May 26, 2015
On May 19, 2015, Advancing Justice Atlanta attended the in-state tuition rally at 9:30 in the morning. The rally took place in front of the Board of Education building, where the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia met to approve changes to Policy 7.3.4.1. Policy 7.3.4.1 would allow students who reside in Alabama, South Carolina, and Florida to pay in-state tuition rates at colleges located in Georgia. Meanwhile, undocumented students who have lived in Georgia for the majority of their lives and paid taxes to the state are required to pay out-of-state tuition rates at those same colleges.
Representatives from the Georgia Undocumented Youth Alliance (GUYA) and the Georgia Dreamers were in attendance. Many individuals gave testimony about how this policy essentially excludes them from higher education due to the cost of out-of-state tuition. “My family has been paying GA taxes for the last 15 years. It is ridiculous that the Board of Regents continues to deny us entrance to Universities that we have helped fund,” said Maria Carrillo, who is affiliated with the Georgia Dreamers.
The rally lasted until about noon. Jaime Rangel and a small group from the assemblage walked into the board meeting, where Nels Peterson intercepted them, the Vice Chancellor for Legal Affairs for the Board of Regents. Rangel reported that the Board agreed to meet with their group at a later date. The group plans to hold them accountable to that statement.
For me, this was different from other rallies I have been to because the group was smaller than what I am used to at a rally. I have attended rallies for Justice for Trayvon in Florida as well as Black Lives Matter in Massachusetts that were attended by at least 100 people. I thought this might impact the rally’s effectiveness. I wondered if we were enough to make a difference.
In my opinion, there were two factors that countered my assumption. First, there was heavy media representation at this rally. News channels such as CBS46 and El Nuevo Georgia were present to interview students and report what had happened. After the rally, I was able to find people from GUYA and the Georgia Dreamers on Twitter and Facebook, and many of them had posted video clips of the rally on their pages. This allowed them to reach a much larger audience than only those who were physically present, and also allowed us to record that this rally happened. Now if anyone searches the internet for information on undocumented students or in-state tuition in Georgia, they will know that a rally happened and that the Board of Regents has agreed to meet with young organizers to discuss allowing undocumented students to pay in-state tuition rates.
The other factor that boosted effectiveness was the disruption we caused. In my opinion, a rally is effective precisely when it disrupts everyday life. Rallies are not designed to be in closed off areas where no one can see them. They are not supposed to be convenient. A rally’s intention is to call attention to the fact that something is wrong so that people will do something about it. When we took to the street outside the Board of Education building, we did just that. When we carried huge signs over our heads and stopped traffic when we chanted, when we made enough noise, that the police showed up (for a peaceful protest), we reminded the state of Georgia that the current policy is an injustice. Our hope is that people who we marched by, who had to wait for maybe a few minutes at the most to wait until we passed, will be reminded that there are people whose entire lives have been put on hold because they do not have access to education. This small inconvenience they experience is a fraction of the hardship that undocumented students face every day.
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