Brandeis students defend choice

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WALTHAM, Mass.—Students at Brandeis University are taking the lead at campuses across the country into a new decade of activism. Drawing on a statewide network of colleges and universities, they have called for a massive May 1st Student Walkout for Choice on the Boston Common.

"I think we are in a time when student activism is on the rise," Amy Rutkin of Brandeis Voice for Choice [BVC] told Socialist Action. The date of the Walkout links it with a previous era. It coincides with the 20th anniversary of the National Student Strike against the Vietnam War, held on May 1, 1970, which in Boston was sparked by a Brandeis student walkout.

This Walkout will feature speakers from "pro-choice" gubernatorial candidates, "pro-choice" congresspeople, as well as represent4 SOCIALIST ACTION atives from pro-choice organizations and student groups. Other speakers will address related issues like health care, education, and lesbian/gay rights.

BVC got its start while helping to build NOW's April 9, 1989, March on Washington, to which BVC says they brought 10 percent of the Brandeis student body. A meeting last February brought BVC together with activists from other schools. Together they drafted an open letter and list of demands to be printed in campus newspapers. Since then, BVC has been working to strengthen and expand this campus network.

Along the way, BVC has faced a number of hurdles. Also on May 1, for example, Planned Parenthood is lobbying the state legislature to pass a controversial constitutional amendment recently proposed by Boston's Coalition for Choice, which includes NOW, Mass Choice, the state ACLU, the Religious Coalition for Abortion Right, MAY 1990 mittee don't support the amendment," Rutkins said, , "but certainly we can't speak for the whole student body of Massachusetts. The bottom line is we have two very different agendas." Rutkins isn't too concerned about losing participants to lobbying.

The momentum is building. BVC member Lisa Stein noted that "the five Amherst-area schools are working together for the first time, and they are mobilized and organized and ready to go." BVC members have spent THE FOR and $1.25 (plus 65 cents postage)

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ST. PAUL, Minn.-On April 10, close to 250 people rallied on the Minnesota Capitol steps in support of Indian treaty rights. The rally was organized to welcome Native Americans and others who had been running for three days from Pipestone, Minn.., to Lac du Flambeau, in northern Wisconsin.

The run and the rally were organized to