Category Archives: Protests

The Guardian: Academics ‘have abandoned Israeli boycott’, say opponents

Exclusive: Lecturers’ union denies u-turn on conference motion intended to show solidarity with Palestinians

The UK lecturers’ union has abandoned attempts to boycott Israeli universities after years of international controversy, opponents of the policy said today.

In the face of legal threats, the leadership of the University and College Union has quietly dropped plans to implement a conference motion that instructed members to “consider the moral and political implications of educational links with Israeli institutions, and to discuss the occupation with individuals and institutions concerned, including Israeli colleagues”.

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The Chronicle: Student Protests in Greece Convulse Universities

Several universities in Greece have been occupied by protesters as part of a wave of rioting and unrest that has swept the country in the wake of the police shooting of a 15-year-old boy in Athens on Saturday night, the Reuters news agency reported. “Most of the clashes have occurred in university cities and have involved students,” the BBC reported.

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The Salt Lake Tribune: Students protest, say Ute nickname breeding racism

Shouting chants of “We want scholarships!” and “Pay the bill, Chris Hill!” the 14 students marched through the University of Utah campus Thursday to protest what they allege is the U.’s lackluster support of American Indian students while its athletic programs benefit from the Ute name.

Hill is the school’s athletic director.

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News & Observer: Shaw students protest dorm conditions

RALEIGH – More than 100 of Shaw University students packed the lobby of the university president’s office this morning in a silent protest over poor dorm conditions, including moldy bathrooms, toilets that don’t work and overcrowded dorm rooms.

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AP: Protesters call for closing of Ga. military school

COLUMBUS, Ga. – Demonstrators renewed their call Sunday to shutter a school on a Georgia Army base for Latin American military and government officials and say they’re optimistic the new president or a more sympathetic Congress will act within the next year.

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The Chronicle News Blog: Scholars Boycott Annual Meeting of National Communication Association

More than 300 members of the National Communication Association are boycotting the Manchester Grand Hyatt Hotel, in San Diego, where the association is scheduled to begin its annual meeting on Friday.

The group is staging the boycott to protest a $125,000 donation by the hotel’s owner, Douglas Manchester, to a group called ProtectMarriage.com, which backed Proposition 8, a ballot measure approved by California voters on November 4. Proposition 8, which was designed to reverse a California Supreme Court decision that allowed same-sex marriage, says that “only marriage between a man and a woman is valid” in California.

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Golden Gate [X]press: Budget battle begins with student, faculty sit-in

Universities in the CSU system have been asked to make an additional $66 million in mid-semester cuts to their programs, and at least one department at SF State is saying “no way.”

The Department of Anthropology has refused to make the proposed cuts called for by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s latest budget revision, using class time to discuss the reductions that could catastrophically limit class availability and tarnish the program’s credibility in the academic community, said department chair Doug Bailey.

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BBC: Protests over Italy school reform

Some protesters hurled cafe chairs in Rome’s Piazza Navona

School pupils, university students and teachers have staged demonstrations across Italy against a school reform law just passed by parliament.

In Rome’s Piazza Navona, a popular tourist spot, several people were lightly injured in a clash between left- and right-wing students.

The reform package is expected to cut the education budget.

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World University News: ZIMBABWE: Universities still closed as students arrested
Writer: Clemence Manyukwe
Date: 26 October 2008

Four student leaders were arrested last week for leading a protest of nearly 500 students against the collapse of higher education in Zimbabwe. No state universities are operating in the new academic year because of serious problems including a lecturer strike, lack of finance and unavailability of learning materials.

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World University News: NIGERIA: Students protest against exorbitant exam fees
Writer: Tunde Fatunde
Date: 26 October 2008

Candidates seeking admission into the current 2008-09 academic session in Nigeria are unhappy with high entrance examination fees charged separately by universities and the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board, or JAMB. One newspaper analysis calculated that the amount spent by students sitting both sets of examinations was a whopping US$119 million.

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USA Today: Education cuts protested in Paris

PARIS (AP) — More than 30,000 demonstrators marched across Paris on Sunday to denounce the conservative government’s budget restrictions, job cuts and other controversial reforms in France’s public education system.

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Morelos State Mexico Riot Police Clash With Teachers

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WBZtv.com: Faculty at Mass. state college protest impasse

WESTFIELD, Mass. (AP) Professors and staff at Westfield State College say they’ve had enough of stalled contract talks with the state Board of Higher Education.

The faculty planned to set up a picket line on the campus Monday to protest the impasse.

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Los Angeles Times: UC Berkeley tree-sitters end their protest

Efforts to remove tree sitters from an oak grove on the UC Berkeley campus continue today as workers build scaffolding to aid in the effort.
Four men come down from a redwood after reaching an agreement to end the long-running protest. Campus police Chief Victoria Harrison negotiated with them while dangling in a basket lifted by a crane.

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Inside Higher Ed: Politics, Equity and Meeting Boycotts

To those who favor gay marriage rights, the site of the American Political Science Association’s meeting this year couldn’t have been better. The association is meeting this week in Boston, where gay marriage is permitted.

But for many gay academics, the association’s plan to hold its 2012 meeting in New Orleans couldn’t be worse. That’s because Louisiana has passed one of the most restrictive bans on gay marriage in the country — a measure that prohibits not only gay marriage, but recognition of any equivalent relationship. As a result, gay academics say that in event of illness or accident in New Orleans, their partners could be denied access to them in hospitals. And that means some gay academics will skip the meeting.

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The Chronicle News Blog: Law-Schools Meeting Finds a Way to Deal With Boycott Threat

The Association of American Law Schools may have found a way out of a sticky situation. The association had contracted with the Manchester Grand Hyatt Hotel, in San Diego, several years ago to hold its annual meeting there next January. But The San Diego Union-Tribune reported in March that the hotel’s owner was a prominent contributor to an effort to amend the California Constitution to ban same-sex marriages, and several groups had threatened to boycott the meeting unless the association moved it to another hotel.

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