World University News: IRAN: Post-election violence spreads to universities
Violence spread from Tehran to the outer provinces and several universities reported clashes between students and security forces, according to UPI. Chancellor of Shiraz University, Mohammad Hadi Sadeghi, resigned from his post last Wednesday after riot police stormed a library and fired tear gas inside.
AP: Mousavi Web site: 70 professors detained in Iran
Seventy university professors were detained in Iran in a widening government crackdown on protesters, according to a Web site affiliated with Iran’s key opposition figure, Mir Hossein Mousavi, who says he was robbed of victory in a rigged presidential election.
The professors were detained on Wednesday, immediately after meeting with Mousavi, said the Kalemeh site, which is affiliated with the opposition leader. The report said it is not clear where the detainees were taken.
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The Chronicle: Universities and Students Are at Heart of Continuing Protests in Iran
Protesters continued to throng the streets of Tehran on Tuesday, in the second day of rallies and demonstrations that have erupted in the wake of last Friday’s disputed presidential election. The actions have been called the country’s biggest mass demonstrations since the 1979 Islamic revolution, and, as in that movement, university students are at the heart of much of the action.
Workers World: Harvard University: The banks, layoffs & growing fightback
On June 4, during Commencement Day 2009 at Harvard University—the richest university in the world—graduating students held up signs spelling “N-O L-A-Y-O-F-F-S” inside, while workers on the outside held up the same signs.
For months leading up to commencement, a loose coalition of Harvard students and unions has been protesting layoffs at the university. Comprised of members of the No Layoffs Campaign—started by members of the Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3650; UNITE/HERE; Service Employees union Local 615; Student Labor Action Movement; and other student activists—this grouping has held rallies, marches and forums demanding no layoffs and no cuts in services.
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The Chronicle: Denied a Discussion at a Reunion, a Macalester College Alumni Group Plans a Sit-In
A group of Macalester College alumni that has accused the institution, in St. Paul, of failing to expose students to a broad range of political views says it will hold an “old-fashioned” 1960s-style sit-in on the campus on Saturday because the college has refused to allow the group…
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Chicago Tribune: Chicago State University president: Next President Wayne Watson booed by students, faculty
Retiring City Colleges chief and the other finalist have been criticized as local political insiders
As students and faculty booed, Chicago State University trustees Wednesday picked Wayne Watson, the retiring City Colleges of Chicago chancellor, as the university’s next president.
The choice came after weeks of controversy at the South Side school, with the faculty urging Gov. Pat Quinn to stop the board from picking one of the two finalists, and students holding several protests about those they described on T-shirts as “lousy candidates.”
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Burlington Free Press: Students protest again
Demonstrator arraigned for trespassing
Students upset with budget cuts at the University of Vermont tried — with mixed success — to get faculty and staff workers to back them at a noontime rally Thursday, one day after a sit-in at the Waterman administrative building resulted in 31arrests.
“We demand President (Daniel) Fogel’s resignation,” Cecile Reurge, a 19-year-old freshman from Stony Brook, N.Y., said to the cheers of about 100 people gathered in front of Bailey-Howe Library. “We have no confidence in his leadership anymore.”
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The Chronicle News Blog: UCLA Scientists Plan Counterprotest in Favor of Animal Testing
A group of students and scientists at the University of California at Los Angeles will try to beat animals-rights protesters at their own game tomorrow by demonstrating in favor of using animals for research purposes, which they consider crucial to developing live-saving medical breakthroughs.
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AP: Thousands protest arrests in coup plot
ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Thousands of people marched to the mausoleum of secular Turkey’s founder on Saturday to protest the arrests of university professors and other secularists accused of involvement in an alleged plot to topple the Islamic-rooted government.
More than 5,000 people, including students and university teachers in academic robes, waved Turkish flags, carried posters of Turkey’s late leader Mustafa Kemal Ataturk and chanted: “Turkey is secular and will remain secular!”
The New York Times: Hiring of Thomas Angers Faculty at Florida International
The former Knicks coach Isiah Thomas will be greeted in his new job at Florida International University with a reminder of his past.
Laurie Shrage, the director of women’s studies and a philosophy professor at the university, said she and some of her colleagues planned to hand-deliver to Thomas a copy of the university’s sexual harassment policy.
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Inside Higher Ed: Carolina Chancellor Apologizes for Speech Disruption
Protesters disrupted a speech Tuesday at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill by former Rep. Tom Tancredo, a leader of the movement to limit benefits to those who do not have the legal right to live in the United States. Video posted on YouTube shows the incident, which led Tancredo to stop his talk. Holden Thorp, chancellor at Chapel Hill, called Tancredo to apologize for the incident Friday. Thorp issued a statement Wednesday strongly condemning the protest for blocking the talk, and vowing that the incident would be investigated. “We expect protests about controversial subjects at Carolina. That’s part of our culture,” he said. “But we also pride ourselves on being a place where all points of view can be expressed and heard. There’s a way to protest that respects free speech and allows people with opposing views to be heard. Here that’s often meant that groups protesting a speaker have displayed signs or banners, silently expressing their opinions while the speaker had his or her say. That didn’t happen last night.”
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News & Observer: Protest stops Tancredo’s UNC speech
CHAPEL HILL — UNC-CH police released pepper spray and threatened to use a Taser on student protesters Tuesday evening when a crowd disrupted a speech by former Colorado congressman Tom Tancredo opposing in-state tuition benefits to unauthorized immigrants.
Hundreds of protesters converged on Bingham Hall, shouting profanities and accusations of racism while Tancredo and the student who introduced him tried to speak. Minutes into the speech, a protester pounded a window of the classroom until the glass shattered, prompting Tancredo to flee and campus police to shut down the event.
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World Socialist Website: New York police attack protesting New School students
In a display of brutality, the New York City Police Department (NYPD) arrested 22 students who had occupied the premises of the New School in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village last Friday. Students were struck by police without provocation and thrown to the ground, and others were pepper-sprayed.
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Los Angeles Times: UCLA professor stands up to violent animal rights activists
J. David Jentsch organizes a campus rally April 22 of those who believe biomedical testing on animals saves human lives. His car was set on fire March 7, allegedly by opponents of testing.
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The New York Times: At New School Protest, Truth Depends on Camera Angle
So much for the camera never lying.
The arrests of protesters who seized a building at the New School on Friday turned into something of a race to YouTube, as sharply contrasting videos recorded by the police and civilians conveyed vastly different impressions of what was going on — and, more specifically, just who was doing what to whom.
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The Chronicle: New School Is Rocked by Student Protests Again
The New School, in Manhattan, was rocked by protests again over the weekend, as students who are demanding Bob Kerrey’s resignation as the university’s president clashed with the police after occupying a campus building on Friday and staged a rally near the campus on Friday night.
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AP: Beijing professor’s remarks spark angry protests
BEIJING (AP) — Protesters tried to storm their way into one of China’s top universities Friday to confront a professor who said nearly all petitioners — people who come to Beijing to ask the central government for help — are mentally ill and should be put away.
Law professor Sun Dongdong’s comments, published in a March issue of China Newsweek magazine, triggered outrage among petitioners who routinely flock to Beijing by the thousands to air complaints after their local governments ignore them.
mosnews.com: Students to pay for the mess in Chisinau, president says
Money to rebuild the pillaged parliament and presidential office buildings in Chisinau will come from funds earmarked for institutions of higher education, Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin has stated. A student protest against the Communist victory in Sunday’s parliamentary elections spilled over into violence and the sacking of those facilities. More than 270 injuries also resulted from the unrest.
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Press Association: Students hold university president
Students protesting proposed reforms have stormed the offices of a university in the French city of Rennes and are holding its president.
Officials said dozens of people stormed the office of the president of Rennes 2 University on Monday afternoon.
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The Chronicle News Blog: French Student Protesters Disrupt Paris’s Academic Core and Seize Presidents’ Offices Elsewhere
On the eve of the two-week Easter holiday, French university students and academic staff members staged another mass demonstration in Paris today, blocking a major boulevard in the Latin Quarter, the historic core of academic life in the city, and shouting slogans evoking the mass protests that convulsed the country in May 1968, the news agency Reuters reported. Elsewhere in France, protesters this week appeared to step up their tactics, occupying administrative offices at two universities and “sequestering” their presidents.
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