Campus actions across the country:

By Tim Wheeler

People's Weekly World

Sept. 20 was marked on more than 150 campuses in 33 states by students gathering to take part in rallies, marches, vigils and teach-ins. The "National Day of Action for Peaceful Justice," co-sponsored by the Student Peace Action Network and the Students Transforming and Resisting Corporations Alliance, was called as a response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the looming threat of war.

Students at Wesleyan College in Connecticut initiated the campus mobilization, using e-mail to spread the message. "We say: No to terrorism and no to state terror," the call proclaimed. "Do not fight violence with violence."

It listed four demands directed to President Bush and Congress including opposition to retaliatory violence "so that no more innocent lives are lost," but rather that the administration "seek a thorough and peaceful justice through the appropriate channels of law."

The demands also called on the government to "defend civil liberties and human rights for all people regardless of religion, ethnicity and national origins."

The Wesleyan students are also demanding that the "underlying political and economic causes of terrorist activity" be reconsidered and the "impact of U.S. foreign policy" critically reanalyzed.

Adam Hurter, a Wesleyan student who helped organize the nationwide student mobilization, pointed to the quick response to the threat of war among a generation of students whose parents faced the Vietnam War and who were still young during the Gulf War.

"The fear of a war is generating an anti-war movement [the likes of which have not been seen] since the anti-Vietnam war movement," he told the World.

One prime example of this quick response is the call issued by students in western Massachusetts urging student-faculty-staff walkout "to begin at the first confirmed notice" of a U.S. military attack on any nation in retaliation against the Sept. 11 attack.

Michelle Oliveros-Larsen, student body president at Amherst College said that 350 Amherst College students turned out in the rain for their first peace rally Sept. 20, about 20 percent of the student body. "If the U.S. goes to war against any nation, we are urging students, faculty and staff to walk out and ... air our concerns for a peaceful solution."

More than 12,000 students, faculty and staff turned out for a peace rally at the University of California at Berkeley. "No matter one's race, gender or religion, we all felt a common sense of loss," Associated Student President Wally Adeyemo said to the crowd. "Today is not a day to speak of vengeance or anger, but rather a day to consider our humanity."

Adam Moule, a graduate student at the rally, said, "I believe the people who committed the crime did something heinous, but that doesn't mean we should start dropping bombs."

Jessica Angus, national organizing director of the United States Student Association (USSA) said that USSA supported the actions by publicizing them. "We are happy to see so many student organizations coming together so quickly on this," Angus said. "The best way to honor those who died in this great tragedy is to avoid killing more innocent people. Will going to war make us any safer?"

USSA is working to counter hate crimes aimed at Arab Americans, immigrants and Muslims, she said, and to oppose any attempts to push through repressive measures that undermine civil liberties

At Portland State University, Student Body President Mary Cunningham said a racist leaflet appeared on campus with menacing references to the "Second Amendment right to bear arms" and calling for a boycott of Asian taxi drivers and convenience store proprietors. "It was very hostile toward people from the Middle East. It raised a question for us of what we were going to do to address active hate and discrimination," she said.

Mario Sifuentes, a student leader at the University of Oregon in Eugene, reported an Indian man was attacked on his campus. The student government there "recognized this as a hate crime," Sifuentes said. "We are taking proactive measures. We must head off the possibility of people being racially profiled."