Student Protests Against War Gain Focus and Momentum By DANA MULHAUSER
After six weeks of scattered activity, a nascent campus antiwar movement is building momentum, as protesters coordinated a fast on a dozen campuses on Wednesday and Thursday, and planned to hold several regional conferences this weekend.
The University of California at Berkeley becomes Protest Central this weekend, when representatives from 40 West Coast colleges plan to gather for a conference of California Students Against the War. A similar conference of East Coast institutions is being held at Boston University. Smaller conferences are planned elsewhere.
Protesters believe that there is a growing national frustration with a war that moves slowly and has muddled objectives. At the conferences, "we're seeing how we can tap into that growing antiwar sentiment that the country has shown in the last few weeks," said Jessica Gould, a Harvard University student who plans to attend the Boston conference, called the Northeast Regional Conference Against War and Racism.
The conferences offer protesters a chance to plan joint events, and provide a forum for students who feel like outcasts on their own campuses, because most students do express support for the war effort. "People felt isolated, and these regional conferences give you a feeling of solidarity," said Deepinder Mayell, a student at Boston College. "When you are working on social-justice issues, you're deemed very anti-American."
The Berkeley conference will include workshops on activist organizing and Middle Eastern history, as well as a session titled "Converting the Anti-Capitalist Movement Into the Anti-War Movement." The Boston conference features a talk by Ralph Nader.
Berkeley students also held a protest on Thursday in front of the San Francisco offices of Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat. The students oppose legislation proposed by Senator Feinstein and Sen. Jon Kyl, an Arizona Republican, that would prevent the federal government from issuing student visas to individuals from countries on the U.S. State Department's list of terrorism sponsors.
"This incriminates whole national identities," said Hoang Phan, a Berkeley doctoral student in English. "[Senator Feinstein] is basically saying that if you're from one of these countries, you are a terrorist."
Mr. Phan also pointed out that the proposed legislation would still permit the issuing of visas to students from Saudi Arabia and Egypt, the homelands of most of the September 11 hijackers.
Other protests this week included a 36-hour water-only fast that began at 9 a.m. Wednesday. The event took place on more than a dozen campuses, led by Occidental College. "A student-organized national hunger fast will send a powerful message to the international community that America's youth oppose its country's violent military response to the complex issue of terrorism," said Spencer D. Jackson. Mr. Jackson is a student at Occidental and the organizer of the fast.