgers Education) Monica (see above) or Shana Stein or Kerry Riordan (908) 828 5243 punky@eden.rutgers.edu ______________________________________________________________ Love and Rage New York News Bureau for more information about Love and Rage Revolutionary Anarchist Federation or Love and Rage News Bureau Please contact lnr@blythe.org or Love and Rage PO Box 853 Stuyvesant Sta New York, NY 10009 212 460 8390 ________________________________________________________________ + OPEN HOUSE! NY TRANSFER NEWS COLLECTIVE FREE ACCESS! + + December'93 e-mail: nyt@blythe.org December'93 + + 212-675-9690 info: info@blythe.org 212-675-9663 +