Members of the University of Massachusetts Anti-War Coalition (AWC) held a protest on Tuesday against the War in Iraq and the on-campus presence of United States military recruiters.
Along with affiliated members of the UMass Radical Student Union (RSU) and International Socialist Organization (ISO), the AWC protesters wielded placards and formed a picket line in front of a National Guard recruiting table in the Campus Center.
"It is part of an ongoing campaign to get the recruiters off campus," said Jack Hawkins, a member of the RSU. Hawkins said that it was the job of the recruiters to sell military service and the aim of the protesters was to fully inform the people targeted by recruiters about military service.
Members of the protest handed out brochures with information on military enlistment from the National Youth and Militarism Program of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) to students who approached the recruitment table. The AFSC is an international group founded by Quakers to provide conscientious objectors with an opportunity to aid civilian war victims, according to their Web site. The National Youth and Militarism Program aims to stop the spread of the U.S. military in education.
Charles Peterson, a member of the ISO, held a protest sign and called upon passing students and visitors to help bring the troops home now.
"This is a place of higher learning, not a place to be conscripted for Halliburton," he said. "We have talked to a lot of people here who are equally disgusted."
The National Guard had begun setting up a regular recruiting table in the Campus Center only since last Friday, according to Master Sergeant Kittredge, one of the three recruiters present. The table received about a half-dozen visitors with serious interest in joining the National Guard daily, according to the recruiters.
"I think that everybody should have all the information that they can get," said Kittredge on the protestors. "They have the right to picket as long as they do it peacefully."
Last week a complaint was filed against the AWC with the Dean of Students over a possible violation of the Code of Student Conduct during a protest in front of the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) booth at the campus job fair on Thursday.
Lieutenant Colonel David Vacchi, head of the UMass ROTC program, told the Daily Hampshire Gazette that the protesters did not clear away for students trying to get information about the program and took a list of personal contact information of interested students from the ROTC booth.
Members of the AWC protesting in the campus center on Tuesday denied the allegations.
Peterson, who had attended the previous protest at the job fair, called the allegations a "complete and utter falsehood."
"Any institution that loses $8 billion in Iraq makes it easy for me to believe that they could lose a single sheet of paper," said AWC member James Fiorentino.
According to the Student Code of Conduct, students have the right to demonstrate on campus as long as they do not interfere with class work or University business, block the free movement of individuals around campus, interfere with the freedom of speech of any other member of the campus or incite a dangerous or violent activity.
"The complaint is under review by the Dean of Students office and she will decide if any sanction is appropriate under the Code of Student Conduct," said UMass spokesman Ed Blaguszewski. "He did not know which party had filed the complaint with the Dean of Students."
The students who had allegedly violated the code of conduct could face anywhere from a reprimand to expulsion from the University, according to Blaguszewski. There is no time table for when the final decision would be made by the Dean of Students.
"I hope that people realize that there is a difference between questioning a political policy and questioning the troops," Kittredge said.
Derrick Perkins can be reached at dperkins@student.umass.edu.
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