The History and Tactics of Pitt SDS

The University of Pittsburgh Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and the removal of their Pittsburgh Freedom School from Pitt grounds made front-page news in two student publications late this week. But, in order to understand the full magnitude of the threat posed by Pitt SDS, it is necessary to look beyond the Pittsburgh Freedom School and closely examine their history.

The official description of their activities as a University-recognized student group states: “We will host speakers and events to offer alternatives to traditional politics and encourage students to interact with their community. These may include but are not limited to group meetings to build trust, social events, food and book drives and community networking.”

This description of Pitt SDS’s activities is benign and entirely unobjectionable. For the first few months of their existence as a University-recognized group, Pitt SDS mostly did what they promised to do in this official description of activities.

One of Pitt SDS’s earliest and most high-profile events that perhaps deviated from the group’s official statement of activities occurred December 3, 2009 when the group dropped a banner from the balcony of the Cathedral of Learning to protest Barack Obama’s winning the Nobel Peace Prize. The University alleged that the protest was illegal but no one involved was ever charged with a crime and it appears that no law was actually broken.

Apparently satisfied by this one public protest, the group’s activities faded from the public eye and Pitt SDS devoted itself to hosting film screenings, lectures and potlucks.

One such lecture occurred on March 3^rd, when Pitt SDS hosted a lecture by Weather Underground terrorist Mark Rudd. Although the Publius Foundation objected to the use of student funds for such a lecture, the lecture itself conformed to the above educational description of Pitt SDS activities.

However, comments made by Pitt SDS President Jordan Romanus in reaction to the Rudd lecture foreshadowed recent developments in the group’s activities. In an interview with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Romanus said, “‘we brought him in to talk about student organizing. We don’t advocate bombing or killing anybody,’ said Romanus. ‘Shutting down Columbia (University) for four days was effective.’”

Romanus’s comment about Columbia was a reference to Rudd’s involvement — as President of Columbia University SDS — in organizing a series of sit-ins and building occupations that paralyzed Columbia between April 23-27, 1968 and prompted violent clashes with police. In the same interview, Romanus said that his organization was not planning similar actions at Pitt because he wanted to graduate.

Regardless of Romanus’s comments in March, Pitt SDS demonstrated recently that it is no longer an organization dedicated to educational activities and legal protests. Instead, Pitt SDS should now be understood as a student organization dedicated to disrupting student life and educational activities.

The first action that demonstrated this new purpose was the illegal protest held in Market Central last Wednesday. Planned in cooperation with Students in Solidarity with Food Service Workers, this SDS action was, unlike their last public protest in December, disruptive to student life.

In the context of the Pittsburgh Freedom School, the Market Central protest should be understood as a preview of Pitt SDS’s future tactics. This is clear when looking at the website of the Pittsburgh Freedom School – a conference sponsored and organized by Pitt SDS – where individuals are invited to attend the school’s “Non-Violent Direct Action Training.” This training will teach participants “how to prepare and execute civil disobedience including affinity groups, blockades, lock-downs, street marches, dealing with police, and building occupation.”

Plans for such training and the use of such became more clear when PittBriefly.com interviewed Alex Lotorto, the Freedom School organizer and national SDS trainer who appears to exercise an inordinate amount of control over Pitt SDS activities. In this interview, Lotorto said that no buildings would be occupied nor roads blockaded during the actual conference only because “I don’t think we’re at the stage where that would be strategic… yet.”

Looking at both the interview with Lotorto and the website of the Freedom School, two things are clear about the future activities of Pitt SDS: First, as a student group, they are dedicated to teaching young people to illegally disrupt educational activities; second, Pitt SDS is intent on further disrupting activities at the University of Pittsburgh as soon as they deem it to be “strategic.”