Chapel Hill, NC – Twenty students picketed the Board of Trustees meeting, Nov. 18, as the trustees voted to increase out-of-state tuition by $1162 for the coming year at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. The protest was called by Students Against Budget Cuts and Tuition Hikes.

While the tuition hikes were the immediate cause for protest, the students were also demonstrating against the budget cuts that have targeted the lowest-paid workers on campus, as well as departments and centers on campus that serve oppressed peoples and that were won through decades of struggle by progressive activists.

“It's not just about the tuition hike,” explained Rakhee Devasthali, an organizer of the protests. “It is about the whole budget crisis. There is money in the university in the useless layers of administration and we need to cut that, instead of putting the burden of the crisis on the students and workers.”

The protesters entered and surrounded the trustees during the finance committee meeting, holding signs that said, “No tuition hikes” and “Public schools budget info must be public.” The students represented a broad range of organizations on campus.

The protesters were denied speaking during the ‘open’ committee meeting. Instead, Chancellor Thorpe told the protesters that they could have five minutes on the agenda at 8:30 a.m. on the following day.

On Nov. 19, a smaller group of protesters returned to have their say. After being harassed by police outside the Carolina Inn, they were allowed inside. With them, they brought 400 petition signatures that were gathered in the last week. The petition text reads:

“As a University of the people, we demand that UNC-Chapel Hill makes access to and affordability of an education their first priority.

We demand no tuition hikes for undergraduates or graduate students. The burden of the budget cuts should not be shouldered by students, workers, and faculty, any and all cuts should be taken from the top, from the University administration.

We demand a moratorium on tuition hikes for five years.

We demand an open, transparent, and democratic process for addressing the budget crisis in which those who comprise the majority of the University students, workers, and faculty have the loudest voice.

We demand an immediate end to budget cuts to departments that serve or represent oppressed peoples.”

Rakhee Devasthali presented these demands to the Board of Trustees and told them that the democratic thing to do would be to hold a referendum and ask the campus community to vote on the proposed tuition hikes.

“You aren't representing us,” Devasthali told the Board of Trustees. “Student government isn't representing us. And we have a petition of hundreds of students and they're not being represented by these groups either. This is not a democratic process.”

#ChapelHillNC #CapitalismAndEconomy #UniversityOfNorthCarolinaAtChapelHill #StudentsAgainstBudgetCutsAndTuitionHikes

Chapel Hill, NC – Eight students are risking arrest by sitting in at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) administration headquarters, April 17, demanding that Chancellor Moeser take a stand in opposing the production of UNC clothing by sweatshop labor. Earlier, 50 students, faculty and staff rallied outside to show their solidarity with the sit-in. The protesters, members of the Carolina Sweatfree Coalition – a coalition of 20 student groups at UNC – are demanding that UNC cut ties with sweatshops and adopt the Designated Suppliers Program (DSP).

Large amounts of UNC apparel are produced in Central American and South Asian sweatshops, where workers labor under degrading conditions, without union representation and struggle to survive on extremely low wages. Adopting the Designated Suppliers Program would ensure that university logoed apparel – UNC jerseys, sweatshirts, tee shirts and other clothing – is produced in factories where workers earn a living wage and have the right to collectively bargain with their employer.

The protests are part of a wave of student sit-ins that have swept across the country, as hundreds students from Appalachian State to Pennsylvania State to the University of Montana have held rallies and occupied administration buildings to demand their universities cut ties with sweatshops. The campaign is being organized by United Students Against Sweatshops. So far, over 42 universities have signed on to the Designated Suppliers Program.

For three years, students at UNC have been trying to convince university officials to adopt the Designated Suppliers Program. Their arguments have largely fallen on deaf ears. Organizers with the Carolina Sweatfree Coalition aim to increase the pressure on Chancellor Moesor with the sit-in and bring more attention to the ugly reality behind UNC’s apparel. “As UNC students we would like to wear our Carolina gear with pride,” said Salma Mirza, a senior history major at UNC-Chapel Hill. “Instead, due to Chancellor Moeser’s inaction, our clothes continue to be made in factories where workers don’t earn enough to support themselves, let alone their families.”

Yesterday Chancellor Moesor met with a delegation from the Coalition and rejected their proposal to adopt the Designated Suppliers Program. He argued that adopting the DSP would jeopardize the existence of the Carolina Covenant, the university’s scholarship program for low-income students, because the scholarship is funded by sales from licensed apparel. Today, Eva Panjwani, a sit-in participant and recipient of the Carolina Covenant scholarship, responded by saying, “As a Carolina Covenant Scholar, I feel that compromising the living and working conditions of others in order to fund my college education is unacceptable, especially from an institution that touts itself as ‘the university of the people.’”

The sit-in is set to continue until Chancellor Moesor commits to the Designated Suppliers Program. Another rally is also planned for tomorrow afternoon to continue to raise pressure.

#ChapelHillNC #WorkersAndGlobalization #CarolinaSweatfreeCoalition #UniversityOfNorthCarolinaAtChapelHill #UnitedStudentsAgainstSweatshops #DesignatedSuppliersProgram