The Oberlin Coalition Against the War has made plans to participate in the National Student Walkout for Day X, the school day after U.S. bombing commences.
Organizers hope that most Oberlin students, as well as students from Oberlin High School, will join when the walkout begins at noon.
“These walkouts will be in solidarity with students walking out in colleges and universities around the world,” OCAW member Ted Virdone said.
A protest will follow in Tappan Square, along with a march past the middle school and high school.
In addition to the noon walkout, there will be afternoon anti-war workshops.
“It is not that we are walking away from our education, it is that we are walking to alternate education,” Virdone said.
A faculty forum was held Thursday in order to delineate the Coalition’s plans for Day X and in hopes of mustering faculty support.
“We hope that this faculty-student dialogue will encourage professors to cancel classes,” coordinating committee member Vanessa Fatton said.
President Nancy Dye cautioned that a walkout must be approved by professors.
“I think if there’s going to be an official walkout, it has to have the sanction of the faculty,” she said.
Pledges have been circulating around campus, attesting to student commitment to the walkout and subsequent afternoon activities.
OCAW represents a growing body of regional and international proponents of peace, uniting a politically diverse range of student activist groups under a common banner.
The Coalition’s five-point platform embraces opposing war on Iraq, defending civil liberties, ending oppression, demanding money for domestic purposes and not for foreign conflict and terminating economic sanctions imposed on Iraq.
Recent actions on behalf of the Coalition have included organized excursions to protests in Washington, D.C. and New York City; a regional anti-war conference and a successful plea for a Student Senate referendum on the proposed U.S.-led war. “Beer not Bombs/Shots for Peace,” a successful fundraising party held last weekend, very nearly brought the group out of debt for its speaker fees and buses rented for the protests.
On Wednesday evening, students congregated in Tappan Square for a candlelight vigil, organized by OCAW in conjunction with the National Day of Action, calling for peace. Organizers deemed the event great success.