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Defend Free Speech Rights At San Francisco State University
Students and Organizations at San Francisco State are being threatened with suspension for protesting military recruiters on campus.
On Wednesday, March 9th, students from New York to San
Francisco rallied to protest military recruiters on their campuses. The students were expressing their outrage at the military's anti-gay "don't ask, don't tell" policy, the diversion of federal funding away from education into military spending, and the war in Iraq. University administrations in both cities
responded with disciplinary threats and police action.
At SFSU over 150 students joined Students Against War -- the school's Campus Antiwar Network chapter -- and other groups to protest Air Force recruiters and Army Corps of Engineers attending a school sponsored career fair. The crowd flooded the fair, surrounding their tables and chanting. When Air Force recruiters tried to wait out the protest, students staged a peaceful anti-war sit-in and teach-in.
POLICE INTIMIDATION AND UNIVERSITY THREATS
The following day, recruiters returned to the SFSU career fair. As soon as two activists entered the career fair, eight police officers forcibly removed them from their own student center, pushing them and twisting one activist's arm. When the other activist asked why she was being forced to leave, she was
pushed into a doorway, told she was causing a fire hazard by standing there, and then kicked out of the building.
An SFSU spokesperson informed reporters that student groups involved in the protest will be suspended, and that some of the individual students who participated will also face disciplinary action. Such actions would be blatant violations of students' right to free speech and assembly.
Sean O'Neill, a veteran who returned from Iraq last year after serving with the Marines, spoke out in defense of the students who helped organize the counter-recruitment protest, saying, "Do students have the right to protest? Of course they do! Are you saying that people can't protest anything now? Anyone who's taken even a cursory glance at the Constitution will tell you that we have the right to protest
whatever we want...As a vet, I don't take any offense! Anyone who doesn't want me over there is a friend in my book."
WHAT YOU CAN DO
We ask the public to speak-out against the administration's plans to limit free speech rights, and demand that no sanctions be placed on students or organizations that helped to plan the March 9th protest. Please contact:
Robert A. Corrigan, SFSU President
Phone: (415) 338-1381, Fax: (415) 338-6210
Email: corrigan [at] sfsu.edu
please CC your email to: cansfsu [at] hotmail.com
Penny Saffold, SFSU Vice President/Dean of Students
Phone: (415) 338-2032, Fax: (415) 338-0900
Email: psaffold [at] sfsu.edu
please CC your email to: cansfsu [at] hotmail.com
For more information please contact:
wcaudy [at] stars.sfsu.edu
Francisco rallied to protest military recruiters on their campuses. The students were expressing their outrage at the military's anti-gay "don't ask, don't tell" policy, the diversion of federal funding away from education into military spending, and the war in Iraq. University administrations in both cities
responded with disciplinary threats and police action.
At SFSU over 150 students joined Students Against War -- the school's Campus Antiwar Network chapter -- and other groups to protest Air Force recruiters and Army Corps of Engineers attending a school sponsored career fair. The crowd flooded the fair, surrounding their tables and chanting. When Air Force recruiters tried to wait out the protest, students staged a peaceful anti-war sit-in and teach-in.
POLICE INTIMIDATION AND UNIVERSITY THREATS
The following day, recruiters returned to the SFSU career fair. As soon as two activists entered the career fair, eight police officers forcibly removed them from their own student center, pushing them and twisting one activist's arm. When the other activist asked why she was being forced to leave, she was
pushed into a doorway, told she was causing a fire hazard by standing there, and then kicked out of the building.
An SFSU spokesperson informed reporters that student groups involved in the protest will be suspended, and that some of the individual students who participated will also face disciplinary action. Such actions would be blatant violations of students' right to free speech and assembly.
Sean O'Neill, a veteran who returned from Iraq last year after serving with the Marines, spoke out in defense of the students who helped organize the counter-recruitment protest, saying, "Do students have the right to protest? Of course they do! Are you saying that people can't protest anything now? Anyone who's taken even a cursory glance at the Constitution will tell you that we have the right to protest
whatever we want...As a vet, I don't take any offense! Anyone who doesn't want me over there is a friend in my book."
WHAT YOU CAN DO
We ask the public to speak-out against the administration's plans to limit free speech rights, and demand that no sanctions be placed on students or organizations that helped to plan the March 9th protest. Please contact:
Robert A. Corrigan, SFSU President
Phone: (415) 338-1381, Fax: (415) 338-6210
Email: corrigan [at] sfsu.edu
please CC your email to: cansfsu [at] hotmail.com
Penny Saffold, SFSU Vice President/Dean of Students
Phone: (415) 338-2032, Fax: (415) 338-0900
Email: psaffold [at] sfsu.edu
please CC your email to: cansfsu [at] hotmail.com
For more information please contact:
wcaudy [at] stars.sfsu.edu
For more information:
http://www.campusantiwar.net
Add Your Comments
Comments
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I told the community that the CSU cops are bad news, and they have permission to carry guns. Sure am surprised they didn't use them on protesting students.
Better to get suspended than shot.
Better to get suspended than shot.
It is outrageous that any university, much less San Francisco State, attack any peace organizations and threaten them with suspension for doing an outstanding activity, namely kicking military recruiters off campus! These kids should be applauded and treated as exemplary students for getting rid of these paid, professional killers. Any university official who supports military recruiters should be kicked off our payroll because as taxpayers, we must support peace if we are to have a decent education system, much less a future for humanity.
To those of you who are also members of the Vietnam War generation, this is the time we have all been waiting for to give that stinking military the good riddance routine it must have to finally disappear off the face of the earth. Please be sure to call, write or fax. We must have one solid defense of these students across all generations against the warmongers and for peace.
To those of you who are also members of the Vietnam War generation, this is the time we have all been waiting for to give that stinking military the good riddance routine it must have to finally disappear off the face of the earth. Please be sure to call, write or fax. We must have one solid defense of these students across all generations against the warmongers and for peace.
Thank you to all the SFSU activists who made this happen. The rising resistance around the country to military recruiters is a both inspiring and strategic. Counter-recruitment combined with the growing anti-war organizing of military families and people in the military is bringing focus and energy back into the anti-war movement. Thank you.
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