Drop Charges Against Evergreen 6! Reinstate Olympia SDS!

Evergreen State College: Cop Riots, Campus Repression

(Young Spartacus pages)

A police riot broke out at a Dead Prez concert at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, on February 14. Cops attacked and injured concertgoers protesting the racist arrest of Kaylen Williams, a black man and VIP guest at the concert. Six concertgoers were arraigned on criminal charges as a result of the police provocation, and the local sheriff has stated his intention to press charges against others over damage to police cars in the confrontation. Last week, six more protesters were arrested at the Olympia May Day rally. The Spartacus Youth Club stands in solidarity with the protesters, and demands: Drop the charges against the Evergreen 6! Hands off the protesters!

For all Evergreen State College’s “progressive” credentials, these protests have clearly shown that the administration’s role is to keep the campus “safe” for the capitalists, including by cracking down on student protest. The Evergreen administration worked together with the cops to witchhunt campus activists. When approached by police seeking to prosecute protesters, the administration recommended that police investigate members of the Olympia branch of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and other students involved in protests against the shipping of military cargo from the Port of Olympia. Subsequently, the administration suspended the Olympia SDS, which had been prominently defending the Evergreen 6. Reinstate SDS at Evergreen State College!

This makes perfectly clear what the Spartacus Youth Club has been saying all along—under capitalism, the university administrations uphold the interests of the capitalist class on campus. This is completely counter to the perspective of SDS and fake socialists like the International Socialist Organization, who look to the administration as an ally in student struggles and promote illusions that the oppression inherent under capitalism can be ended in the “ivory towers” of university and college campuses while the capitalists still run society as a whole.

What happened at elite, liberal Evergreen State College is a snapshot of what the cops and courts are all about in racist, capitalist America. From the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan to the ghettos and barrios across the U.S., terror and violence are business as usual for the U.S. imperialist rulers, under both Democratic and Republican administrations. In the run-up to the presidential elections, youth are being mobilized behind capitalist Democratic Party candidates, including by so-called socialists from the Revolutionary Communist Party to the Workers World Party who push lesser evil politics. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are vying to be the top cop of U.S. imperialism. No matter who wins the election, the capitalist state—cops, courts, prisons and military—will remain a machinery of repression to maintain the capitalists’ dictatorship over those they oppress and exploit. Black oppression, the heritage of chattel slavery, will remain the bedrock of American capitalism and state repression will still come wrapped in the envelope of raw racism. It will take a workers revolution, like the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 led by the vanguard party of Lenin and Trotsky, to consign this barbaric system to the trash heap of history.

We reprint below April 30 letters by the Bay Area SYC to the Thurston County prosecuting attorney protesting the charges against the Evergreen 6 and to Evergreen State College president Thomas L. Purce protesting the banning of the Olympia chapter of Students for a Democratic Society.

* * *

The Spartacus Youth Club demands that all charges be dropped against Kaylen Williams, Jake Silberman, Chase Hill, Monica Ragan, Nina Hinton and Peter Sloan, known as the Evergreen 6. On the night of February 14 at a concert by hip-hop group Dead Prez at Evergreen State College, a college police officer arrested Kaylen Williams, a black man, targeting him because of his race. Concertgoers who protested Williams’ wrongful detention were attacked by state and local police using clubs and pepper spray. Many concertgoers suffered chemical burns and one young man was hospitalized with internal bleeding.

Following this brutal police attack, Jake Silberman, Chase Hill, Monica Ragan, Nina Hinton and Peter Sloan face felony charges for their part in defending Williams and themselves. Williams is facing misdemeanor assault charges, with a possible sentence of a year in jail. These charges are an act of retaliation against those who stood up to racist police violence, and the Thurston County Sheriff has threatened to file charges against others who attended the concert. Hands off the Evergreen protesters! As Lawrence Hildes, the attorney for two of those charged, noted, the only people hurt that night were concertgoers, the result of actions by the police. Drop the charges now!

* * *

The Spartacus Youth Club vigorously protests Evergreen State College’s suspension of the Olympia branch of Students for a Democratic Society. In what is clearly an act of political censorship, SDS was suspended for holding a panel discussion with the San Francisco 8—former Black Panthers framed up for the killing of a police officer [see “Protest Government Roundup of Former Black Panthers,” WV No. 885, 2 February 2007]—and an antiwar benefit concert.

The pretext for SDS’s suspension was a “moratorium” on student events “that involve substantial safety and security considerations.” Undoubtedly, this “moratorium” would not apply if the Dalai Lama were invited to promote counterrevolution in China. As SDS member Courtney Franz has pointed out, other events, including a concert with over 300 attendees, were allowed to continue without incident. The “moratorium” itself was imposed following the February 14 Dead Prez concert where the only threat to “safety and security” was a racist police arrest and subsequent assault on concertgoers with clubs and pepper spray. The suspension of the Evergreen chapter of SDS is a politically motivated attack on students’ First Amendment rights. We demand that the suspension be lifted immediately!

* * *

Send protest letters demanding the dropping of charges against the Evergreen 6 to: Edward G. Holm, Thurston County prosecuting attorney, 2000 Lakeridge Dr. S.W., Building 2, Olympia, WA 98502. Send letters calling for the reinstatement of the Olympia SDS to: Thomas L. Purce, President, Evergreen State College, SI Annex A102, 2700 Evergreen Parkway NW, Olympia, WA 98505. The Partisan Defense Committee has contributed to the Evergreen 6 Legal Defense Fund and encourages others to do so. Checks should be made out to Evergreen 6 Legal Defense, PO Box 2775, Olympia, WA 98501.