Plan A Hoyas, the controversial group that is lobbying Georgetown University to provide contraception and sexual education to students and allow more dialogue about related topics, held a rally for their cause today in Red Square where members of their group told stories of how they had been affected by Georgetown’s restrictive policies.

Afterward, they marched to President John DeGioia’s office to deliver to him a petition with dozens of signatures from students who supported their cause, a tape recorder on which students had recorded their stories of being frustrated by University policies, including the story of a student who had called into the University Hospital after being raped, and a response to the February 24 letter they received from Vice President for Student Affairs Todd Olson in response to their demands, or, “a response to his non-response.”

After being stopped by University employees on their way to the office, they gave the material to his Chief of Staff Erik Smulson in the foyer of the second floor of Healy Hall.

About two dozen students led the rally in Red Square, with some holding signs, like “Let’s make the 1st Amendment a Legacy.” A student in a dress shirt and tie who wore the moniker “Georgetown” on a piece of paper went around the half-circle of protesters putting tape over their mouths as what one rally leader, Julia Shindel (COL ‘10), called “pretty clear symbolism.”

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Protest not, lest ye be protested. Tonight, about twenty students gathered in Red Square to condemn the protesters who interrupted General David Petraeus when he spoke in Gaston Hall last Thursday. The students, two of whom held a large American flag for the duration of the counterprotest, read aloud and circulated a letter of apology to Gen. Petraeus and a letter to University President John DeGioia asking him to issue a formal apology to Petraeus for the disruption.

“A great injustice was perpetrated against General David Petraeus, those in attendance of his presentation, and the Georgetown community as a whole on January 21,” junior Will Downes said, reading the letter to DeGioia.

The letter to Petraeus, they said, was drafted in collaboration between several on campus groups, including the the Georgetown Federalist, the International Relations Club, and Georgetown University College Republicans. It asked that and that “university policy be altered so that it does not tolerate the constant and continuous disruption of university sponsored events.”

After the reading the letters out loud, members of the group engaged in some good old-fashioned oratory.

“How is it that a guest at our University could be subject to such disrespect?” Randy Drew (SFS ‘10) asked, standing on the planter in the middle of the Square. Drew said the protesters were motivated by “the same spirit which motivates a person in the middle of the night to shout racial epithets, the same spirit which motivates a person to deny a professor the right to teach what he or she believes.”

Members of the crowd hissed softly when Drew mentioned the op-ed that James Reardon-Anderson, a dean in the School of Foreign Service, published in The Hoya comparing the actions of the protesters to Jesus and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Read more, and the letters to Petraeus and DeGioia, after the jump.

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As is their wont, this year’s crop of anti-IMF protesters did indeed take to the streets of Georgetown yesterday evening. Vox wasn’t there, but we did get a first hand account from Georgetown student Carlos Hernandez, who found himself in the middle of the protest while walking back from a movie last night (emphasis mine):

My roommate, a friend and I were just leaving the movie theater after seeing State of Play and approaching the intersection of Wisconsin Avenue and M Streets when we noticed there was a lot of commotion. Since we had seen a marked Secret Service car, we figured it was a high-profile official in the area for dinner (possibly Obama at Cafe Milano). Once we reached the intersection, a police convoy with bicycles, motorcycles, marked and undercover cars, SUVs and vans started making its way north on Wisconsin Avenue. We followed the convoy to see what was happening. Above us, a police helicopter was hovering and shining its search light on the intersection of Wisconsin Avenue and N Streets.

There was some confusion among passers by as to what was happening. Since I had seen earlier reports of civil disturbances at the IMF/World Bank headquarters downtown, I thought that they might be related. After asking a few people, we were able to come to that conclusion. Overall, the entire situation happened pretty quickly. The protesters were confined to the corner by Paolo’s. They were shouting something, but no one really understood what they were saying. At one point, some of the protesters started going into the restaurant; the police stopped them. It did not appear to me that any arrests were made. One protester was being held by a police officer, and when the police officer appeared ready to put handcuffs on him most of the other protesters started yelling and moving up Wisconsin Avenue toward Five Guys. The police presence was very collected and coordinated.

The protesters seemed pretty disorganized. There were several pockets of them along Wisconsin Avenue. I am not sure what they were protesting, but it was entertaining/fascinating to watch some of our basic civil liberties (freedom of speech and freedom of assembly) in action. The police opened up southbound traffic on Wisconsin Avenue a few minutes later. My roommate and I then walked back to campus on O Street. We did not see how things ended since it appeared everything was under control.

The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank are holding their annual meetings in D.C. this weekend. Along with discussions of economic policy, these meetings inevitably involve protests. This year, protesters have already broken bank windows and spray painted cars near Logan Circle (City Paper has some good photos of the damage).

A couple of years ago, protesters took to the streets of Georgetown and turned violent, hitting a young woman in the face with a brick near the Ambercrombie & Fitch store on Wisconsin Ave.

The protesters will be heading over to nearby Washington Circle tonight to play baseball and soccer “in the streets of the rich” as a way of protesting the public financing of the Nationals Stadium. Hopefully they’ll keep their conduct sportsman-like this evening…

Photo from Flickr user mar is sea Y, used under Creative Commons license.

You’d think that with the split-second notification Georgetown gave about President Obama’s speech, we would’ve been able to escape the wrath that militantly pro-life Catholics have heaped on Notre Dame for inviting him to be their commencement speaker. No such luck.

According to the Christian News Wire, D.C.-area pro-life activists will be protesting at the front gates tomorrow to “denounce Georgetown, who invited President Obama to speak, knowing the scandal and outrage surrounding his scheduled speech at Notre Dame on May 17.”

The announcement goes on to equate Obama’s women’s rights policies to Nazi Germany and say, “this sudden invite is as wicked as it is sneaky.”

Director of Media Relations Andy Pino, however, has a more benign explanation for the suddenness of the invitation. Pino wrote in an e-mail:

As with many high profile events that take place on campus, the details of the event came together over a short period of time. The announcement went out to the community as soon as logistics were confirmed.

About 40 students sat-in at The Hoya’s office late Thursday night

Editor’s note: Okay, so we’ve covered The Hoya an awful lot lately, and you may be getting sick of it. However, we think would’ve been remiss not to cover these events.

Slideshow: Students conduct a sit-in protest in the office of “The Hoya”

Last night, at least 40 students who found themselves deeply offended by The Hoya’s April Fool’s issue staged a sit-in in The Hoya’s Leavey office. Several DPS officers monitored the scene. Hoya staff members did not have official comments about the sit-in, but two senior members of The Hoya said they did not have knowledge of any of their staff calling DPS and said the protest lasted from about 11:20 p.m. to midnight.

The sit-in followed an “emergency town hall” which over 100 students attended, including GUSA President Calen Angert (MSB `11) and VP Jason Kluger (MSB `11), a few faculty members, and at least one Jesuit. The event was publicized on Facebook under the group name “The Hoya: discrimination is not a laughing matter,” and the group currently has 271 members.

The individual comments from the town hall are confidential, but in general students said they were very offended by articles in The Hoya’s April Fool’s issue that they found racist, discriminatory, sexist, and dismissive of important campus issues. Many students expressed anger that The Hoya targeted individual students and said they felt The Hoya has a history of printing offensive content in its April Fool’s issues. Many also called for its Editor in Chief, Andrew Dwulet, to resign.

The Hoya responds, after the jump.

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Well, that was a disappointment. Last night’s anti-IMF, anti-World Bank protest, which was going to be so good I advised watching for phalanxes of riot police, was actually a big flop with only about 20 protesters. It was so quiet WTOP doesn’t even know it happened.

There were at least 2 police officers for every protester, presumably intended to dissuade lawbreaking. The night started with Captain Herold from MPD telling protesters he wouldn’t brook with any lawbreaking, but it really began when he called one protester a pussy.

Things were looking up when the protesters grabbed makeshift drums from a Metro station entrance. When the police asked them to stop using the drums, the protesters, incredibly, complied. What about the bricks, guys? Once the protesters decided not to make noise, the night became a peaceful midnight stroll with the 2nd District police.

After the jump, one picture describes an entire night: a ridiculous protester and a cop wondering if it’s too late to take that job in Phoenix.

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The hotly anticipated IMF protest this weekend is shaping up:

Join us at Dupont Circle at 1:00 am on the night of Saturday, Oct. 11th into the morning of Sunday, Oct. 12th for a rowdy, noisy march to the hotels where delegates are staying. Bring noisemakers to wake up the caretakers of global capitalism and tell them they’re not welcome in DC!

Dupont Circle is only a short walk away, though, so you should go check out the controlled chaos of an anti-IMF march. I covered Disrupt Georgetown last year and nearly got arrested for it, so I’m uniquely qualified to show you a good time once Homecoming fun fizzles. Here are four tips to keep your head from getting slammed against a wall:

• Get messy: Some people think standing on the sidewalk and watching cops and protesters scuffle is a good time. Hardly! Protesters will probably be marching down the middle of the street with bicycle and motorcycle cops encircling them, so you need to run in right from the start and get caught up in the rectangle. When it comes time to escape, be firm with the bicycle police trying to keep you inside.
• Stay with the violent ones: Some coalition of vegan pansexual socialists will probably show up with no intention of smashing windows. They’ll complain to you about the masked anarchists (above), and will try and split off from the main protest at one point. Don’t join them. It might be tempting because they’re nicer, but none of them are going to get arrested or smacked around, and that’s what you’re here for.

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Some House staffers will be forced to schmooze outside their offices today. They’re boycotting a cafeteria for suspending an employee named Doris:

Turns out Doris is a beloved member of the cafeteria staff at the Longworth House Office Building. According to an email circulating among House staffers, Doris was suspended without pay for being $9 short on her register. The government loses billions all the time and she’s being jacked up for losing $9!

Execrable TMZ style aside, a one-day boycott isn’t much. But admit it–you feel bad for Doris, too.

The October Rebellion, an umbrella group of protest groups, launched an unpermitted march through Georgetown Friday night. The march started at Washington Circle and ended when police cordoned off protests and released them in small groups. According to police, a young woman was hit in the face in front of Wisconsin’s Abercrombie and Fitch and was taken to the hospital. More on the Voice’s Flickr account.

These two protesters were arrested after a policeman was knocked off his motorcycle.

Groups met at St. Stephen’s Church. I saw a can of spraypaint and a slingshot. Someone near me said, “I have three rocks for throwing or whatever.” When they found out we were journalists they threw us out.

But at least we got a picture of their gender-neutral bathroom first!

The Abercrombie & Fitch where the girl was hit in the face with a brick. You can see the bloodstain by the door. I asked a cop if they knew who did it and he said they had no idea because it was thrown from the crowd.
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