Occupy Movement Inspires Rise in US Campus Activism

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http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/11/25-2

DAVIS, Calif. - Violent confrontations between police and protesters at two University of California campuses have drawn a new cadre of students into the Occupy Wall Street movement and unleashed what some historians call the biggest surge in campus activism since the 1960s.

While Occupy Wall Street protesters have a broad set of grievances that include income inequality and perceived corporate greed, many students have more specific concerns: soaring tuition, campus budget cuts, and fear of heavy student loan debt and lack of job opportunities upon graduation.

Student protests related to these issues have broken out sporadically on U.S. college campuses over the past few years, but the Occupy protests - and the police response to them - have swelled the ranks of campus activists in recent weeks.

A crowd of about 2,000 students, professors and parents held a rally at UC Davis on Monday and called for university Chancellor Linda Katehi to resign after police last week pepper-sprayed students sitting passively on the campus quad.

[Magoo48]

1. These are not "violent confrontations". They are assaults by the police.