Class War at McGill University
November 11, 2011 - Aaron's Reports
...[W]hen about a dozen students occupied the administration building at McGill, just immediately following a historic demonstration in the streets with over 30,000 people to resist Jean Charest's proposed tuition hikes in Quebec, the mighty boot of the state cracked down hard. Hundreds of students were violently pushed off the McGill campus at around 6pm. Tear gas and pepper spray were used against young students fighting for their right to study.
Class War at McGill University
November 11, 2011 - Aaron's Reports
...[W]hen about a dozen students occupied the administration building at McGill, just immediately following a historic demonstration in the streets with over 30,000 people to resist Jean Charest's proposed tuition hikes in Quebec, the mighty boot of the state cracked down hard. Hundreds of students were violently pushed off the McGill campus at around 6pm. Tear gas and pepper spray were used against young students fighting for their right to study.
The Racist Roots of Campus Policing
By BENJAMIN WOODS - Counterpunch
...[C]ontemporary campus police are a response to the student rebellions in the late 1960s and early 1970s...Black students all over the country were taking over administration buildings and the anti-war movement was in full swing...Thus, the campus police and the American police force appear to have similar origins and purposes, maintaining “order” and squashing any potential acts of rebellion
Islamophobia Goes to School in Toronto
By Mairin Piccinin - Toronto Media Co-op
A fringe coalition representing the Jewish Defense League (JDL), Christian Heritage Party (CHP) and the Canadian Hindu Advocacy (CHA) stood together in front of the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) central offices, protesting a decision by administrators at a Toronto middle school allowing Muslim students to hold Friday afternoon prayers in the school’s empty cafeteria.
Chile’s Winter Awakening
By Roberto Navarrete - September 02, 2011
Since May, some 700 schools have been occupied by secondary school students and almost daily street protests have been taking place ever since. In mid-August around half a million students and their families took part in a demonstration...in central Santiago. The students have also managed to connect their struggles with other sectors of Chilean society. A week after the [Santiago] demonstration, the students joined a national strike declared by Chile’s trade union confederation (CUT)...
Post-Civilization in Theory and Practice
A new publishing house in Minneapolis, Subsect Press, will be releasing a book to describe how a non-hierarchical, regenerative and anti-capitalist society can meet human needs.
The Terror of Campus Cops
By MALINI JOHAR SCHUELLER - Counterpunch Weekend Edition
...[C]ampuses are increasingly becoming unsafe – not because of a lack of security but an overabundance of it. Amnesty International and the United Nations have declared tasers to be torture devices, but if a student insists on taking the podium and asking more questions than allotted during a public talk, chances are that he will be subdued by a number of officers and then tasered by the campus police.
Struggles Erupt Across Chile
By Jason Farbman - August 08, 2011
WORKER AND student struggles have broken out across Chile in recent months in a series of challenges to the new right-wing government and its polices...High school students are at the center of the new movements. Since mid-June, tens of thousands of students and teachers have been fighting back against the administration of President Sebastian Piñera, a right-wing billionaire.
New York Catholic School Populated by Black and Latino Students Hires Racist Principal
By Erica Hellerstein - August 2, 2011
Frank Borzellieri, a conservative writer and educator with a history of publicly racist proclamations and campaigns, was hired as principal of the Bronx’s Our Lady of Mount Carmel School in 2009...Prior to his position as principal, Borzellieri taught English [where]...he attempted to create a resolution to teach students the “superiority” of U.S. culture. While serving as a school board member...in Queens, Borzellieri pushed to ban “anti-American” literature from school libraries...
Morality: The Good Conscience of Class Society
On bourgeois freedom, its barriers and their confirmation by a moral attitude.
RCMP Spied on Canadian Academic Northrop Frye
July 24, 2011 - CBC News
Canada's intelligence service spied on renowned literary scholar Northrop Frye, closely eying his involvement in the anti-Vietnam War movement, an academic forum on China and efforts to end apartheid in South Africa...Newly released archival records show the RCMP Security Service relied on a secret informant to help compile a 142-page file on the esteemed University of Toronto professor, who died in 1991 at age 78.
CPCCA, Campuses and Criminalizing Criticism of Israel
By Sue Ferguson, Mary-Jo Nadeau, Gary Kinsman, Reuben Roth, Eric Shragge and Abby Lippman - July 22, 2011
The authors are members of Faculty for Palestine.
This month, a serious attack was made against free speech in Canada. A pseudo-parliamentary committee calling itself the Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Anti-Semitism (CPCCA) issued a report calling on the federal government to adopt a definition of anti-Semitism that would criminalize criticism of the state of Israel...[I]ts recommendations aim to silence pro-Palestinian voices, especially on campuses. The CPCCA's biased processes and dubious conclusions...make a mockery of the notion of disinterested parliamentary inquiry.
Denying Palestinian Children Education
Basic rights for all besieged Gazans are denied or severely restricted, including for school children to be properly educated. Earlier from 2000 - 2004, Israeli attacks destroyed 73 educational institutions. During Cast Lead, public and private schools were deliberately targeted, damaged or destroyed.
SFU Student Government Moves to Displace Progressive Groups
By Dawn Paley - July 14, 2011
BURNABY - Over the past week, life has been turned upside down for campus and community groups on SFU's Burnaby Campus. Last Thursday, CUPE Local 3338 members were given notice that after two years of contract negotiations they would be locked out of their offices. The move by the Simon Fraser Student Society (SFSS) impacts 15 permanent staff and five student employees who work for the Society. The lockout took effect Sunday and picket lines went up in front of the SFU Women's Centre and Out on Campus (OoC) spaces Monday morning.
Simon Fraser University: A No Longer Radical, Now Reactionary Campus
By Kevin Harding - Vancouver Media Co-op
...[T]oday the [Simon Fraser Student Society] seems to have shoved off the more than 40-year history it could have once proudly claimed as student activists: the Board of Directors of the SFSS, led in “what can only be interpreted as an ideological move”...issued a lock-out notice to its unionised staff members...Late today, a committee of the same board voted to begin the process of terminating the lease of the Simon Fraser Public Interest Research Group (SFPIRG), a student-driven and student-funded group that conducts research and organizing on student selected issues.