NetNews Usenet Archive 1993 #3/NN_1993_3.iso/spool/alt/activism/21432

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From: [e-mail] (Beth A Prairie)
Newsgroups: alt.activism,alt.activism.d
Subject: Rugers Student Activists Face Jail Time
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Date: 27 Jan 93 07:19:04 GMT
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i am posting this for a friend:

______________________________________________

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 (908) 937
6916 or write to Todd:  [e-mail]