In 2010, the Georgia Board of Regents voted to adopt two policies for five of the state’s public universities. One would restrict in-state tuition to only lawful residents of the state of Georgia and the other restrict admission to lawful residents of the United States. By 2010, neighboring South Carolina and Alabama already had similar admissions and funding restrictions in place for their public universities.
But in Georgia, these policies inspired the founding of non-profit charity Freedom University. Among its goals, “providing students with college courses equivalent to those taught at the state’s most selective universities” and “building a powerful documented/undocumented student movement that will win fair admissions policies in Georgia and give rise to a new generation of movement leaders.” Freedom University’s three course offerings for the spring semester include a choice of graphic design or performance-art activism, a required course in the social sciences and a choice of yoga or track. And on the morning of May 10, a lesson in crime and punishment.
A May 10th press release from Freedom U. reports that at 9 am students and allied protesters occupied a Georgia Board of Regents meeting in Atlanta—”in an act of civil disobedience against the Board’s restrictive policies against undocumented students!” The scheduled meeting, set to begin at
9:30 and likely to drag on until at least 4, never got underway. Instead, “the student-led Board of Regents announced a nationwide economic boycott of the state of Georgia at the conclusion of its hearing.” How Freedom University students plan to orchestrate the nationwide boycott of Georgia has not yet been made clear, perhaps because “soon afterward, Georgia Capitol Police arrested seven students on charges of criminal trespassing.”
7 students arrested at Board of Regents protesting educational segregation of undocumented students#BoycottGeorgia pic.twitter.com/ns7hVEi9Nd
— Freedom University (@FU_Georgia) May 10, 2016
In early February, another Freedom University protest which resulted in multiple arrests drew ample media attention and attracted activists from “12 universities … including Harvard, Smith, Bard, Morehouse, and Spelman!” per Freedom University’s twitter account, FU_Georgia. Only “student representatives from colleges and universities throughout Georgia” joined in F.U.’s hijacking of the Board of Regents.
Unlike Fordham University or Fairfield University, Freedom University embraces its acronym. Students sport “F.U. Georgia” t-shirts and pose with signs reading “F.U. Georgia because… education is a human right” or “F.U. Georgia because… your hate needs to end.”
