Univ. of Arizona against the cuts

TUCSON, Ariz.--More than 50 graduate students, faculty and staff met on September 15 at the Old Main Fountain on the University of Arizona (UA) campus to discuss an action planned against ongoing budget cuts.

These cuts include merging the College of Engineering and the College of Architecture at the university.

Also of concern to university employees is House Bill 2013, which was signed into law on September 4 and, according to the Arizona Daily Wildcat, "will prevent state-employed, same-sex domestic partners from claiming state benefits for their partners as well as unmarried heterosexual couples, children of domestic partners, full-time students over the age of 22 who are claimed as dependents and disabled adult dependents."

This rally-turned-organizing meeting, called on by a number of graduate students in the Geography Department, broke into four planning groups--education, publicity, communication and action. Each group is taking on different aspects of organizing for a rally on the main UA quad on September 24. The rally is in solidarity with a walkout scheduled that day at the University of California.

These grassroots collective efforts are precisely the struggle that we need to keep the Arizona state legislature from balancing the budget on backs of workers and students.