Students gear up for protest, activism

Inspired by the recent student protests in Quebec, Canada, a small group of Portland State University activists has set out to mobilize students and their potential as a prominent political force.

Miles Sanguinetti/VANGUARD STAFF

DAN MAZUZ (foreground), Eliabeth Lehr and Robin Ryan plan events for the Student Action Coalition.

The group is known as StAC, short for Student Action Coalition, and intends to act on issues like tuition hikes and student debt.

At first, near the end of spring term in June, the number of people attending the meetings hovered in the 20s. Now that fall term is underway and more students are back on campus, StAC is gearing up for the coming year and hopes to attract new members.

“We want to bring back a spirit of resistance on campus,” said Christine Kane, one of the prominent organizers and original founders of StAC. “I think many students are pissed off; they just don’t know what to do about it.”

The Canadian protests began in February as a response to tuition hikes proposed by the government of Quebec.

As the months progressed, hundreds of thousands of students protested, resulting in the largest civil disobedience act in Canadian history. On May 22, 500,000 students and other people marched through downtown Montreal.

StAC members wear red patches on their clothes in support of these kinds of movements, not just in Canada but nationally and around the globe.

Much of this mobilization came about because of the successes of the Quebec student union group known as CLASSE. Kane talked about StAC’s preliminary goal of forming a union similar to CLASSE.

“Our long-term goal is to build a student union, going off of the model of student unions in Quebec, which is very bottom-up. A kind of direct democracy model,” Kane said.

StAC members emphasized the political power of a people’s willingness to strike, and how that was a trait they wanted to cultivate among the PSU student body.

StAC plans to host key members of CLASSE, and to organize workshops where the Quebec student union leaders will explain how they pulled off such massive demonstrations.

“A tentative date is November 12, and the plan is to bring a couple of them down to Portland, and they would give workshops on organizing,” Kane said. “We really want to get the word out about that.”

StAC’s other main project is to help coordinate and mobilize a Nov. 3 protest of austerity measures that place a heavier burden on the general public.

The Portland Action Lab is the primary organizer of the event—a group born out of the Occupy movement and now a coalition of like-minded organizations, groups and associations.

“We felt that we could make the most of student energy and people who have responded receptively to our message by being a part of this greater community movement,” said Dan Mazuz, a StAC organizer.

The location of the protest is yet to be determined.

StAC members defined their vision for a student union that operates outside of traditional student government functions and restraints.“What we’re looking for is to create a dynamic structure that isn’t already there, where students can really flex their muscles,” Mazuz said.

“[Associated Students of Portland State University] is a representative model, and we want a direct democracy model,” Kane said.

Despite differences in the desired leadership model, StAC explained that ASPSU has been supportive.

“[ASPSU President] Tiffany Dollar is very helpful,” said Eva Soto, a core organizer. “We’re definitely not trying to go against ASPSU.”

ASPSU and StAC share the same goals of tuition equity, stopping tuition hikes and politically empowering students.

Marlon Holmes, vice president of ASPSU, voiced his support for StAC. “They are a group of dedicated individuals, both inside and outside the university, in the Portland community,” Holmes said. “We will be more than happy to work with them.”

To illustrate why both ASPSU and StAC feel the need to mobilize, Holmes gave some rough statistics on PSU’s funding sources: “Twelve percent is coming from the state, 80 percent from the students and 8 percent from alumni and various investors,” Holmes said.

StAC plans to table around the PSU campus, and will hold weekly meetings on Tuesdays at 4 p.m. in Parkway North, the room adjacent to the Smith Memorial Student Union food court.