Defend Free Speech on Campus     

With thanks to both Nation columnist Katha Pollitt and a student from
Hampton University who called me this morning and would like to remain
anonymous, we wanted to alert Nation readers to a seriously
under-reported travesty about to take place at Hampton, a historically
black school in Hampton, Virginia.

Seven Hampton students are facing expulsion hearings THIS FRIDAY.  Their
"crime" was distributing "unauthorized" literature criticizing the Bush
Administration's policies on AIDS, Hurricane Katrina, homophobia, the
Iraq war and the Sudan as part of a national series of student protests
on November 2nd. "Unauthorized" flyers are distributed and posted all
the time of course--it's only when they feature progressive political
content that the administration cracks down. This is a free speech
issue, an issue of students' rights, and an antiwar issue!

There are a number of ways you can help but you need to act fast. First,
call the school. Let Hampton administrators know that you oppose the
chilling of free speech on the Hampton campus. Ask them to drop all
charges against the students, recognize the activist club as an official
student organization, and craft a free speech policy that doesn't
criminalize dissent.

Here are the names and contact info for key administrators.

Dr. Bennie McMorris, Vice President for Student Affairs,
bennie.mcmorris@hamptonu.edu or 757-727-5264

Woodson Hopewell, Dean of Men, woodson.hopewell@hamptonu.edu or 757-727-5303

Jewel Long, Dean of Women, jewel.long@hamptonu.edu or 757-727-5486

After that, please click here to read and circulate (and here to join
Howard Zinn, Michael Eric Dyson, Pollitt and many others in signing) a
new statement defending the students. Finally, click here for more info
on the case. The more you read, the more pissed off you'll get. Just
remember that the hearings are this Friday, so please act quickly.

 

 

Dear Friends,

Seven students at Hampton University, a historically
Black college, are facing expulsion hearings THIS
FRIDAY.

Their "crime" was distributing "unauthorized"
literature about the Bush regime's policies around
AIDS, Katrina, Homophobia, the Iraq war and the Sudan
as part of the November 2nd protests initiated by The
World Can't Wait - Drive Out the Bush Regime
(worldcantwait.org).

"Unauthorized" flyers are distributed and posted all
the time of course -- it is only when they have
political content that the administration cracks down.
This is a free speech issue, an issue of students'
rights, AND an anti-war issue!

To those of us in college during the Vietnam War years,
what these students are going through should definitely
ring a bell. If you want to know more, there is local
news coverage that is easily googlable (is that a
word?).

Try this one (it refers only to three students; four
more were added later):
http://www.wvec.com/news/hampton/stories/wvec_local_112305_hu_protest.65cbe4b.html

Please read, forward, and join Howard Zinn, Michael
Eric Dyson and others in adding your name to the
enclosed statement defending these students.

Academics are especially welcome. To add your name,
send an email to: youth_students@worldcantwait.org, or
sunsarasworld@yahoo.com.

Please specify how you would like to be identified.
Sincerely,

Katha Pollitt
-----------------------------------------

Drop the Charges and Stop the Harassment Against the
Hampton University Students Against the Bush Regime!

Students who act! to Drive Out the Bush Regime,
especially when they remain firm in the face of police
and administrative threats, are heroic.  They must be
defended.  Their example must be followed.

Students at Hampton University participated in nation-
wide outpourings in over 70 places and 200 schools on
November 2nd to launch of a movement to drive out the
Bush regime.  In the course of organizing, they were
followed by campus police, targeted by video
surveillance, and forced to turn over their ID's for
the simple act of distributing literature.  That these
students were targeted for the content of their
activities is demonstrated by the fact that other
students routinely post unauthorized flyers (often with
scantily clad women advertising parties) without
harassment.

On Friday, November 18th, 3 student organizers were
issued summons for a hearing on over possible expulsion
the following Monday morning, giving them no time
during the working week to contact lawyers, parents, or
campus administrators.  After hundreds of phone-calls
from around the country to the Dean's Office, their
hearing was postponed.  Days later, 4 more students
were issued summons and campus police shut down an
interview being filmed by the local media, attempting
to prevent their story from getting out.

The attacks on the student organizers at Hampton
University, a historically black college with a mostly
Republican administration, is an ugly harbinger of the
"dissent-free" future the Bush regime is trying to
lock into place.  These attacks are part of a pattern
of repression against high school and college students
nation-wide on November 2nd that disproportionately
targeted black, Latino and other oppressed students.

A standard cannot be set where the President of the
United States can stay on vacation as a major city's
poor and black people are left for five days without
food or water, where influential friends of this
President are allowed to float out genocidal notions of
aborting all black babies to bring crime rates down,
and where the President's policies of "abstinence-
only" in the face of an international AIDS pandemic
threaten millions of lives, but where students who dare
to act to end this are silenced and expelled from
school. As it says in the Call for The World Can't
Wait: Drive Out! the Bush Regime, "This will not
be easy. If we speak the truth, they will try to
silence us. If we act, they will to try to stop us. But
we speak for the majority, here and around the world,
and as we get this going we are going to reach out to
the people who have been so badly fooled by Bush and we
are NOT going to stop." We, the undersigned, demand
that the Hampton University administration to drop all
charges against, cease their political harassment of,
and to apologize to these students.  These students
must not be expelled!  We also call on students at
campuses nation-wide to send statements of s! upport,
and to join, strengthen and support the movement to
Drive Out the Bush Regime because the World Can't
Wait!

Rosalyn Baxandall,Distinguished Teaching Professor,SUNY Old Westbury*
Edget Betru,GuantanamoGlobal Justice Initiative-Center for Constitutional Rights*
EileenBoris, Universityof California, Santa Barbara*
Judith Ezekiel,Universite de Toulouse le Mirail*
Carl Dix,National Spokesperson, Revolutionary CommunistParty
Bea Kreloff,director Art Workshop International*
Allen Lang,National Student Organizer, The World Can't Wait: Drive Out the Bush Regime!
Efia Nwangaza,Executive Director, African American Institute for Policy Studies & Planning
Katha Pollitt, writer The Nation*
Sonia Jaffe Robins,freelance writer and editor
Sunsara Taylor,Co-Initiator of The World Can't Wait: Drive Out the Bush Regime!
Barbara Winslow, BrooklynCollege*
Laura X,Women's History Library*
Howard Zinn,Historian and Author

*affiliations for identification purposes only

Demand that the 7 students facing expulsion be cleared
of any disciplinary measures and that the intimidation
and punishment for student protest stop!