Every week brought a protest (or lawsuit) or both.
With some notoriety as a student senator and a columnist for the Daily Collegian, I ran and won campuswide as Co-President of the Student Body/ Student Trustee. This gave me a megaphone (and trustee access) to support our union and expose plans to raise student tuition out of the reach of working-class kids.
Guided by the Harvard law student/eccentric dreamer Doug Phelps (who went on to form Nader’s PIRG’s and the national Public Interest Network) we had laid an economic infrastructure with numerous coops, a five-person Student Legal Services office, run by attorney, Jim Starr and the Student Center for Educational Research led by tech scholar Larry Magid. Rather than paying annual student fees to a soulless administration, we’d ask members to give that money to the Student Union to empower ourselves and use our coop services.
Post anti-war activism at UMASS was driven by an idea that students should, for the first time in American history, form a STUDENT UNION to collectively bargain for the terms of our education.
At the opening of the Fine Arts Building by the Boston Pops, we stormed proceedings to demand that noted jazz musicians Archie Shepp, Max Roach and Vishnu Wood have access to rehearsal and performance space. After all, we’d been paying student fees for the construction of the building for decades.
COLLEGE ACTIVISM
We promoted the classes of progressive professors (econ, legal studies, feminist and third world studies) and brought their expertise and participation into our work.
The ultimate goal was to organize a minimum of 25 union councils, based on interests, dorm residency, affinities and/or identities. Once we achieved that number, we’d strike for recognition. We made it to the goal of 25 councils and went out on general strike over tuition increases.
We sued for Title Nine protections for female athletes.
We challenged the town of Amherst to rename itself given Lord Amherst’s use of “small pox blankets” to commit genocide against indigenous people. We supported striking campus service workers and nurses.
First International Women’s Week, with performances by Betty Carter, Lucecita, Shirley Horn and Holly Near and support for Inez Garcia, Assata Shakur, Yvonne Wanrow and Susan Saxe.
We opposed apartheid, supported the occupation of Wounded Knee, created services for LGBT students, vets and women.
But rightwing elements in the student government hoping to mimic our successes with their own campaigns, labeled us anti-democratic and radical. Activists who wanted a more centralized structure fought with those who expected the student union to miraculously rise up and declare itself. And as the story often goes, our movement splintered at the finish line.
EG+Carey Rothenberger as board votes to raise tuition.
We won! Elected Co-President and Student Trustee.
Summer after opening the People’s Market in Colorado with the UMASS gang.
Board of Trustees meeting to raise tuition held at the top of the Student Library. Activist Peter Knowles repels from roof to hang a protest banner in the window!
