Uni students challenge military recruiters

Some 40 Sydney University students held a speak-out outside the army recruitment stall during orientation week on February 28, drawing attention to campus anti-war sentiment. Sydney University anti-war activists passionately poured their knowledge of the war's criminality into the megaphone and the action was a spectacle of peaceful dissent.

The army recruitment stall is just one of the many ways in which the "war on terror" is creeping onto campus. Another is the proposed US propaganda centre (the "US Studies Centre") to be opened in 2008.

"O-days" are intended for prospective students to find out about campus collectives and perspectives. However, their vibrancy is threatened by "voluntary student unionism" legislation, which impacts on the ability of students to organise around issues such as the war.

From GLW issue 702