View/print page in its original format (Adobe PDF file)

At the December public hearing on campus climate, black, Latina/o, Asian American, women and lgbt students testified to their experiences of racism, discrimination, and sexist abuse on our campus. A black freshman student reported having the n-word written on his door in Alice Lloyd several times by one of his hall-mates. Instead of taking action against the racist perpetrator, the extent of the University’s response was to arrange for him to move into a single room on a different floor. Black students living in Markley reported similar racist incidents in their hall.  At the hearing, minority students declared that we will NOT be driven off this campus, and we will NOT accept second-class, back-of-the-bus treatment.

The drop in underrepresented minority student enrollment since the ban on affirmative action has not only denied many of the best and brightest students access to Michigan’s top universities; it has created an increasingly hostile campus climate for minority and immigrant students who are here. While the majority of the student body supports integration and equality, incidents of both blatant and subtle racism that remain un-addressed have a chilling effect on the entire campus, leading to more sexism and anti-gay bigotry, and stifling the ability of minority, immigrant, and LGBT students to be themselves and contribute to the academic and social life of the campus.

This Martin Luther King Day is a big opportunity to mobilize our campus against racism and hostile climate, and to demand an immediate increase in minority student enrollment.

The MLK Day march and mass meeting must also be a launching point for a broader movement for equal quality public education in K-12 and higher education.  The new student movement in California that has emerged this fall to defend access to the state’s public Universities provides us with a model for our struggle in Michigan. Latina/o and black students at UC Berkeley and UCLA have taken the lead in building mass student meetings, marches, protests and building occupations to stop the enormous tuition hikes that would make it especially difficult for Latina/o, black, other minority students, immigrant students, undocumented students and all working class and poor students to continue their education.

The massive tuition hike in California is being introduced in the context of a national drive to privatize public education at all levels, including specific pressures to privatize elite public universities.  Nationally, Education Secretary Arne Duncan is driving forward a plan to close thousands of public schools and replace them with 5,000 private ("public charter") schools, increasing inequality and segregation wherever he succeeds. In Michigan, we are seeing this plan carried out most aggressively in Detroit, with massive school closings, teacher layoffs and charterization of the Detroit Public Schools. BAMN is leading the fight of Detroit teachers and students to defeat the charter school plan and defend public education.

The attack on public education in k-12 and in higher education threatens to further drive down numbers of minority and immigrant students, and poor and working-class students of all races at elite Universities.  Students at Michigan’s Universities are likely to face tuition increases this Spring and we need to go on the offensive now and build a student movement that can stop any further tuition hikes, further cuts to funding and scholarships, restore affirmative action, and win the Dream Act, which would allow undocumented immigrant students to receive financial aid. BAMN will be holding a mass meeting after the march to discuss a plan of action for the next period.

Join BAMN

The majority of people on this campus and in society support integration and quality public education for all students.  But in order to mobilize our power in a way that can win and defend our victories, we need leadership and organization. BAMN is a mass, democratic, integrated, national organization dedicated to building a new mass civil rights movement to defend affirmative action, integration, and the other gains of the civil rights movement of the 1960s and to advance the struggle for equality in American society by any means necessary. Join BAMN and become a leader of the New Civil Rights Movement!