During a visit to the Bay Area on Oct. 30-31, Puerto Rican student activist Gamelyn Oduardo attested that California provided inspiration to their Puerto Rican counterparts.
“The struggle for education is a struggle for liberation,” said Oduardo, one of the student leaders of the University of Puerto Rico responsible for the shutdown of 11 of 12 campuses that took place in March of 2010. These shutdowns coincided with student organizing in California against proposed changes to the state’s university system.
Students in Puerto Rico united on Nov. 10 to decide how to deal with the university administration’s plans to raise tuition prices by $800 per student in January of 2011. The decision led to an indefinite strike that was set to start on Dec. 14.
The campus shutdowns came on the heels of a general strike in Puerto Rico supported by a number of constituencies, including community groups, religious groups and the labor movement protesting a number of privatization proposals. According to Oduardo, the student strike was born out of conditions on a national scale in 2009, when a 24-hour general strike was called to protest the proposed layoffs of 17,000 public employees by the Republican Gov. Luis Fotuno in October. Hundreds of thousands of employees and others joined walkouts and demonstrations that virtually shut the island down for the day.
Following the general strike “the labor movement pulled out; community groups, religious groups and student groups continued,” said Oduardo. “When the labor movement backed out [following] the general strike student groups turned toward organizing the university.”
“[The universities] had seen worse services and fewer courses. Access to education was affected because when you raise fees you are taking opportunities away from working-class people.” A fee hike of $1,200 per student was originally proposed.
“Rio Piedras was the first campus that went on strike,” said Oduardo. “Then 10 other campuses joined. The only one that didn’t join was the university hospital but it went on 24-hour strike.”
The campus shut downs lasted 57 days starting April 21 and ending June 17. During that time, the members of the student movement occupied campus buildings. “On the first occupied campus they just wanted us to get tired,” said Oduardo. “They’d let us out but not let us back in. They tried to cut supplies; we were under siege by police around the campus. People were bringing us food and throwing it over the fence and trying to get it in. One man who brought food to his striking son was beat up by the state police. One night I was walking through the campus at midnight and an old lady opened her trunk and started throwing food over the fence at us. The people were seeing injustice and fighting it.”
The students had three demands of the administration. The first demand was to retain the policy of granting a fee waiver to anyone who maintained a 4.0 GPA and to stop the $1,200 per student fee hike. Secondly, they wanted to stop the proposed private/public model that was being advanced and keep the university public. The third was to grant a general amnesty for all the students involved in the strike so that they would not be punished arbitrarily. “Right now if they are going to sanction us they have to go through due process; before they could just outright dismiss a student,” said Oduardo. As of now, five students are being disciplined.
By June of 2010, the administration said that they were willing to renegotiate the fee hike down by $400, raising fees by $800 per student starting in January of 2010, but the student activists say that this is not good enough. At the end of this past October, students had again occupied the schools of Social Sciences, Education, Art, and Humanities and were holding student assemblies.
“The time to hit is now [but] we won’t shut the campuses down if the majority of students don’t agree,” said Oduardo. “Our big assembly day is Nov. 10. We’re calling a general assembly of all 18,000 students. Usually 3,000 to 5,000 participate. Then we’ll know what’s next.” A referendum vote was called to gauge the sentiments of students in the university system.
By Nov. 11, 98 percent of the 5,560 students — or 33 percent of the affected students — voted against the fee hike. As a result, student organizing against the upcoming fee increases will continue. Students voted for a 48-hour blockade beginning on Dec. 7 of the Rio Peidras campus that resulted in clashes with private security guards. By Dec. 9, the Puerto Rican police forces, including SWAT, raided this and other campuses. An indefinite strike against tuition increases by students and faculty was scheduled to start on Dec. 14.
Oduardo said that the struggle of students to preserve the public university is part of a larger effort to support Puerto Rican independence. Since 1898, Puerto Rico has officially been a commonwealth of the United States but is not recognized as either a state or an autonomous nation. “The student struggle is part of a bigger movement for sovereignty,” said Oduardo. “We constructed a united front with people from different backgrounds. The organizing of campuses and the student movement is putting forth transitory demands for education and workers rights that will lead to independence and the struggle for freedom. It is part of the right of self-determination that every nation has.”