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Students for a Democratic Society

File:New Students for a Democratic Society logo.png SDS Logo adopted in 2022
Abbreviation	SDS
Formation	2006
Type	Student activist organization
Purpose	To build a fighting student movement against US wars and intervention, racist discrimination, police crimes, homophobic and transphobic attacks, attacks on women, attacks on reproductive rights, and more.
Location	United States of America
Website	NewSDS.org

Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), or New Students for a Democratic Society (New SDS) is a United States student activist organization founded in 2006 in response to the US invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan with the aim to rebuild the student movement. It takes its name and inspiration from the original SDS of 1960–1969, then the largest radical student organization in US history. The contemporary SDS is a distinct youth and student-led organization with chapters across the United States.

File:2022 05 04 UMN SDS Keep Abortion Legal Emergency Protest.jpg

Protest led and organized by University of Minnesota SDS in response to the leaked Dobbs v. Jackson decision on May 4th, 2022.

Politics

SDS is a broadly progressive, multi-issue student and youth-led activist organization, which aims to rebuild the student movement through direct action campaigns on college, university, and high school campuses across the United States. While united by a committment to direct action rather than any particular political ideology, SDS does release statements and resolutions standing against US wars and intervention, racist descrimination, police brutality, homophobic and transphobic attacks, attacks on women, attacks on reproductive rights, and other US and campus-based issues as they emerge.

Structure

SDS is a grassroots activist organization with no affiliation to any non-profit organizations or political parties. Every chapter of SDS organizes its own internal functioning and plans its own campaigns along campus-based demands and protests. Rather than have a national leadership body, members of any chapter can participate in the Naional Working Committee, made up of volunteer participants in regular, nation-wide calls. The national structure is also maintained through annual national conventions since its founding in 2006, which are hosted by a different chapter each year. Conventions columinate in the adoption of resolutions, which outline the political issues chapters agree to prioritize in their campaigns in the coming year.

Both resolutions and the National Woorking Committee also determine national days of action, coordinated protests carried out by all chapters. Past days of action include protests against the Dobbs v. Jackson decision to defend abortion access, against Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court nomination, against the War in Afghanistan, and for education rights, among others.

Students for a Democratic Society also occasionally leads national campaigns, such as the Stop Trump Campaign, lasting the duration of the presidential campaign and presidency of Donald Trump. During that period, while chapters led various campaigns, slogans and demands always related back to opposing Trump.

History

2006-2008: Refounding and Anti-War Campaigns

SDS members protest the Iraq War on March 19th, 2008.

Beginning January 2006, a movement to revive the Students for a Democratic Society took shape. Two high school students, Jessica Rapchik and Pat Korte, decided to reach out to former members of the "Sixties" SDS, to re-establish a student movement in the United States. Korte did this by contacting Alan Haber. They called for a new generation of SDS, to build a radical multi-issue organization grounded in the principle of participatory democracy. Several chapters at various colleges and high schools were subsequently formed. On Martin Luther King Jr. Day of 2006, these chapters banded together to issue a press release that stated their intentions to recreate the national SDS organization. In the press release, the SDS called for the organization's first national convention since 1969 to be held in the summer of 2006 and to have it preceded by a series of regional conferences occurring during the Memorial Day weekend. These regional conferences would also be the first of their kind since 1969. On April 23, 2006, SDS held a northeast regional conference at Brown University.

The new SDS organized and participated in numerous actions against the Iraq War and made clear its opposition to any possible military action against Iran by the US. The Pace University chapter of SDS protested against a speech by Bill Clinton held at the University's New York City campus, prompting the university to hand over two students, Lauren Giaccone and Brian Kelly, to the United States Secret Service. After the threatened expulsion of the two protesters, Pace SDS began a campaign that helped pressure the President of Pace to resign.

Beginning in March and continuing into April and May 2006, SDS chapters across the country participated in a series of actions supporting Immigrant Rights. SDS chapters, such as at Brandeis, Connecticut College, and Harvard coordinated with large coalitions of students to strike and walk out of their classes on May Day.

The newly formed SDS held its first national convention from August 4 to August 7, 2006 at the University of Chicago.

In early March 2007, SDS members and allies in Tacoma, Washington led a blockade of the Port of Tacoma, where the US military was loading Stryker vehicles onto ships to be transported to Iraq. After confrontations every night for a week, the police broke the human blockade through the use of rubber bullets and pepper spray.

On March 12, 2007, one week before the anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, the New School chapter of SDS held a Campus Moratorium against the Iraq War. Students left classes and proceeded down 5th Avenue to the Chambers Street military recruitment center where they met with the Pace University chapter of SDS. The students entered the Recruitment Center, barricaded the door and held a nonviolent sit-in, effectively closing the recruitment center for about two hours. Twenty members of SDS were arrested and charged with criminal trespassing, a misdemeanor.

On March 17, 2007, SDS groups from across the country met and participated in the March on the Pentagon, in which parts of the SDS contingent along with allies occupied a bridge near The Pentagon. Five demonstrators were arrested.

On March 20, 2007, 83 SDS chapters from around the country held coordinated actions against the Iraq war. One such action in the Bay Area shut down the entrance to Chevron's World Headquarters.

The Summer of 2007 was a critical turning point for SDS as a national organization. First, SDS fielded a large contingent at the first US Social Forum in Atlanta on June 27 – July 1. SDS found itself part of a national movement to change the US; at the forum, SDS members gave workshops, demonstrated, and formed bonds with members from across the country.

The first national SDS Action Camps took place from August 13–16 in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The camp was hosted by the Lancaster chapter of SDS. It included anti-oppression/collective liberation trainings, and workshops about a variety of things – including media skills, meeting facilitation, and direct action. The camp was held in order to provide students with skills needed to become better organizers, and deepen the sophistication of their vision and strategy.

On September 15, 2007, SDS chapters from several colleges across the country (including Ohio, Indiana, Washington D.C., Harrisburg, PA and New York) gathered and marched in the ANSWER coalition march from the White House steps, to the Capitol building. The protest was estimated to include up 80,000 people. At least 150 were arrested, and there was at least one incident where police pepper-sprayed protesters.

In early November 2007, SDS members were again present at a similar blockade at the Port of Olympia, Washington. The blockade was broken only after 67 arrests, as well as use of pepper spray, rubber bullets, and other crowd-control weapons. A similar confrontation had occurred in May 2006 at the Port of Olympia.

Members and Chapters around the US and Canada participated in a large series of semi-coordinated events and demonstrations between March 17 and March 21 to bring awareness to the 5th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq.

The 2008 National Convention was held in College Park, Maryland. Members at the meeting decided on a national structure, the National Work Committee, and a national campaign: Student Power for Accessible Education.

2009-2014: Education is a Right Campaigns

SDS members marching against war and educational budget cuts in New York in 2011

Following the Great Recession, budget shortfalls led to cuts in funding to primary and secondary education. In January of 2009, hundreds of emergency protests emerged across the United States, most notably against rising tuition costs. Cuts included hundreds of millions cut in state funding in Florida, which already stood last in the United States for education funding. In Florida's Clay County alone, a $43 million shortfall meant 450 jobs in education were eliminated. Most SDS chapters in this period shifted toward campaigns demanding tuition be frozen, budget cuts to 'chop from the top,' i.e. cut higher administrative salaries rather than layoff rank and file workers, and the protection of ethnic studies programs, often the first to be cut in universities.

Still focusing on anti-war work, however, SDS established a separate anti-war working group, which functioned through 2009, including anti-occupation and Israeli apartheid Week campaigns. In September, SDS chapters from around the country converged on St. Paul, Minnesota to participate in the four days of protests against the Republican National Convention.

By 2010, SDS was a founding member of the Network to Fight for Economic Justice, a nation-wide coalition of activist groups fighting against austerity, budget cuts, and worker layoffs following the recession. As members of the coalition, SDS joined the March 4th, 2010 day of action, 'Fight to Defend Education and Jobs.' Nationwide, the day of action mobilized students at over 100 campuses in at least 39 states in defense of education funding on March 4th, 2010.

In March 2010, members of the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee's chapter of SDS staged a protest outside the Chancellor's building. The event, designed to protest rising tuition costs, was met with a police presence. Police began using pepper spray, and arrested sixteen members of the protest, including both SDS members and allied organizations on campus through the Education Rights Campaign.

In October of 2010, over twenty SDS chapters and 40 different campuses marked the 9th anniversary of the War in Afghanistan to protest budgets cuts to education. Moving into 2011, SDS called a month of action for March with protests coordinated for March 2nd, 2011 to demand education rights and an end to budget cuts. SDS also sent members to the Save Our Schools March in Washington DC, July 28-31st, 2011. A national day of action for education rights as held for the third year on March 1st, 2012.

File:Gainesville SDS protest for Trayvon Martin.jpg

SDS members at the University of Florida protest following the murder of Trayvon Martin.

Following the killing of Trayvon Martin on February 26th, 2012, University of Florida SDS began a campaign demanding the arrest of George Zimmerman, who fatally shot Martin, a 17-year-old Black boy, and that all police officers involved in the case be terminated for obstructing justice and covering-up the truth. On March 26th, 2012, SDS mobilized over 200 students at the University of Florida to demand justice. University of Florida SDS continued to protest for Trayvon Martin on the anniversary of the killing.

In March of 2013, SDS members at the University of South Florida led an occupation of their administrative building to demand top administrators take pay cuts and tuition be lowered. This was followed by another national day of action for education rights against rising tuition on March 14th.

Beginning in October of 2013, SDS chapters throughout Florida began a campaign pushing for in-state tuition equity for undocumented students, who were regularly charged higher, out-of-state tuition regardless of whether they graduated from Florida high schools. Constant pressure on all fronts by SDS chapters, including storming the Florida State University president's office and rallying at the Florida State Capitol, led to the passing of H.B. 851 in Florida, granting undocumented students in-state tuition.

2015-2020: Stop Trump Campaign

Info on how SDS began protesting Trump before the elections, never stopped during his time as president.

2020-Present: The George Floyd Uprising and Civil Rights Attacks

How SDS has grown since, the work we did during and after the Uprising, and the campaigns we’ve held since. Focus on the Not Another Step Back work we’ve done around Women’s and Reproductive Rights, including the 10,000 people protest in Minneapolis.

University of Milwaukee SDS members protest in defense of women's and reproductive rights.

See also

• Students for a Democratic Society
• Global justice movement
• List of anti-war organizations
• Peace movement

Further reading

• Russell, Joshua Kahn. "Not Your Grandfather's SDS." Yes! Magazine, Yes! Magazine (Fall, 2007).

• Lemisch, Jesse. "Sectarian Rage in the New SDS" History News Network (September 18, 2006).

• Knight, Alexander. "The Rebirth of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS)." Monthly Review, MRZine (August 9, 2006).

• Phelps, Christopher. "The New SDS," The Nation (16 April 2007).

• Viehmeyer, Doug. "Steppin' In Up: The New SDS." Left Turn, Left Turn Magazine, Apr/May, 2007).

• The Students Are Stirring: A Campus Antiwar Movement Begins to Make Its Mark MRzine interview on SDS's March 20 Day of Student Action Against the War with UNC-Asheville SDS member, Kati Ketz.

• SDS March 20 National Day of Action: Thousands of students walk out, take to streets Article on March 20 day of action from Fight Back News.

• Carriere, Michael. "The Kids Will Have Their Say: The Rebirth of Students for a Democratic Society." Punk Planet, Punk Planet Cover Story (May/June, 2007).

External links

• Official website
• National Days of Student Action to Protest the Iraq War - All out for March 20, 2008!