Protesters return to U of A campus for flash mob protest
April Hudson
Staff Reporter
Feb 02, 2012
Joined by members of Wednesday’s Occupy protest, dozens of students rallied to Quad on Thursday afternoon for a flash mob protest against arts faculty cuts and tuition increases.
Students gathered in Quad at 3:20 p.m. where the protest began. The group then proceeded to the Tory building, where an Occupy Wall Street debate was scheduled to take place.
“Yesterday, (there) was a protest held just north of HUB, but unfortunately there was a crackdown on that protest, which I believe was an unnecessary and extravagant response to what was actually happening,” said protest spokesperson Aditya Rao.
The university recruited police on Wednesday to prevent Occupy protestors from trespassing on campus. Students were only allowed on campus provided they showed their ONEcards.
“We are all students who are standing up in solidarity in order to protest the unreasonable crackdown that took place yesterday on our Occupy brothers and sisters,” Rao said.
Thursday’s student protestors marched into SUB, chanting loudly and waving signs that read “Education is a Right.” Their path took them through the chemistry building and into CCIS, before they circled around and ended back at SUB. The protest then moved across campus.
“We are here today simply to assess our right and express our feelings that we have the right to protest on our campus, a campus that we have helped pay for to exist,” Rao said.
“We are here to say we are going to categorically oppose any tuition hikes — you can hear the cheer — no ifs, no buts, no education cuts. Education is a right, and we will not give up the fight.”
The protest was trailed by a handful of UAPS officers who made no move to break up the protest.
Comments
Of course as a student, I’m opposed to tuition hikes. However, if I got twice the current value of my education for an increase to say, 150% of current tuition, I’m going to take that deal. However unlikely the aforementioned situation might be, I think that such inflexible stances limit students’ ability to work with administrators to make sure students get the maximum value for their tuition dollars.
When this went through CAB, it was a large disruption to the meeting in which I was participating. SUB, CCIS and CHEM? I hardly think that a noisy march through buildings primarily occupied by students and hard-working academic staff is doing much to combat tuition raises and “education cuts”.
Posted by Wrong message, disruptive methods on Feb 03, 2012
How is being mad being “inflexible?” The university wants students to stay quiet and just take all the tuition hikes, increases to non instructional fees, and other surprises (remember paying with credit card?) without saying anything, and without consultation, like we’ve always done.
Good for the students who had the integrity to demonstrate that they are tired of the university’s business as usual approach and showing that students have a right to free speech on campus, something the administration would be happy if students also surrendered. Being “disruptive” is the only way to get through to people who don’t consider student input relevant. Sorry democracy was too loud for you for a few minutes.
Hope you recovered!
Posted by Suck it up, buddy on Feb 03, 2012
Campus security and/or EPS could have easily prevented tents from being constructed while allowing a rally in Quad by students and staff. The University chose to negate your right to protest and used a lame argument about being afraid of camping. The Occupy group were not the only group taking part in a planned protest on campus. I cannot believe how few people took part in the events on Thursday in reaction to the events on Wednesday. If you are not mad about tuition hikes, at least be mad that you were not allowed to protest tuition hikes.
Posted by critical what!? on Feb 03, 2012
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