SDS urged faculty and community groups to demand the university drop the charges, and after a barrage of phone calls, letters and emails, the administration was forced to do so.

Many of the charges leveled at SDS were alleged ‘violations’ of policies designed to silence free-speech on campus by outlawing the basic necessities of any large protest. As one example, the use of amplified sound on campus is only permissible within a narrow one-hour window on weekdays, and even then only with the appropriate permit, which can take over a month to pass through the university bureaucracy for approval. For going on a march at the end of a rally, protesters can be found in violation of moving from an approved protest area or of being otherwise disruptive to the campus environment. These policies are an attempt to chill student activism.

The charges brought against SDS for organizing a protest are outrageous, given that top university administration have consistently defended Rice’s scheduled speaking event, and $150,000 speaker fee, on the grounds of protecting her “free speech.”

Another important activist group on Minnesota’s campus, Whose Diversity?, is currently being targeted for similar repression. Whose Diversity? is accused of violations to the Student Code of Conduct for protesting university administrators at a public relations event that promoted an artificial image of ‘diversity’ at the University. Whose Diversity? demands substantive, not superficial, diversity, and for articulating this at a public event, ten organizers were charged with being “disruptive” and “failing to comply” with university officials. The punishment for speaking out against university administrators could range from a warning to expulsion and the revocation of degrees

Students for a Democratic Society at the University of Minnesota continues to stand with Whose Diversity? and recognizes their struggle as a struggle of all students for justice, equity and inclusion on campus. The collective efforts of student struggles on campus are united in fighting the repression of administration and recognize a common goal to defend the right to dissent on campus. It is in solidarity that SDS continues to struggle for justice with Whose Diversity? and calls upon the community to engage with and support the fight for equity and inclusion on campus. SDS is asking that its supporters, who were so vital in its successful fight against university repression, now give their full support to the Whose Diversity? organizers who are facing repression.

SDS has sent its thanks its faculty and community supporters who stood with it in fighting against administration repression. Matt Boynton, a University of Minnesota SDS member, said, “More than anything else, we want to recognize this as a major victory and to thank everyone who supported us. We would not have won without the support of faculty, staff and community members. We hope Whose Diversity? organizers will be cleared of their charges and we can all share a victory very soon.”

The SDS victory against repression on campus is a major one that will be celebrated as the group carries its work forward to the SDS National Convention, which is being held at the University of Minnesota next fall.

#MinneapolisMN #StudentsForADemocraticSociety #UniversityOfMinnesota #freeSpeech #CondoleezzaRice

Minneapolis, MN – Hundreds of students and community members gathered outside of Northrop Auditorium at the University of Minnesota (U of M), on the evening of April 17, to protest an appearance by Bush White House National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice. Rice was speaking as an invited guest of the University’s Humphrey School of Public Affairs.

The crowd of over 250 protesters, led by Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), heard speakers including professors David Pellow and August Nimtz, AFSCME 3800 President Cherenne Horazuk, Welfare Rights Committee member Deb Howze, Anti-War Committee member Sabri Wazwaz and representatives from other student groups such as Whose Diversity and Students for Justice in Palestine.

Speakers condemned Rice as a war criminal whose misconduct during the Bush administration included direct responsibility for the use of ‘enhanced interrogation techniques.’ This torture was systematically implemented by the CIA and used at Black Sites around the world as well as prisons like Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib.

Protesters gathered in front of Northrop exercised their rights to ‘free speech’ by defying police orders banning the use of amplified sound.

In the weeks before Rice’s appearance, SDS worked with several professors on a University Senate resolution, modeled after a similar one passed at Rutgers University, condemning the visit of Rice. Though the resolution failed, over 200 professors signed a petition opposing her visit, her receiving of $150,000 to speak, and condemning her role in the Bush administration.

Speaking to the rally, Stephanie Taylor of SDS stated, “Condoleezza is advocating for the erasure of history and the covering up of crimes committed.” Sociology Professor David Pellow spoke about how Rice’s ‘humanitarian’ work was done in places like Iraq with F-16 jets. He reminded the crowd that Rice was a board member for the Chevron Corporation which has been responsible for a long list of environmental disasters around the world. For her efforts, Rice had an oil tanker named after her. The name of the tanker was changed in the run up to the war on Iraq. Speaker Maggie Kilgo pointed out, “The illegal invasion of Iraq was predicated on the lie that Iraq had WMDs to disguise the fact that a great economic incentives provided a lucrative bounty to the American invaders and the private corporations that they brought with them.”

In addition the record of illegal wars, occupation and systematic torture under the leadership of Rice and the Bush administration, SDS and other protesters highlighted that Rice, who was to speak about the Civil Rights Act of 1964, was bad choice to speak on the subject. In his open letter to Condoleezza Rice, U of M Humphrey School Roy Wilkins Professor of Human Relations and Social Justice Samuel Meyers, Jr. stated, “the argument is that you are black and a woman and even though you have expressed opposing views long held by the mainstream supporters of equal opportunity and fairness, and you are not an academic expert on the topic, your visit should be supported because, well, you are black and a woman!”

Professor August Nimtz stated, “Hundreds of thousands – if not millions – of others” could have spoken to the “narrative about how a particular black family coped with, and refused to be broken by, that system” of white supremacy in the Jim Crow south. Nimtz himself grew up in the Jim Crow south in New Orleans and highlighted the fact that Rice was “missing in action” while some “90% of her cohorts made the decisive contributions for the victory, the Children’s Crusade, when the masses took to the streets.” Nimtz also highlighted her absence from struggles against apartheid in South Africa.

Deb Howze of the Welfare Rights Committee told of the hypocrisy of Rice speaking on behalf of Civil Rights when Rice oversaw wars abroad that took billions of dollars to murder Iraqi’s including women and children while the women and children of the U.S. suffered and starved at home.

After speaking in front of the auditorium, hundreds of protesters marched around the building and across campus. They returned to the side entry of Northrop where guests entered and were expected to exit from. Inside, during Rice’s speech several members of the audience wore orange jump suits and black hoods to protest her contributions of torture and crimes against humanity.

Upon exiting the speech from Rice, hundreds of people were confronted by the protesters waiting outside the doors. Exiting guests had to walk through a canyon of loud protesters chanting slogans like “This is what democracy looks like, Rice is what hypocrisy looks like!”

The protest led by SDS made it clear to Rice and the University of Minnesota that “War criminals are not welcome on our campus.”

#MinneapolisMN #AntiwarMovement #StudentMovement #StudentsForADemocraticSociety #SDS #WarCrimes #CondoleezzaRice

Minneapolis, MN – The University of Minnesota Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) are organizing an April 17 protest to coincide with a speech by Condoleezza Rice – a close aide of George Bush and a war criminal to boot.

Former Secretary of State and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice will be speaking as the 2014 Distinguished Carlson Lecturer at the University of Minnesota. The Carlson Foundation, a private donor to the University of Minnesota, is fronting the $150,000 honorarium to host Rice. The university planned her speech, on the subject of civil rights, to coincide with the 50th Anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The University of Minnesota describes her speech as recognition towards “her effort to foster freedom and democracy.”

This invitation and “distinguished” lecture has disgusted students, staff, faculty and community members. The Twin Cites anti-war movement, heeding a call from SDS, will join a large rally to highlight Dr. Rice’s criminal conduct and to underscore the massive violations of human rights she was responsible for during the Bush administration.

The choice of Dr. Rice to speak on civil rights or “freedom and democracy” is outrageous. In fact, her crimes stand in direct opposition to the great contributions made by leaders of the civil rights movement like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Dr. King had no problem connecting poverty, racism and injustice at home with the imperialist war in Vietnam. Dr. King noted that “every time we kill one [Vietnamese] we spend about $500,000 while we spend only $53 a year for every person characterized as poverty-stricken in the so-called poverty program.” For Dr. King and other civil rights leaders, the war was a disgrace that “played havoc with our domestic destinies” and put the U.S. “in a position of appearing to the world as an arrogant nation.”

Recall that under Rice’s leadership as Secretary of State and National Security Advisor, the U.S. openly committed well-documented and widespread crimes against humanity. These crimes included but are not limited to an illegal invasion of Iraq on pretenses of ‘weapons of mass destruction’ – which were never found. The years of occupation that followed the invasion of Iraq left, by conservative estimates, over half of a million people dead. This invasion and occupation was accompanied by widespread use of terror, in the systematic torture of prisoners as documented at Abu Ghraib and the long-standing torture prison known as Guantanamo Bay.

While this torture was documented, much more remains less documented. White House reports have long cited legal memos dispersed by Rice not only tolerating torture but suggesting that the Geneva Convention does not apply to the U.S. while engaged in its terroristic war, ‘The War on Terror.’

It is with these facts and with many others that Students for a Democratic Society and other student and anti-war groups will rally against Rice’s visit to the University of Minnesota. While administrators of the university have said that their invitation of Dr. Rice was on the grounds of “freedom of speech,” her “free speech” should be seen as nothing more than promoting the annihilation of sovereign countries via barbaric means of torture and criminal activity.

Like students and staff at Stanford, and most recently at Rutgers, Dr. Rice will be greeted upon her arrival with a reminder that her mark of distinction is that of a war criminal. In the name of the millions of Iraqis who saw their country ripped apart by the U.S. invasion – overseen in part by Condoleezza Rice, we urge you to join us at this protest. And in the names of thousands of young Americans sent to war only to return home without jobs, without proper healthcare – and the many who never returned at all – join SDS on April 17 at 4:00 p.m. at the University of Minnesota to condemn war criminals speaking on our campus.

#MinneapolisMN #AntiwarMovement #StudentMovement #StudentsForADemocraticSociety #UniversityOfMinnesota #WarCrimes #CondoleezzaRice

Grand Rapids, MI – Chanting “Condi lied, people died!” 40 people with Occupy Grand Rapids protested outside Devos Place, Nov. 16. Inside, Condoleezza Rice, former Secretary of State under the Bush administration, spoke at a $100 per plate Republican Party fund raising dinner. At the entrance to the event, Occupy protesters put a giant puppet of former Secretary of State Rice on trial for her war crimes against the people of Iraq and Afghanistan. Inside, a small gathering of Republican die-hards heard Rice promote her new book in which she defends the U.S. wars and occupations.

Standing under the Union Civil War soldier statue, where the Occupy protest began its march through downtown Grand Rapids, Alex Beecroft with Occupy Grand Rapids said, “The U.S. war in Iraq has definitely been a big presence and contributor to difficult economic times we find ourselves in. Condoleezza Rice was a big proponent of the lies that got the U.S. into a war in Iraq. The lies about the Weapons of Mass Destruction that did not exist and the lies about the connections to Al Qaeda from Iraq, that were not there. She just soapboxed these lies for years. I know the platforms for war were false. War by false pretenses is inherently wrong.”

During the march through downtown, protester Jeff Smith said, “We are confronting Condoleezza Rice while she is in town for her participation in war crimes during the Bush years when literally hundreds of thousands of people were killed at the hands of the U.S. military in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine. The other thing is that the protest relates to the Occupy Movement because the billions of dollars spent on brutal and bloody wars is money taken away from working class people. It is money that could have gone to schools, people’s health care and other public needs.”

Once outside the Rice book signing, Greg Shotwell, a retired United Auto Worker said, “The Bush government lied to us about weapons of mass destruction and started an illegal war in Iraq, and then we found out the real mass destruction was occurring right there on Wall Street. None of the people who perpetuated the financial disaster that we are suffering from have been brought to justice. None of them have been arrested. They are going to arrest Occupy protesters, but the people who actually caused the destruction are not only walking around free, but they have been rewarded!”

Shotwell continued, “After 911, they cut taxes on the 1%, the wealthiest people, and then distracted us with this war on Iraq. What does that cost us? Billions and billions of dollars, thousands of lives and what do we get in return? We have gained nothing from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, nothing at all. We have to make this democracy more accountable to the 99% of the people. Right now this government is owned and controlled by the wealthiest and I think that is something we all understand. Everyone feels it in their daily lives.”

Grand Rapids is a city where six billionaires dominate the local economy and government. There is a relentless march of Republican has-beens like Condoleezza Rice through town promoting the most extreme conservative agenda for U.S. war and occupation, against taxing the rich and the Tea Party agenda. The manufacturing jobs are largely gone, shipped overseas, while the corporate headquarters remain to collect overseas profits benefitting the 1%. In a small city where one cannot gaze without seeing buildings and projects named after the billionaires DeVos, Van Andel or Secchia, they have even taken to putting up bronze statues of their family and their friends. The ever-present 1% wants everyone to know who owns Grand Rapids.

Meanwhile Occupy Grand Rapids continues to camp out at Fountain Street Church and organize protests supporting war vets and working people, while opposing the big banks, Vice President Joe Biden and the latest target – professor and war criminal Condoleezza Rice.

#GrandRapidsMI #AntiwarMovement #OccupyWallStreet #OccupyGrandRapids #CondoleezzaRice