Photos by Olivia Wallace from the Ohio University Student Union Facebook page.
1, 2, 3, 4; tuition hikes are class war!
Thank goodness for student unions. They’re exactly what they sound like: a union—think labor unions—of students. Well, there is one difference: our student union hopes to become the—not an alternative, but the—default form of government on campus; we want to enact direct democracy and empower students to vote on and influence major university decisions.
My name is Ryan Powers, and I’m a student unionist at Ohio University. “The System,” defined as the institutionalized upholding of an oppressive status quo, can be a scary thing. Not only can it be frightening, it can be annoying and enraging.
Examples: the effects of high tuition on access to education; the hindrance of student debt on economic liberation. As a college freshman, these examples of The System are often the easiest for me to see.
Days like Thursday, January 23 remind me that I’m not alone.
It was on this day the OU Student Union, in conjunction with the Sierra Student Coalition and Fuck Rape Culture, put our bodies on the line to disrupt The System.
Fear dissolved; we were drunk on student power.
The weather was below freezing, but we managed to keep warm. Arms locked, feet grounded, toes cold, we surrounded a bus awaiting OU’s Board of Trustees (BoT) who were on their way to finalize decisions regarding tuition hikes and raises for wealthy administrators. We also protested a natural gas plant they plan to build with university money.
We chanted and sang; we held signs and made our voices heard. Not only to the BoT, but to thousands of others, and we had a lot of fun doing it.
In response, the BoT sneaked away in their personal vehicles. I wondered, did we inspire fear in The System? Annoyance? Anger?
The BoT did agree to a meeting with three OU Student Union delegates for the next day. Their quiet retreat from our protest, as well as their stipulation that the meeting be private, lead me to speculate at their level of fear. Our refusal to disperse after being asked twice by the OU Police Department sparked guesses at their annoyance with us. I know I find it annoying when people refuse to do what I ask, especially if they’re rude about it.
Upon the OUPD’s second warning, we answered: “1, 2, 3, 4; tuition hikes are class war! 5, 6, 7, 8; students will retaliate!”
As for how angry they were, I didn’t know, and I honestly wasn’t too concerned with these questions anyway. I, like everyone else, was ecstatic. The BoT had heard us.
The three students they agreed to include in the discussion regarding our university is not quite the 18,000 campus-wide empowerment we are striving for, but it was better than zero.
Our hopes for a meaningful and mind-changing conversation with the BoT were low, but the student body won a victory that no amount of talking points and rigid defense of The System could undermine: student solidarity and empowerment.
Biting cold air freezing our blood, hands frozen to our signs, joints locked in place: these hardships prompted a couple of protesting students to make a run for the college student’s number one ally: coffee. We passed the elixir around the bus while we danced and jumped to keep warm.
Nothing says “community” and “shared struggle” like collectively dancing like fools while sharing coffee and spit.
OU Student Union’s weekly meeting was to be held later that day. With a couple of hours to kill, I caught the last half hour of my Africana Media Studies class, ate dinner, then promenaded to the meeting room.
I was alone.
Everyone expected a higher turnout at that day’s meeting than usual. Before that day, 20 to 25 people per meeting was the norm.
A few minutes after the designated start time, there were four others in the room besides me, a couple of whom were new.
A few more minutes passed, and people began filing in.
Once we tallied the headcount, attendance stood at 48. There weren’t enough chairs to hold everyone. “We’re going to need a bigger room” was written on a board displaying that day’s agenda.
Regular meeting procedure was abandoned in favor of debriefing from the protest (discussing what went well, what could be improved, and what steps to take next) and deciding on delegates to be sent to the BoT.
Also, some celebration was in order: we shook the system. We gathered our chisels and chipped away at the gigantic marble stone that claims to be a picture of student interest. We struck at this facade with our hammers, revealed the corrupt stone underneath and began the slow, strenuous process of crafting something better.
What this structure will eventually look like must be decided by the entirety of the student body.
The next immediate step was to vote on our delegates to the BoT. We decided and gave them a list of demands that were nonnegotiable. Nonnegotiable because the demands were voted on by the Student Union, and we figured any proposed deviations should be presented to the Union and not left to the discretion of three people. We’re striving for democracy and massive student-involvement, after all. Anything less contradicts the idea of a Student Union.
Although only three people were allowed into the private meeting, the OU Student Union escorted them and waited outside the room. Once they reported back to us, it became painfully clear that the BoT was unwilling to relinquish its power to the student body.
They were reluctant to give power to students who criticize their self-given pay raises and bonuses and their commitment to a natural gas plant to be built with university money while simultaneously raising tuition. Who would have thought?
I think there’s another reason for their attachment to power, too. I realized it during the protest: having power is fun. I know it’s fun because we, the students, claimed power for ourselves that day, and it was some of the most fun I’ve ever had.
It’s a power struggle. We object to the concentration of fun, and we will continue to speak out, not in spite of their efforts to silence us, but because of it.
We won’t only speak out: we’ll chant; we’ll sing; we’ll dance and hold signs.
Now we know how fun it is to have power, and we want to keep having fun, and we think everyone should be allowed to have fun.
We’re replacing our fear of and anger at The System with fun and happiness, one hammer strike at a time.
5, 6, 7, 8; students will retaliate!
