Executive Summary
In its six-month history on campus, Pitt Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) evolved from an organization that hosted lectures and film screenings to one that participated in and trained other students to conduct disruptive protests on Pitt’s campus. Pitt SDS is clearly in violation of at least two student organization guidelines and, for this reason, should no longer be eligible to use University resources or apply for Student Government Board allocations.
This report documents the organization’s violation of University guidelines and presents the reader with the facts necessary to fully understand the organization, its purpose and future aspirations. Such a full understanding must include the following information:
- Namesake: Pitt SDS takes its name from the 1960s Students for a Democratic Society – a radical student movement whose tactics included building occupations and hostage taking. It is impossible to understand Pitt SDS without examining the violent past of its namesake organization.
- SDS On Campus: Pitt SDS has existed on campus since November 2009 and has evolved since then into a student group dedicated to disrupting University educational activities. Pitt SDS changed over a period of months from a student group in compliance with University guidelines to a student group that flagrantly violates the letter and spirit of those regulations.
- The Freedom School: This Pitt SDS-organized conference should be understood as a turning point in the group’s activities on campus. Scheduled to take place in University buildings, Pitt SDS moved the Freedom School off campus when the conference’s plans to train students to occupy buildings and blockade roads became public.
- Language of Nonviolence: Pitt SDS is careful to always describe its group activities as “nonviolent” but it is clear that the group’s definition of this word falls radically outside of the mainstream and includes the destruction of property.
- Future Aspirations: Recent group activities and interviews with group leaders indicate that Pitt SDS is prepared to illegally disrupt activities at the University of Pittsburgh if it feels that such disruption would further its goals. Such disruption could include building occupations and road blockades – tactics covered by the Pittsburgh Freedom School.
- The Case For Removal: The activities of Pitt SDS and the actions of its individual members clearly violate two provisions of the Student Code and two guidelines of the University’s “Guidelines for Student Group Certification.” University resources and student tuition dollars should not be used to support the activities of an organization in violation of University guidelines and regulations.
To download the full report as a PDF, please click here.
Giles Howard is the founder and president of the Publius Foundation. Email Giles at ghoward[at]publiusfoundation.com.
Just to be clear, you do realize that you’re demanding that disciplinary action be taken against a student group that’s talking about engaging in nonviolent civil disobedience? Would you have demanded that similar action be taken against Rosa Parks, Dr. King, or the students who participated in the Nashville lunch counter sit-ins in my hometown 50 years ago? What if we were taking about women’s groups who were demanding suffrage?
Instead of demanding that dissent that conflicts with your rigid ideological outlook be punished or banned, if you begin to understand history you will realize that the “freedoms” held by people today, especially by historically oppressed groups, were won by social movements made up of people just like these who struggled against injustice.
You organization is obviously offended by their politics, criticize their beliefs and stop hiding behind this argument that your problem is actually with their right to protest; it’s cowardly.
Christina,
Simply put, a group that plans or engages in acts that disrupt student life should not be materially supported by the University or have access to student activity dollars. This is not about their “right to protest” but instead about who is funding their activities. I don’t have any problem with their protesting as long as it is peaceful and doesn’t violate other students’ rights to access property. What I do have a problem with is Pitt SDS’s antics being paid for with my tuition dollars. Furthermore, any comparison between SDS and the civil rights or women’s rights movement strikes me as ridiculous. I suggest that you, Christina, need to examine history more closely before you conflate the activities of SDS with the activities of Martin Luther King.
- Giles
Giles, I take it you have no problem with your tuition dollars funding sweatshops in other countries or paying companies with outstanding poor labor practices directly on the campus? The people in SDS want to improve the university which they attend (not cause its destruction which you seem to think is their goal). The people involved pay tuition just as you do if you weren’t aware, don’t they have an equal say about where their money goes?
Chris,
Certainly all Pitt students should have a say in how their tuition dollars are spent. Students should be free to engage in a range of debates on campus about everything from the practices of Sodexo to how University merchandise is manufactured. But debates cannot occur when one side blockades roads, occupies buildings or disrupts dining halls. Such tactics have no place in a community where people should learn from and listen to each other. If Pitt SDS is truly interested in improving the University then they would be taking part in free and open debates rather than engaging in disruptive tactics meant more to intimidate opponents than educate them.