Student group uses the power of protest

A single person doesn’t have the ability change his or her government, but as history shows, there is power in numbers. 

In 2011, Egyptian citizens overthrew their corrupt dictator after 30 years in office through the power of protest, starting a wave of demonstrations, civil wars and revolutions that flooded the Arab world. 

In 1963, more than 200,000 protesters marched on Washington D.C. demanding civil and economic rights for African-Americans, leading to the signing of the Civil Rights Act.

While the words of Martin Luther King Jr., Mahatma Ghandi and other visionaries have been relegated to the history books, the spirit of activism and protest is alive, even in North Carolina.

However, activists in the state aren’t revolutionaries trying to stage a coup or overhaul the political system — they are students fighting back against cuts to public education.

The North Carolina Student Power Union was created by UNC System students in the summer of 2012 to organize students, promote their interests, and “take the power back from the administrators and the corporate interests that they represent,” according to the group’s website.

The NCPSU has no formal leadership, but instead focuses on the collective voice of students working together. 

Hannah Allison, a graduate student in social work at N.C. State and NCSPU member, says the union’s goals revolve around student representation at a state level.

“The important thing for us is forming a powerful voice for students and creating an organization that is student led and student run,” Allison said. “It’s really important for students to have representation is decisions are made about their future.”

While the NCSPU is less than a year old, the group was formerly known as the North Carolina Defend Education Coalition, which defined student activism for years in the state.

The NCDEC was founded in 2010 by college students after budget cuts and tuition hikes, among other measures, were enacted by the North Carolina General Assembly and the Board of Governors.

The group organized several actions throughout the next two years, advocating equal access to public education for undocumented students, and protesting cuts to education as well as far right efforts to re-segregate Wake County schools.

Despite using peaceful methods to enact change, the NCDEC wasn’t simply a collection of picketing students, casually protesting the state government. 

Numerous members were arrested during a civil disobedience action in 2011, setting a tone of dedicated advocacy.

Perhaps the coalition’s defining moment came at the UNC Board of Governor’s meeting at Chapel Hill in February 2012, where the board voted to remove a tuition cap set in 2006.

Outside the meeting, the NCDEC along with 200 students from across the state, as well as other unions, demanded representation.

“The constitution of North Carolina says that all political power is supposed to be used for the good of the whole, not the whims of a few,” William Baker, president of the NC-NAACP said at the protest. “When you cut budgets in the General Assembly that make education less and less something that everyone can afford…you are not governing for the good of the whole, you are undermining the constitution and we are going to challenge you on that.”

When the meeting started students were denied access to the BOG room and protested in the lobby.

“Those seats are our seats,” and “shame on you,” students chanted.

Andrew Payne, former N.C. State student body president, was among them.

Payne, who graduated from the University with a degree in watershed hydrology in 2001 and a degree in political science in 2003, was a member of the BOG at the time and reserved a seat at the meeting.

Payne was initially inside observing the conference but left to use the restroom. When he returned, he was barred from entering.

“I tried to get back to my seat and next thing you know, I was getting arrested,” Payne said. 

Payne can’t recall what he was charged with, but it was “something along the lines of trespassing.” The charges were ultimately dropped. 

“It’s odd getting arrested for trespassing at an event where you reserved a seat,” Payne said.

Eventually, the protesters forced their way into the meeting room and took it over, criticizing the tuition increase. They continued with their own meeting as BOG members exited.

While the BOG still voted to increase tuition (more than $7,500 over four years for N.C. State and UNC Chapel Hill and hikes across the board for UNC System schools) the group says it was successful, “illustrating what an education that was run by and for the people would look like,” according to the NCSPU website.

The coalition changed their name to the NCSPU in the summer of 2012 to reflect their new goal: To build unions of workers and students in order to give the suppressed a voice.

The decision to join forces with other activist groups is the reason the power union is effective compared to other student organizations, like Student Government, according to sophomore economics major at UNC Charlotte, Tyler Copeland.

“Student Government is important, but the Student Power Union works with other organizations, like the NC-NAACP, workers unions and other student organizations directly, and we’re actually involved in activism,” Copeland said.

Payne, a former member of SG himself, agrees, although he “[hasn’t] really followed SG that much” since graduating.

“It seems like to me the student power union people care about the issue and are willing to do something about it, SG would rather be a part of a social club,” Payne said. “It’s pretty sad because I haven’t heard them doing anything about the issue, especially when you pay student fees for the organization to represent you and they don’t do anything about you. It seems to be a theme of governments in general.”

Recently, the NCSPU has focused on Gov. Pat McCrory’s proposed budget, which recommends a $138 million cut to the UNC System. They are also

The group is also a critic of McCrory’s Budget Director, Art Pope, and Republican- suggested legislature, like the Senate bill 666, which would force students to vote in their hometown.

Otherwise, their parents will forego $2,500 in tax benefits, effectively cutting out the student vote. 

The power union’s efforts to combat the budget and other proposed measures will culminate in an organized rally on Wednesday, May 1, also known as May Day or International Workers’ Day. 

Unions across the world use this day to celebrate the international labor movement, where workers fought for better conditions from their employers and government.

The NCPSU and other activists will meet at the N.C. State Bell Tower, march to the Civitas Institute (a conservative think tank in downtown Raleigh) for a mini-rally and join with other protesters at Moore Square before finally arriving at the North Carolina General Assembly.

Dhruv Pathak, a freshman history major at UNC Greensboro, is looking forward to protesting the state government’s stance on higher education at the May Day rally.

“A lot of people feel like they’ve been oppressed for a long time, and they can finally get together and share their beliefs,” Pathak said. “It’s empowering to feel like your voice is actually being heard.”

The group may be against heavy odds in their attempt to limit cuts to education, but they have succeeded in unlikely situations before, according to Molly McDonough, a freshman in women’s and gender studies at N.C. State and member of the NCPSU.

“This year there was a general public outcry against the idea of closing certain campuses (as recommended by Republican lawmakers),” McDonough said. “The NCSPU played a big part in getting them to back off from that idea.”

This success, and the fact that students are organizing for a cause has garnered appreciation from N.C. State faculty, like Barbara Zelter, a clinical assistant professor in the Department of Social Work.

According to Zelter, the Student Power Union is prominent not only as a student group, but as an activist movement in general.

“The NCSPU is one of the most impressive student-led organizations I have seen since the sixties,” Zelter said. “These student leaders are serious, sacrificial and smart. They are doing some of the best organizing in the state against the current regressive legislature, pushing back against its anti-public education initiatives in particular.”

The NCSPU has proved that students have a voice and can make a change, and although downtown Raleigh is a far cry from Tiananmen Square, the NCSPU is working to ensure that voice will always be heard.