DEFEND FREE SPEECH RIGHTS AT SAN FRANCISCO STATE UNIVERSITY (SFSU)!

On Wednesday, March 9th, students from New York to San Francisco rallied to protest military recruiters on their campuses. The students were expressing their outrage at the military's anti-gay "don't ask, don't tell" policy, the diversion of federal funding away from education into military spending, and the war in Iraq. University administrations in both cities responded with disciplinary threats and police action.

At SFSU over 150 students joined Students Against War -- the school's Campus Antiwar Network chapter -- and other groups to protest Air Force recruiters and Army Corps of Engineers attending a school sponsored career fair. The crowd flooded the fair, surrounding their tables and chanting. When Air Force recruiters tried to wait out the protest, students staged a peaceful anti-war sit-in and teach-in.

POLICE INTIMIDATION AND UNIVERSITY THREATS

The following day, recruiters returned to the SFSU career fair. As soon as two activists entered the career fair, eight police officers forcibly removed them from their own student center, pushing them and twisting one activist's arm. When the other activist asked why she was being forced to leave, she was pushed into a doorway, told she was causing a fire hazard by standing there, and then kicked out of the building.

An SFSU spokesperson informed reporters that student groups involved in the protest will be suspended, and that some of the individual students who participated will also face disciplinary action. Such actions would be blatant violations of students' right to free speech and assembly.

Sean O'Neill, a veteran who returned from Iraq last year after serving with the Marines, spoke out in defense of the students who helped organize the counter-recruitment protest, saying, "Do students have the right to protest? Of course they do! Are you saying that people can't protest anything now? Anyone who's taken even a cursory glance at the Constitution will tell you that we have the right to protest whatever we want...As a vet, I don't take any offense! Anyone who doesn't want me over there is a friend in my book."

WHAT YOU CAN DO

We ask the public to speak-out against the administration's plans to limit free speech rights, and demand that no sanctions be placed on students or organizations that helped to plan the March 9th protest. Please contact:

Robert A. Corrigan, SFSU President

Penny Saffold, SFSU Vice President/Dean of Students

For more information please contact: wcaudy@stars.sfsu.edu