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May Day Redux

Date: 11/17/2008 05:28 pm

 

Along with the contemporary focus on May Day as a day to highlight immigration issues, students also used the day for peace events and traditional worker-justice themed events. These were not without some controversy, however. Twenty-four people, 12 University of California Davis students among them, were arrested in a May Day demonstration protesting the outsourcing of food service and janitorial workers on UC Davis’s campus. At Notre Dame University, the Student Activities Office (SAO) ordered the Notre Dame Peace Fellowship and Campus Labor Action Project (CLAP) to change a “misleading” event plan. The SAO claims that CLAP mislead them in conversations during the planning of a May 1 event, which was a workers' rights protest and not a celebration of St. Joseph the Worker (as CLAP had first indicated it would be). Fifty to sixty high school students joined University of Iowa students participating in local May Day protests for peace. The high school students, who walked out of classes in order to show their dedication to peace, risk suspension for the rest of the year. The high school students have been involved with the UI Antiwar Committee since meeting on a bus to Washington D.C. for a rally on the fourth anniversary of the Iraq War.

5/2/07  Read More from the University of California Davis
5/2/07  Read More from Notre Dame University
5/2/07  Read More from the University of Iowa