Free Skool’s biggest quarter yet: 38 different classes taught by more than three dozen teachers offering a decentralized educational network outside the system (and still $20 thousand less than UCSC)

Santa Cruz, CA, November 1st, 2005: Winter quarter is just starting. But you won’t need any student id, add/drop forms, or registration fees. There are no classrooms, professors, or administration, just people sharing what they know. This is Free Skool Santa Cruz. And the first thing you will learn is that we are all students and we are all teachers.

Free Skool summer quarter runs November 1st to January 31st and offers a variety of classes in homes, community centers, and open spaces all over Santa Cruz. In Free Skool Santa Cruz’ third quarter, classes include knitting, jazz history, Spanish, drawing, beer-making, singing, Indonesian monkey chant, oriental medicine, local history, bike and automobile repair, political history, and much more.

[ Free Skool Santa Cruz ]

Activists taking part in the Victoria's Dirty Little Secret campaign were denied entrance to the Capitola Mall on Saturday. (call to action). The U.S. Supreme Court's Pruneyard Decision in 1980 guarantees the right to free speech in privately-owned public areas such as shopping malls.

The mall security and two capitola cops denied the activists entry to the mall. The manager of security said the protesters needed a permit to even stand at the entrance to the mall. The protesters retreated to the streetside sidewalk in front of the mall.

This is directly opposed to a 1980 Supreme Court decision based on a very similar conflict that happened not far from here. The Pruneyard Shopping Center in Campbell.

In short, Capitola police and security guards violated your constitutional rights.

Photos: Activists in Capitola Expose Victoria's Dirty Secret of Boreal Forest Destruction

More info about Pruneyard: Wikipedia || Community Rights Counsel || Pruneyard Shopping Center v. Robins 447 U.S. 74 (1980)

More info about the Victoria's Secret demo: Victoria’s Dirty Secret || Forest Ethics

Reports from a few of the more than 300 demonstrations that took place across North America: New York City || Portland || San Francisco (.mov)

see also: Routine Corruption by Capitola Police Violates Equal Protection || Capitola Mall Sued for Restricting Free Expression || Capitola Mall Backstory - A History of Repression || Why Your Protest at the Capitola Mall is A-OK

The 3rd Annual Practical Activism Conference, Tools for Local and Global Change, was a day-long conference which took place on October 29, 2005 at the University of California at Santa Cruz. It offered a series of workshops addressing activism and change in the local and global context, as well as keynote speeches from Daniel "Nane" Alejandrez and Nzingha Dugas.

Daniel "Nane" Alejandrez is recognized for his commitment to developing alternatives to youth violence, his work in the End the Barrio Warfare Movement and building family and community responses to violence in urban city streets. He co-founded the Kansas City Peace Summit, where urban gangs have met to discuss peace proposals, and is co-founder of the National Coalition of Barrios Unidos.

Audio: Nane - Download the mp3 (22:54 minutes / 10.5 MB)

Nzingha Dugas is a 13 year staff member of UC Berkeley in the area of student leadership and development, outreach, rercruitment, retention, and cross cultural student coalition building. She has been active in supporting the student voice for 20 years and has been the keynote for student leadership programs as well as doing trainings, seminars and workshops focusing on leadership development.

Audio: Nzingha Dugas - Download the mp3 (24:22 minutes / 11.2 MB)

On October 18th, hundreds of students marched and rallied at UC Santa Cruz to protest the presence of military recruiters at the campus career fair.

A Queer Kiss-in was staged in front of recruiters' tables during the march and rally. From inside the fair, kissers were able to effectively block access to military recruiters without shutting down the entire career fair.

The military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" hiring practices are in violation of the UC system's non-discrimination policy. Protesters demanded that the UC adhere to its own policies by protecting all students from discrimination and securing UCSC as a hate-free zone.

Currently, the Solomon Amendment states that any university which denies military recruiters "equal access" to students will lose federal funding. The Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights (FAIR) is challenging the constitutionality of the Solomon amendment in a Supreme Court case, FAIR v Rumsfeld, which will be heard in December. Protesters on Tuesday urged the University of California to become the thirty-ninth school in the country to join FAIR.

SAW Press Release: Students Greet Military with Rally and Queer Kiss-In

Audio: FRSC: Military Off UCSC - March & Rally Radio Coverage || FSRN: UC Students Against War

Photos: UCSC shuts down recruiters || Recruiters Shut Down at UCSC, Rally Photos || Military Recruiting Protested During UCSC's Career Fair || Photos of the Queer Kiss-In Against Military Recruitment at UCSC || Discrimination Is Unacceptable to Students Against War || Oct. 18 Counter-Recruitment Events - Photos by Bob Fitch || Photos from Oct. 18 SAW Rally

blog coverage: Evan Branigan’s Blog

protest announcement: Military Off UCSC - March & Rally Tuesday!

Bring 5 friends and show up at 10am, Baytree Plaza

On Tuesday, multiple branches of the u.s. military will be recruiting at UCSC for the first time this year. In April - the last time the military was here - recruiters were kicked off campus by hundreds of students. On Tuesday, students will be holding a large march and rally to re-affirm that UCSC is a campus opposed to discrimination, opposed to war, and opposed to recruiters' lies.

While our Career Center requires that all groups coming to our job fairs affirm that they are Equal Opportunity Employers, the military is the ONLY institution that is granted an exception. Through the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, queers are officially banned from any position. This is in addition to the military's official ban on women serving combat positions.

see also: Military Recruiters Shut Down in San Diego: Protests Planned in Santa Cruz || UC Santa Cruz Students to March Against Discriminatory Military Recruitment

April 5, 2005: UCSC Students Kick Military Recruiters Off Campus

Peace Friday happens every Friday from 5pm-6PM in front of O-Niel's surf shop on Pacific Avenue in downtown Santa Cruz. It has been happening since at least 2002, when the Bush admnistration first started preparing for war. This week we were joined at the corner by "The TV From Hell" puppet show.

There were a few thousand or so protesters on both sides of the abortion issue in SF on Jan 21, 2006.

º He aquí las actividades del FSA, evento que surgió en respuesta a evidentes servidumbres y limitaciones del FSM convocado en los mismos días y ciudad. Para detalles sobre las razones que motivan nuestro Foro, ver www.fsa.contrapoder.org.ve

º In this interview with the mexican alternative news group La Rosa Negra (LRN-ci), the CRA from Venezuela explains the importance of the Alternative Social Forum, which will take place in a few days, and comments about their activity as an anarchist group.

On January 9th, Paul Ortiz, UCSC Associate Professor of Community Studies, discussed his latest book, Emancipation Betrayed The Hidden History of Black Organizing and White Violence in Florida from Reconstruction to the Bloody Election of 1920 at the Louden Nelson Center in downtown Santa Cruz.