NetNews Usenet Archive 1993 #3/NN_1993_3.iso/spool/misc/activism/progress/10396

Text File | 1993-01-28 | 6.8 KB | 122 lines

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From: [e-mail] (autonome forum)
Subject: Rutgers student activists jailed
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Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 23:55:07 GMT
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posted by: autonome forum
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RU FASCIST?

by Cliff Smith
CARE (Campaign for an Affordable Rutgers Education)

    With the recent prosecution of thirteen members of the
Campaign for an Affordable Rutgers Education, the official repression of
student activists rose to a level not seen since the COINTELPRO era of
the 1970's.
[Rutgers is the state university of New Jersey where tuition has risen by
over %357 in the past eight years].
    Eleven students were suspended and ten given fines and jail
sentences of up to 60 days for their participating in the Spring '92
takeover of Bishop House, on the Rutgers New Brunswick Campus.
The takeover culminated a successful, year-long struggle to halt the 13
year trend of double-digit tuition increases at Rutgers University.  Over
2000 students signed petitions demanding from President Fran
Lawrence and the Board of Governors a tuition freeze and support for
Governor Florio's Tuition Stabilization Incentive Plan by the April 10
BOG meeting. When Lawrence and the Board walked out on the 350
students that showed up to the meeting, CARE realized it was time to
press the issue.
    Several demonstrations and building takeovers on the Newark
and College Ave. campuses kept tuition in the spotlight and pushed
TSIP through the NJ state legislature's budget, while Mr. Lawrence was
maintaining his anti-working class position that "affordability is subjective
and emotional."  TSIP, which capped increases at %4.5 at ALL NJ
colleges, gave Rutgers students the lowest tuition hike in 8 years.  It also
marked the first time that Trenton took action toward ending classist
tuition increases, a major victory for activist and NJ's working class.
Lawrence, realizing that he could no longer must support for his side of
the issue, embarked on a reactionary "law and order" campaign which
he terms "civility".  Hurling allegations of "terrorism" at CARE, Mr.
Lawrence brought disciplinary charges against 23 students and filed
criminal charges against 10 over the summer of 1992.  The charges
focussed around the three-day take-over of Bishop House which
spontaneously happened after a CARE demonstration in May of 1992.
Following preliminary reviews at the order of Assistant Dean of Judicial
Affairs-turned-hatchet-woman, Joan Carbone, all charges against first-
year students were dropped--a failed attempt to intimidate and create
dissention within the organization.
    A further attempt at division by splitting the defendants into two
hearings was prevented when once-ACLU chief, Jeffry Fogel, took the
students' case.  The hearing itself, however, never approached even the
pretense of fairness.  University Judge-for-hire, David Dugan, refused to
allow the University's hand-picked panel (jury) an opportunity to weigh
a necessity defense:  that the harm averted by beating a proposed %16
tuition increase outweighed that of temporarily disrupting the services of
Bishop House.  Ms. Carbone, in violation of Disciplinary Policy,
coerced students not to testify.  The prosecution refused to produce
witnesses, including Lawrence.
    Even considering the mockery of justice in the hearing, the
defendants were acquitted of all counts of harassment and abuse, which
constituted the most sever charges.  The sanction was set for each
student at one semester's suspension, and automatic expulsion pending
any future violation.  But this verdict appeared lenient when the court
verdict came down.
    Putting aside any doubts of who controls New Brunswick's
Municipal Court system, Judge Terrill Brenner found ten students
charged criminally guilty of every count.  Each student received a one
year-probation, fines totaling $4100 and jail sentences ranging from 15
to 60 days, which are deferred for six months at which time a motion
may be filed to have the jail terms "reduced in whole or in part"--an
obvious attempt to silence those who would fight the corporate policies
of Lawrence and the BOG.
    Four Newark students arrested attempting to take over Conklin
hall in April had all of their charges dropped when Newark student
leaders held a sit-in at Aidekman Hall, winning a public meeting with
Dean of Students Fohn Faulstitch and Provost Norman Samuels.
Samuels agreed to grant amnesty in light of the prospect of further
action.
    Two students, Cliff Smith and Xavier Hansen, are to begin a
disciplinary hearing and court trial in Newark in February under charges
stemming from the RUPD (Rutgers University Police Dept.) melee after
the Nov 13. BOG meeting.  Smith and Hansen were arrested for trying
to speak to the Board about tuition increases at Rutgers.  [The Board of
Governors is the body within the university in charge of final decisions
about tuition matters, among others.]  Eight students filed assault charges
against RU police officers.
    CARE recognizes that these repressive actions are a last-ditch
effort on the part of an isolated President who finds himself with no base
of support.  Because his policies are opposed to the interests of the
people he is supposed to be representing, the students, and because the
students are organizing and taking power back, Lawrence has failed in
his attempts to persuade people of his side of the tuition issue, that
"Rutgers is affordable to the working families in New Jersey."  His only
hope now is to silence those who speak truth to power.  The jail
sentence is a bluff.  If Lawrence thought he could put us in jail, he would
have done it--the same applies to the threat of expulsion.
    Students have too much power for that and we are gaining
more!  When we don't back down before Mr. Lawrence's empty
threats, what is left for him?  To exile us to Pennsylvania?

    Contributions to the Students' Legal Defense Fund should be
made to CARE and sent c/o Cliff Smith @ 205 New St., Apt.2, New
Brunswick, NJ  08901.  Be generous if possible--time spent fundraising
is time lost organizing.  For info., call Cliff [phone] or write to
Todd:  [e-mail]

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