Coalition faces time of change, re-organization

Six years ago, the Coalition for Social Justice and Nonviolence formed with the intent of centralizing communication between progressive groups on campus.

The outcome has been somewhat disappointing, with the Coalition seeming to have essentially ceased to be a physical entity on campus.

Officially, the coalition aims to provide "administrative, organizational, and financial" support to groups, but what this means has constantly evolved. Based on interviews with past and current members, the group has been both hindered and helped by its changing identity and decentralized nature.

At a Feb. 26 meeting -- at which only three people attended -- the members agreed it was time for a change. A message sent out to the Coalition's e-mail list that day said the group will continue to be active only through the e-mail list and as a "slush fund for other organizations."

There will be no more physical gatherings, although members are continuing to correspond online and work for individual issues. Meetings can occur if members of the organization request them.

This could present a problem for the future of the organization.

In order to maintain status as a recognized group by the TCU Judiciary (TCUJ), the Coalition needs to uphold certain requirements for re-recognition, which include membership and proof of recent activities.

"A group cannot exist under the TCU if it does not hold meetings or plan events," TCUJ new-group recognition chair Jordana Starr said.

The Coalition, along with half of all TCU student organizations, will be considered by the TCUJ for re-recognition this year.

Starr said that, "if the Coalition is serving as an executive board for a number of subgroups, that's one thing, but if the Coalition intends to have no purpose other than handing out money to other groups, then it's completely different."

The group's new signatory for funding requests, freshman Nicolas Ojeda, did not return calls for comment.

As the Coalition's problems have evolved over the years, there have been new initiatives to try and transform the group. Recently the organization has served as an incubator for new groups, including the Tufts Coalition to Oppose the War in Iraq (TCOWi), which operates out of the Coalition.

Senior Emily Good said it was "important for the [Coalition] to serve as an umbrella for a lot of smaller groups." Good was heavily involved with the Coalition for the last two years, but has had limited involvement this academic year.

Sophomore Phil Martin, who is on the Coalition's e-mail list, said TCOWi is an example of a group that "sprang up" when a new issue arose. TCOWi is not recognized by the TCU as a student organization. Martin said this was because the group included students and professors, and was therefore ineligible to receive student activity fee monies.

The Student Labor Action Movement (SLAM) is another group without University recognition that communicates with the Coalition.

"Having to go through the actual process, through the J, would take away from the central objective which is to fight for the custodian's rights," SLAM Coordinator Ariana Flores said. The group relies on the Coalition to reserve room space and provide some co-sponsorship. SLAM also pays some expenses out of pocket.

The experience of TCOWi and SLAM are what some students said has been the typical cycle of campus progressive groups. "I would say the driving force has been from the bottom-up," for new progressive organizations graduate student Joe Ramsey said.

Ramsey has been involved with Coalition for several years, and is still active in TCOWi.

He pointed to the reemergence of SLAM and the revival of the Tufts chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) as signs of the continuing health of left-leaning organizations on campus.

On a similar note, Martin said even though the campus is currently without a general group to address liberal issues, it does not mean the campus would not benefit from the creation of one.

"I think a generic, more all-purpose group would be a great addition to student activities at Tufts," Martin said, "but I don't think that's what the Coalition is."

The Coalition's new identity maintains the group's focus as an organization that encourages communication between other progressive organizations.

This new focus, however, departs from the Coalition's current constitution. Former Coalition member Calvin Metcalf said the document was "lost" for some time last semester until he was able to locate it.

The constitution states that the Coalition will "create a database for both the issues and the organizations addressing these issues." The group is also supposed "to increase awareness around issues of violence, both structural and physical, especially during 1998, the Year of Nonviolence."

There are supposed to be monthly meetings with representatives from the seven original organizations, which have not occurred.

The organizations included in the constitution are the Environmental Consciousness Outreach (ECO), Hillel Social Action Committee, Oxfam Collective, Pan-African Alliance, Students for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (SETA), and the Tufts Transgendered, Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Community (TTLGBC),

The group's web site lists 15 organizations in contact with the Coalition, but it has not been updated since 2001.

Metcalf said that part of the group's problems may be the non-hierarchical nature of the organization. Metcalf has worked with several groups that maintain relations with the Coalition, including the Secular Students Association (SSA) and the left-wing magazine Radix.

When Metcalf tried to screen a social-justice related film for the Coalition last semester he was confounded by the Coalition's poor organization. Metcalf eventually decided to leave the Coalition and not hold the screening, concentrating on other organizations, including the SSA.

The Coalition's inactivity was not always a problem. In the fall of 2002, the group organized a trip to Washington, D.C. to participate in protests against the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank meetings. In 2001, the group also traveled to a Georgia military training facility for Latin American soldiers where 15 of the 32 students, some of whom were from other schools, were arrested for trespassing.

During its inaugural year, the Coalition attempted to bring prominent race-relations activist and Princeton professor Cornell West to speak at the University, an action that was blocked by the Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate.

Sasha Baltins (LA '99), Coalition founder and former co-chair, said in a 1998 interview with the Daily that the group should concentrate on "specific issues," while dealing with the interests of different groups.

"The newsletter and monthly meetings between groups in the activist network would promote the longevity of activism and non-violence," she said.