WBAI-FM Program Highlight

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MORNING SHOW

THE FREEDOM UNIVERSITY: INTEGRATED CLASSROOMS FOR UNDO

Monday, January 26, 2015   6:00 AM - 8:00 AM

A few weeks ago, police arrested nine students in Athens, Georgia for organizing the first integrated classroom for both undocumented and documented youth at the University of Georgia. That day over 20 undocumented youth and their allies had been attending a teach-in to learn more about past civil rights struggles and to call attention to Georgia’s discriminatory policies that ban undocumented students from attending the state’s five top public universities.

When the building was set to close after the teach-in, students refused to leave, announcing they would stay to protest discriminatory educational policies to honor the African American students who had de-segregated the University of Georgia 54 years before.

Freedom University opened its doors in 2011 following the passage of Policy 4.1.6, which bans undocumented youth from attending Georgia's top five public universities, and Policy 4.3.4, which prohibits undocumented students from qualifying for in-state tuition. Freedom University is a modern day freedom school based in Atlanta. It provides college-level classes, scholarship assistance, and leadership development for undocumented students in Georgia.

Since undocumented students are ineligible for federal financial aid, these policies effectively exclude undocumented students and usher in a modern era of educational segregation in the South. As a result of its work, one out of every five students that walks into Freedom University banned from public higher education in Georgia leaves with a full merit scholarship to a college out of state. 

Christy Thornton and Michael G. Haskins speak with Freedom University’s Executive Director, Laura Emiko Soltis, and with two current Freedom University students, Arizbeth Sanchez and Valentina Garcia, about the undocumented student experience and the mission of the university.