Campus Antiwar Network History

How many times this year will we hear news of another out-of-controlcampus police force, another set of students repressed by their ownadministration, another assault on the free speech rights of studentswho are merely protesting a war that grows more unpopular by the day?

That students at Hampton University reached beyond the war to callattention to issues of no less importance – the racist tragedy in NewOrleans, the AIDS crisis, homophobia, the prison-industrial complex,the crisis in Sudan – should be commended, not reprimanded.

The problem of campus repression seems particularly acute at HamptonUniversity, where the administration is hell-bent on shutting down anyand all dissent and enforcing its ridiculously vague rules selectivelyagainst student demonstrations.

It is beyond comprehension that wearing stickers and “lookingsuspicious” could be grounds for discipline. It is truly sickeningthat at a historically black college students would face punishmentfor merely standing up against the vicious racism of a society thatlet thousands of poor black people die in New Orleans only threemonths ago.

I call on the Hampton University administration to immediately dropall charges against the seven students who participated in the Nov.2nd protest. In addition, it is beyond time for them to end theirdiscriminatory policies against student protesters.
Michael George Smith

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Michael Smith was a founding member of the Campus Antiwar Network and faced campus repression himself as a member of the “Berkeley 3.” He is an activist and writer in the Bay Area.