 "Photo: Caitlin Coughlan, Collegian Staff")
Members of the University of Massachusetts Republican club spoke out against today's planned student strike during a rally on the steps of the Student Union at noon yesterday.
Standing below a display advertising the two-day student boycott of classes in the window of the Student Government Association [SGA] offices, Republican club leaders called the strike a "politically motivated stunt" and the grievances filed by the SGA and Graduate Student Senate [GSS] "ridiculous."
"These two misguided and self-interested student organizations do not care about the best interests of all students," said club President Brad DeFlumeri. "Rather, they are calling a strike to pursue a political agenda that includes the glorification of GSS President Jeff Napolitano."
Speakers took turns refuting the list of demands presented by the SGA and GSS including rolling back student fees, increasing diversity funding and accountability, regaining student control over student space and bringing an end to alleged patrols of plainclothes police officers in residence halls.
"The Republican club feels that the GSS and SGA are not representing their constituents properly," said Greg Collins, vice president of the Republican club.
Collins said the calls for a student strike were encouraging teachers and graduate students to cancel classes thus undermining the education of undergraduates. He also called the grievances filed by the GSS and SGA misguided.
"We feel that the GSS and the student senate and SGA focus too much on racial diversity and socio-economic diversity," Collins said. "We already have diverse organizations in relation to different religions, different faiths, different ethnic and cultural groups."
According to Collins, increasing funding for outreach programs for poorer high school students in the Commonwealth while at the same time rolling back student fees would be illogical.
Collins also called the demand for an end to patrols of plainclothes policemen in residence halls "unjustified."
"The police presence in dorms is exaggerated," he said. "The police obviously target specific areas on campus which historically do have patterns of violence and destruction of property."
Ed Cutting, a graduate student and member of the Chancellor Search Committee, blamed the Graduate Employee Organization (GEO) as being behind the strike, calling it "illegal."
"GEO can't strike, professors can't strike and can't let their kids skip class," he said. "They cannot require you to attend their protest."
According to GEO's Vice President Aaron Winslow, Cutting's information was incorrect.
"GEO cannot endorse a strike," he said. "GEO is not striking."
DeFlumeri disagreed.
"The grad student senate, [teaching assistants], GEO are one and the same. They're inextricably linked," he said. "We feel as though GEO is behind the strike."
Cutting called on the University to fire graduate students who cancelled classes during the two-day student strike and told the crowd every student had the right to sue GEO over missed classes.
Cutting spoke in support of the presence of police officers in campus residence halls, and told the crowd that UMPD officers behave lawfully and students who possess guns or drugs deserved to get arrested "for being stupid."
"Cops are going in without any warrants and with no uniform," said Student Trustee Ruth Thompson. "Until [students] get arrested, they didn't even know that there are [plainclothes police officers] in the dorms dressed as pizza delivery guys. [The Republican club] did not even address those concerns."
Thompson - who looked on with other members of the SGA during the rally - announced the list of events during the strike at the conclusion of the protest.
"Students who are out there [during the strike] and care about the issues are going to show the number of people who are for the strike and who are for student rights and about changing the issues," she said.
Thompson did not think the rally changed many students' minds about supporting the strike. The goal of the strike and the teach-ins scheduled throughout the two days of the class boycott was educating students on how the issues that had impacted the campus were also affecting academics and social life, Thompson said.
According to DeFlumeri, he had been contacted by alumni who opposed the strike as well as students in the past few days.
"I think they represent a silent majority of students, staff and faculty and alumni who are rational people who don't think the University should be shut down for two days over ridiculousness," he said.
Sophomore Michael Brescia, 20, attended the last half of the rally. Before the rally, Brescia said, he had been unsure about whether or not he would participate in the strike.
Brescia had not been planning on striking, but had read a little on the issues surrounding the class boycott.
"I think [the rally] made me a little more concrete against the strike," he said. "I was kind of in the middle, but I'm a little more against it," he said. "If other people want to I'm not going to stop them. They have the right to express their own opinions.
Brescia said he would be attending class during the strike.
"I'm not going to be taking part of that," he said. "I'm going to go to class and do what I paid here to do."
Derrick Perkins can be reached at dperkins@student.umass.edu.
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