Student Activism, Participatory Democracy and the Case of Sweat Shop Labor

Student Activism, Participatory Democracy and the Case of Sweat Shop Labor: A Call to Action Tom Hayden, lifelong activist -- Students for a Democratic Society/SDS, Chicago 8 defendant in 1968, former California State Senator, author and National Director of No More Sweatshops! a coalition of labor, community, and campus advocates -- has been named Activist Faculty-in-Residence at New College of California for Spring 2005.

Tom will lead seminars for New College students, students from other Bay Area colleges and the public on social movements and community organizing. He will also supervise student internships in the SweatFree Bay Area Coalition’s campaign seeking the passage of sweat-shop free procurement policies and legislation by Bay Area communities beginning with San Francisco. These seminars and participation in the campaign are open to the public. If you are interested please try to attend this kick-off presentation.

The goal of Mr. Hayden’s New College residency is to combine his experience as a student civil rights and anti-Vietnam war organizer in the 1960’s with his 18 years in the State Senate to help students link classroom theories of society, corporate globalization, and social change with the experience of effective political action. Through this, New College seeks to educate a new generation of engaged student activists who understand, embrace and enact the final utopian words of SDS’s founding document which Tom co-authored– the Port Huron Statement – that “we seek the unattainable, to avoid the unimaginable”.