[act-ma] SOLIDARITY RALLY TO DEFEND OCCUPY UMASS BOSTON 9pm Campus CEnter

[Alpana]

*SOLIDARITY RALLY TO DEFEND OCCUPY UMASS BOSTON*

    This morning, Monday, January 23, students at the University of Massachusetts Boston have occupied the Campus Center and turned it into a liberated space for students and faculty to protest the privatization of public education. UMass Boston is the only public 4 year university in Boston, a city with one of the highest densities of students in the nation.
     Since 2006, UMass Boston in-state tuition and fees have increased 38%, from $8,266 to $11,406, and the administration is proposing continued increases by a rate of 8% annually. This is a result of both state and federal government policies defunding public higher education and campus administration actions to convert UMass Boston into a privatized university. 
     We want to stop fee hikes, stop the privatization and open up a space on campus where we can democratically figure out how to restore UMass Boston to an institution for the 99%, not a corporation for 1%. 
     Occupy UMass Boston will be holding public General Assemblies everyday at 3pm run on the model of horizontal democracy and modified consensus so students, staff, and faculty can begin a discussion. 
     After setting up our encampment this morning, campus police quickly informed us of university policy explicitly prohibiting all forms of occupations and overnight encampments. They made clear their commitment to forcing us out. We believe that Occupy UMass Boston is under a real threat of being shut down tonight when the campus center closes. We are calling on the entire 99% of Boston to come support the future of public high education and to preserve the right of the 99% to dissent, resist, and struggle against the tyranny of the 1% in their efforts to privatization public education.

Mass rally TONIGHT at 9pm inside the UMass Boston Campus Center to defend Occupy UMB and the right of the 99% to assemble and protest for a better world.

Please contact Chancellor J. Keith Motley to express your support for Occupy UMass Boston and demand that students and faculty be allowed to maintain an ongoing occupation and presence in the Campus Center at617-287-6800

   WE ARE UNSTOPPABLE, ANOTHER WORLD IS POSSIBLE!
   KEEP UMASS FOR THE WORKING CLASS!

Follow us on Twitter: @OccupyUMB 
Check out our website: www.occupyUMassBoston.org
Call us directly at: 781-608-3273

Thank you for your support!
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