SDSU Student Revolt Quickly Matures : Education: Frustration over budget cuts and doublespeak about the value of education ignited passions. Heated questions evolved into offering solutions.

Surprise. Surprise. A student uprising at San Diego State University. The first visible signs were not much--six of us at a mid-April noon vigil in front of the library, with recycled anti-war-in-the-Gulf signs. “Cease Fire” had become “Cease Firing,” a reference to more than 500 part-time faculty who would not be teaching at SDSU in the fall. Classes would be cut, in some departments by 50%.

No one paid much attention: Same group that protested the war, what could they want now?

But over the past four weeks, the six of us in front of the library became 20, became 600, became 6,000 marching on the administration, protesting cuts in classes and faculty.

The framework of the uprising, we now know in retrospect, began much earlier than that first library vigil. In the course of the Persian Gulf War we were fed images of tanks, planes, missiles. Many of us were not content to just sit back and accept what the government and media chose to tell us. What particularly stood out was that in lieu of actual war footage, we were often given figures. Patriots, Tomahawks, planes, troops: their costs were all itemized.

When we found out about the cuts in California’s education budget, what was fresh in our minds was the cost of the recent war. The frustration we felt--at not only the human waste, but the monetary waste--came to the surface. If up to a billion dollars a day could be spent to save a monarchy in a small, Middle Eastern country, why was the education of the next generation of leaders being summarily cut? A half-hour of the war would balance the deficit at SDSU.

We not only began to compare the figures spent at home, we began to question the deceptiveness, the “lies” in the language: Saying “Patriots” instead of “missiles,” using “friendly fire” to mean “killing our own soldiers.” Using ordnance to mean bombs, which fell on flesh, emptied children’s faces or crushed bodies carrying the lives of people like us. We began to recognize war wording as carefully crafted, void of responsibility and whitewashed of meaning. An undercurrent began to grow: what actions at home were devoid of responsibility, what language at home was being laundered?

The answer arrived on campus in the words and actions surrounding state budget cuts, which translated too quickly into education cuts and then into classes being cut. We were being given the education-is-a-priority, go-to-school, our-children-are-our future rhetoric out of one side of Sacramento’s mouth, and education cuts out of the other side.

Gov. Pete Wilson showed how he’s for education at a ceremony--a photo opportunity--commending one of California’s teachers for winning a prestigious national award. The teacher’s answer was to show him the “pink slip” that warned his job might be in jeopardy because of budget cuts.

But Wilson wasn’t the one doing the cutting, was he? He was right there awarding a plaque.

We were being told that SDSU is committed to multicultural education. Yet Africana Studies classes are being cut from 27 to 13; Mexican-American Studies from 25 to 12.

President Tom Day wasn’t the one cutting the classes. He was just the guy in the middle, wasn’t he? The answer grew like a wave at a ballgame. Five campus groups, independent of each other, began asking questions.

SDSU Greens: What can we do? We’ll gather petitions. They worked with Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan (MEChA), which upped the ante: Let’s have a rally.

English Department graduate students, talking about the Paris uprising of 1968 and Tien An Men Square, organized a protest march: Day’s office or bust.

Women’s Studies students: Be a “matriot, “ put education, health and shelter first.

Counselor Education graduate students, incensed at losing some of their best faculty, sent letters to community colleges and schools: Come to campus, join us.

We stood on the grassy knoll outside the Adams Humanities Building--200 quickly growing to 600--and marched to the Administration Building. We were standing on the steps of Day’s office on April 24, at the first rally, looking over the crowd, realizing that they cared, that it was just a matter of getting the ball rolling. It didn’t matter who staged it.

It was after that first rally that we realized the five groups were working toward the same goal. That’s when we formed a coalition. It wasn’t recognized by anyone. We didn’t recognize it ourselves until we took a name, Student Movement for Education, and began to decipher the numbers and rumors, to pool our information, do research, strategize, plan the Walk Out/Teach In.

We came up with fundamental unanswered questions:

Why is Gov. Wilson balancing the budget on the backs of elementary, secondary, community college and university students across the state? Why are school libraries being closed instead of tax loopholes?

The second question is, is SDSU bearing a disproportionate share of the budget cuts? President Day says it’s not. But the local chapter of the California Faculty Assn., the faculty’s bargaining unit, questions Day’s numbers. Day needs to present the faculty and the students with a clearer explanation. This is too serious of a crisis for financial doublespeak.

But our coalition believed we had to do more than ask questions. We turned our attention to solutions. In what ways could the revenues be made up without cutting so many classes?

We came up with eight suggestions; seven of them were designed to shift the priority from buildings, football and cars to the retention of classes.

Last week, during the fourth campus rally in as many weeks, we posted these solutions on Day’s door, urging immediate action:

1. Take lottery revenue and other funds set aside for non-recurring programs, such as guest lecturers, and use the money to offset class cuts.

2. Postpone construction of the planned Student Activity Center until a new referendum of the student body can be held. This referendum would address replacing the Student Activity Center Fund with a student education fund for instructional purposes.

3. Seek authority from Sacramento to use excess parking revenues, reserved for future construction, for class instruction instead.

4. Rescind faculty and staff layoffs.

5. Encourage voluntary leaves.

6. Hold early retirement positions vacant.

7. Reconsider the status of SDSU Division I football.

The eighth was more symbolic than financial: As the protest movement evolved, large numbers of students painted slogans and political artwork on a temporary wooden fence that bisects the Free Speech Area on campus. But President Day plans to paint the wall white to make the campus squeaky clean for graduation.

The art wall should not be censored. Painting it would be whitewashing the devastating consequences of education cuts. And maybe the artwork will move some parents attending graduation to join us when we march on Sacramento on June 1.

What began as a few voices has grown into a web of students across the state. Thousands of new voters.