Washington Week: Student Voices (O)

Columbia U. anti-war coalition plans strike
By Caroline Kao & Josh Hirschland
Columbia Daily Spectator (Columbia U.)
02/02/2007

(U-WIRE) NEW YORK — Columbia University's newly crystallized anti-war coalition is calling for a student strike to protest the war in Iraq. A committee of participating students and representatives from groups supporting the cause will finalize the details of the strike by this upcoming Monday.

The plans being discussed for the day of the strike include a rally, students requesting that their professors cancel courses for the day, and strikers disrupting or refusing to go to classes.

The Columbia anti-war coalition passed a resolution approving a strike on Feb. 15 — the same day that another anti-war protest is being held at the University of California, Santa Barbara — by a 17-5 vote. The date of the strike is currently back up for negotiation.

Karina Garcia, senior and a member of the Chicano Caucus who was prominent in her opposition to the speech by Minuteman Project founder Jim Gilchrist, said a strike is necessary "in order for us to be able to build a real movement ... To have a strike is saying the war is intolerable and its something that needs to be stopped with a sense of urgency."

According to David Judd, junior and a member of the Internationalist Socialist Organization, the following groups are supporting the event — the ISO, an emerging Columbia branch of The World Can't Wait! Drive Out the Bush Regime, the Working Families Party, Students for Justice in the Middle East, and Lucha, a new outreach organization focusing on Latino issues. The coalition is also in conversations with the Columbia University College Democrats about their support.

The coalition formed as a result of the Jan. 27 March for Peace in Washington, D.C., when several participants from Columbia met the following Monday to discuss the march and the direction of the anti-war movement on campus.

Blair Mosner, a senior, a member of Students for Justice in the Middle East who is working with the coalition to organize the strike, said, "we came to the conclusion that we couldn't just break the coalition and not continue to work together against the war."

On Wednesday night, a group of approximately 30 students met to discuss their plans for the day of student action.

"It's about interrupting the daily grind and calling attention to it [the war]" said Mosner, who also initiated Wednesday's discussion. "There's power in a strike. It says that our message is strong."

According to Mosner, the coalition has been in communication with noted linguist and liberal intellectual Noam Chomsky, who is scheduled to talk at Miller Theater on Monday, about speaking in support of the strike. Chomsky did not respond to an e-mailed request for comment.

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