Loud booing and chanting punctuated some of the speakers at the commencement for Washington University this morning — most often Chancellor Andrew Martin, who has become the focal point of anger from activists after mass arrests on campus April 27.

Administrators had ordered a temporary encampment erected on campus that day to disperse, and when protestors refused to do so, 100 were arrested, including 23 students and at least four faculty members.

Martin later begged students not to protest at this year’s commencement and presided over fencing going up around campus. In recent weeks, anyone entering the Danforth Campus has had to produce university-issued ID. 

As a result, protests were mostly limited to the streets around campus, although some students at commencement booed, others stood to protest and some even walked out, as St. Louis Public Radio reported:
Graduating students at @WUSTL protest and walk out of Chancellor Andrew Martin’s graduation remarks. The university has been under fire for its response to campus protests against the war in Gaza. Stay tuned for more from my colleagues and I at @stlpublicradio. pic.twitter.com/UV5cq5my4v— Brian Munoz (@brianmmunoz) May 13, 2024 And even beyond the boos that could be heard during the ceremony, there were also references to the recent unrest — some more direct than others. 

Alejandro Ramirez, who was wearing a Keffiyeh, took the stage as the university’s undergraduate speaker and cheers erupted at the end of their speech as they expressed their support for the Palestinian people, and Pro-Palestine protestors beyond the fence, saying: “Today, I stand in solidarity with my peers, faculty, and community members who have experienced hardship during this last semester, who found their why and used it to express solidarity with the Palestinians around the world.”

As for the keynote speaker, actress Jennifer Coolidge, she danced around the topic of protests, saying she is proud of the young people for using their voices and rolling comments of “war and famine” into calls for action about climate change, women’s rights and LGBTQ+ rights. She did not say the word “Palestine.”

Coolidge made jokes about her manager trashing parts of her speech before commencement. She read part of what they told her to delete saying:

“When I think about your generation and I see all the wonderful things you’re doing, and how passionate and vocal you are and engaged you are about your futures — our future actually — it makes me feel so happy, because this is progress. Seriously, in all seriousness, we need you. And we need your strength, we need your truth.”
click to enlarge KALLIE COX Police keep a close eye on protestors near Wash U’s campus on the morning of commencment, May 13, 2024.

Protesting Outside the Fence

Ironically, during the ceremony Martin welcomed the class of 1974 to commencement as they celebrated their 50th anniversary. The majority of these students would have been freshmen in 1970, when Washington University became a flashpoint in protesting the war in Vietnam after students burned its ROTC building on May 5. (That act led to felony charges — and one activist going on the lam for years.)

Protesters this morning relied on speech, not fire.Dozens gathered on the four corners of the intersection of Big Bend and Forsyth just outside Wash U’s campus on Monday morning. Hundreds of cars and pedestrians passed them as they made their way to the ceremonies.

The activists were on the outside of the temporary fence enclosing the campus, but that didn’t stop them from raising their signs high above the barricades and calling on the university to divest from Boeing and disclose its financial ties with the company.

The protestors chanted and handed out fliers to those walking past, using megaphones and speakers while they held homemade banners and posters. 

“Kill yourselves,” one passerby shouted at them while laughing and shoving a phone in their faces while walking with a group of parents and other students. “Bomb Palestine,” one man screamed from the window of his car before peeling off. The activists ignored them.

A little over an hour into commencement, police threatened to arrest protestors using voice amplifiers as commencement began, St. Louis Post-Dispatch Reporter Monica Obradovic reported from the scene. One person who was driving by and honking was detained.

Sarah Nixon, one of the protestors, tells RFT that in addition to divesting from Boeing, Wash U needs to disclose where its investments are going, and drop the charges against all of the protestors who have been arrested. 

“I think some are like, ‘Why can’t you let us enjoy our graduation?’” Nixon says. “To that I say, ‘We wish that this is a moment that everyone can celebrate but we know that all 12 of Gaza’s universities have been destroyed, over 6,000 university students killed, over 100 professors — these were future aid workers, doctors, artists, who had every hope of getting to celebrate […] like our Wash U community, but instead they’re fighting for their lives.”

Earlier today, Democracy Now reported that the death toll in Gaza has exceeded 35,000 people, including more than 14,500 children.

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St. Louis Police have arrested a teenage girl that they say shot a woman to death on a crowded MetroLink platform on Saturday afternoon.The shooting took place at the DeBaliviere Avenue MetroLink station on Saturday, May 11, around 3:30 p.m. The platform is near Forest Park and the Missouri History Museum. The victim has been identified only as a Black female and is believed to be in her 20s. The St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department described the suspect only as a 17-year-old Black female. They say she was taken to a Juvenile Detention facility in St. Louis County, where she is being held on charges of Murder 2nd Degree and Armed Criminal Action.”Investigators were able to quickly identify a suspect in this case, aided by the robust surveillance system of Metro and the quick assistance provided by Metro Public Safety,” police reported in a statement. Anyone with information about the shooting is urged to call the Homicide Division directly at 314-444-5371, or anyone with a tip who wants to remain anonymous and is interested in a reward can contact CrimeStoppers at 866-371-TIPS (8477).As the RFT recently reported, the number of youth accused of homicide has more than tripled in the past decade, but still comprises less than one percent of all juvenile charges. Like the student charged in a near-fatal beating outside Hazelwood East, the teenager in this case will likely face a hearing where a judge will determine whether she should be tried as an adult.

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A new bill making its way through the St. Louis Board of Aldermen is being supported by a nonprofit organization that says it hopes to make child care more accessible to the average St. Louisan. But the local public school advocacy group Solidarity with SLPS argues it will instead unfairly burden taxpayers and disproportionately support private education systems.

Board Bill 7, sponsored by Ward 10 Alderwoman Shameem Clark Hubbard, would add a question to the November 2024 ballot asking voters to approve a levy that would increase the city’s sales tax by 0.5 percent. The funding would be used to support early childhood education programs for kids who are not yet in kindergarten.

If approved, the revenue generated from this tax would go into an “early childhood education fund,” to be administered by the City of St. Louis Mental Health Board of Trustees.

The bill echoes a very similar piece of legislation introduced in St. Louis County in 2020. It was soon shelved following nearly the same complaints and public outcry facing Board Bill 7. 

Solidarity with SLPS, an organization made up of city residents advocating on behalf of the St. Louis Public Schools, has launched a letter writing campaign against the bill. They are calling on committee members to vote against it.

In their letter template, Solidarity with SLPS argues that if passed, the additional sales tax would “put St. Louis just behind Chicago and Seattle with a sales tax rate of ~10.2% excluding additional taxes in special taxing districts,” making it among the highest in the nation. 

The founder of WEPOWER was an advocate for the scuttled county legislation, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported at the time. Solidarity with SLPS points out that on the city website when the bill was first introduced, “WEPOWER” was in the title of the draft.

They say that alone should make St. Louisans leery.

“Ordinances related to education being drafted by an organization which has a history of financial ties to education privatization funders like the Opportunity Trust as well as a history of leading attacks against Saint Louis Public Schools should be objectionable to this committee,” it writes. 

WEPOWER Founder & CEO Charli Cooksey acknowledged the organization’s work on the bill to the RFT, saying that staffers helped draft it after hours of community listening sessions. 

“We did a lot of community listening last year to understand what public funding could fund,” she says. “We did revenue sharing research [with] the legal team, to really make sure that the Board Bill 7 was a direct reflection of what the community wanted to see versus a policy wonk who locked themselves in a room and developed something that wasn’t truly responsive to community.”

Beyond WEPOWER’s involvement, the main arguments against Board Bill 7 are that there is little to no accountability about how the funding is distributed and it would increase taxes for working-class families without necessarily benefiting them, activist and organizer with Solidarity with SLPS Ben Conover says. 

“The folks that are sponsoring this are asking voters to create a slush fund that is purportedly for early childhood education, but really will just go to consultants, nonprofits, etc. — to run programming that will have nothing to do with making early childhood education more affordable and accessible on the backs of folks that are already struggling the most,” Conover says. 

But WEPOWER’s Director of Early Childhood Power Building, Paula-Breonne Vickers, says that as a parent of a two-year-old and a three-year-old in north city, she is familiar with the gaps and problems facing parents seeking affordable early childhood education programs.

“This is really, as a resident and as a parent, looking at an opportunity for this board bill to create those spaces so that us families can stay in St. Louis.,” she says.

One key issue opponents have with the bill is that it is unclear whether or not the funding it generates could be used to fund public school programs.

“My understanding with this bill is that the funds cannot go to SLPS’ early childhood education,” Conover says. “What that’ll lead to is a very privatized early childhood education system.”

He says the funds will only be eligible to go towards professional development and nonprofit programs that, for example, might create better curriculums for early childhood education. It would not go towards more capacity or raising worker pay.

WEPOWER initially claimed that the revenue can be used for public programs. In the text of the bill, the funds aren’t earmarked and are instead set to be distributed by the Mental Health Board.

“This is a bill that would allow a mixed delivery model, so that means public schools, community based programs, home based programs, all types of childcare programs that serve babies zero through five would be able to access and apply for these funds, if won,” Cooksey says. “And it would be to really address whatever needs that program has, that are currently barriers from quality, affordability, and accessibility.”

A spokesperson for WEPOWER later walked that assertion back slightly in an email to RFT that acknowledged state law would have to be changed to allow public schools to partake:

“The way the Community Children’s Services Fund currently exists creates limitations. As a result, there are efforts underway to amend the structure of the Community Children’s Services Fund. At the state level, a bill was voted out of the Select Committee on Empowering Missouri Parents & Children that would allow funds to also become available to public schools. Additionally, the bill would allow Children’s Services Funds to administer dollars to improve the quality, affordability, and access to early childhood development programs. This could include but not be limited to increasing educator wages and benefits.”

Clark Hubbard has not responded to requests for comment on this story. We’ll update this story if she responds.

The bill has been referred to the Transportation and Commerce Committee and a hearing is scheduled Monday at 2 p.m. The School Board will be having a special meeting at 10:30 a.m. that same morning to consider a resolution opposing Board Bill 7.

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