Students around the world have gone on hunger strikes in attempt to voice their opinions and make themselves be heard.

Allan Nosworthy, a graduate student in creative writing and a member of The September 29th Movement, is now on a hunger strike.

His goal is to make the university meet eight requests about improving diversity at ISU.

One ISU professor said hunger strikes are one example of non-violent protests.

Wayne Osborn, associate professor of history, said hunger strikes are “increasingly a real tactic for people to use when they feel very strongly about something.”

In the past two years, students at several universities have gone on hunger strikes.

At Columbia University

In April of 1996, students at Columbia University in New York City, N.Y. went on a hunger strike in an attempt to get the university to add a department of ethnic studies. Twenty-two students were arrested for the hunger strike and later released.

More than 500 students rallied in support of the protesters, forming a human chain around Low Library.

Later, more than 100 students marched to Hamilton Hall, the building on Columbia University’s campus that houses the dean’s office, and occupied the building, demanding an ethnic studies program and amnesty for all protesters.

After a weekend of negotiations with administration, strikers received an ultimatum to accept an offer.

The offer granted them four faculty tenure lines, a vaguely worded proposal to establish a faculty commission to look into ethnic studies and amnesty for all students involved in the protest, or mass arrest, suspension and expulsion.

Strikers accepted the administration’s proposal.

In Palestine

In November of 1996, three Birzeit University students, Adeeb Ziadeh, Muhammad Ba-aloushi and Mustafa Atari, and three other prisoners in the Ramallah Central Prison fasted for more than two weeks to demand their release from the prison.

The Palestinian National Authority had detained the students for more than eight months without charge or trial.

Two of the students, Atari and Ba-aloushi, were ordered to be released by the Palestinian High Court on Aug. 18, 1996, but the order was not acted upon.

Two students who were held with the three were released Nov. 14, 1996.

Birzeit University members joined in calling for their immediate release and expressed concern about their health and long-term effects of the detention.

Visitors from the university’s Human Rights Action Project reported that the three students appeared physically tired from their prolonged hunger strike and discouraged by the lack of response from authorities.