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[article provided by Lona. Thanks!]

Protest Against Michigamua Goes Into Fourth Week
AP  02/29/2000

ANN ARBOR, Mich. (AP) _ In between studying for exams, University of
Michigan students gave an Ann Arbor high school class a tour and lecture
about their protest over Michigamua, a 98-year-old student group housed in a
makeshift wigwam on the seventh floor of the student union.

The nonviolent, ongoing protest is part of a new wave of campus activism
across the country. A growing number of students are invading school
offices, armed with pillows, cell phones and laptop links to the Internet.

In the past year, there have been more than 50 sit-ins at colleges across
the country _ mostly to protest race relations and college business ties to
sweatshops.

Earlier this month, a three-day sit-in in the University of Michigan dean's
office protested college-licensed clothing made in overseas sweatshops. The
protest ended with a university agreement to join a nationwide group
monitoring worker wages and conditions.

Other recent sit-ins have taken place at Georgetown, Duke, Penn State, Yale
University and Ohio State.

About 2,000 Florida A&M University students occupied three floors of the
state capitol last month to protest a state plan to end most affirmative
action.

At Michigan, protesters say Michigamua, which includes former President
Gerald Ford among its alumni, hasn't honored a 1989 promise to drop the use
of "Native American culture and pseudo-culture" from its rituals. They want
the university to admit the group's activities are inappropriate and evict
it from its headquarters.

Michigan President Lee Bollinger said Friday that the school was forming a
panel to decide whether Michigamua should be allowed to stay in the tower,
along with two other exclusive student groups.

During the course of the review, Michigamua and the two other societies have
agreed to stop using the tower and to remove all of their property, The
Detroit News reported in a Monday story.

Royster Harper, interim vice president for student affairs at Michigan, said
she hoped that the compromise would end the sit-in. She praised the
protesters as passionate and "fighting for something they believe in."

But Sunday, students vowed the sit-in would continue. The students seized
the headquarters of Michigamua on Feb. 6.

"We're willing to do whatever it takes to get Michigamua out of the tower,"
said Neftara Clark, a 21-year-old Battle Creek senior. "Let's face it, the
university administration never would have taken us seriously if we hadn't
stormed the tower."
 
 

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