[lbo-talk] times letter

[Liza Featherstone]

Below is the letter I wrote to the Times in response to that ridiculous
campus piece. It's running tomorrow, in a significantly compacted form. The
reason for the shortening, though, is a cheering one: they received a LOT of
letters on this and they're running many of them.

Liza

Kate Zernike's "Professors Protest as Students Debate" was misleading in its
implication that college students are not protesting President Bush's war on
Iraq. On March 5th, tens of thousands of students on more than 400 campuses
-- from Hunter College to the University of Arkansas to Seattle Central
Community College -- participated in "Books Not Bombs" protests. Some held
sit-ins, some walked out of class, some held rallies that drew thousands.
The day the war began, students on hundreds of campuses engaged in similar
actions, and they have continued to do so ever since.

As a point of contrast to today's supposed apathy,  Zernike mentions a 1972
sit-in at the Westover Air Force Base in Chicopee, Massachusetts, not far
from Amherst College, which drew 1,000 people. Funny she should bring that
up: on March 22 of this year, 1,000 people protested at that base, including
students from area colleges.