Students from the Multicultural Center, along with the new group “Tuition is Too Damn High Coalition” are organizing a rally Wednesday morning to protest statewide tuition increases that resulted in a 6.1 percent hike for University students.
The rally will start at 11 a.m. in the EMU Amphitheater and will move over to Johnson Hall at noon. Students are being asked to wear red shirts and turn their pockets inside out as a statement of the damage tuition increases creates for students.
“Students at the University of Oregon are calling for a re-evaluation of our society’s values and priorities — where our future, educational opportunities, health and public services should be enhanced, not one where our prisons, wars, and military expand,” a release from the Multicultural Center stated. “We will not continue to be silent as our rights are gradually, and overtly, eroded for the sake of an unsustainable and failing system for funding higher education.”
The event was created on Facebook with approximately 160 people confirmed and more than 2,000 invited.@@https://www.facebook.com/events/312664048819431/@@ Student organizers, including Multicultural Center leader Beshara Kehdi,@@checked@@ are hoping for a large turnout in order to send a strong statement to the University administration and higher education leaders across the state.
“There’s a point in time where students need to say enough is enough,” Kehdi said. “Education is a right that we can’t keep getting exploited on.”