I’m looking for 167 students.

Not ordinary students. Not uncaring students. Not students who believe the profit motive is far more important than diversity, education and freedom. I’m looking for students committed to the principles mentioned in the First Amendment: freedom of speech, and the right of peaceful assembly to petition for redress of grievances. Students willing to actively protect those principles.

The action below has not been cleared yet with the Central Committee of The September 29th Movement, of which I’m a member, but if 167 more students turn up who fit the job description above, I believe they’ll be deliriously happy and ready to say, “Let’s do it.”

Finding 167 students will almost certainly take until the fall semester, but that’s OK. We’re as patient as we are determined. With 33 already committed, there’ll be 200 students ready to go and meet with President Martin Jischke. Each student must then find just one student as committed and serious as he is. All interested faculty and staff members are encouraged to join us; we know you also have a need to remind our CEO-minded president that ISU will be run democratically and not like a corporation (we can start with discussions about tenure and unions).

These 400 students, plus faculty and staff, should believe the words of Margaret Mead, who said, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world; indeed it’s the only thing that ever has.” In our case, we simply want to change Iowa State University (ISU).

Jischke has made three things autocratically clear: First, when meeting with students from the Coalition of Under-Represented Voices (CURV) who have patiently petitioned for redress of grievances, he will only consent to “facilitated expression.” Which means, after talking with CURV, he will unilaterally make decisions without the consent of the governed. Second, he is unwilling to reopen the naming process for Catt Hall, despite the fact that people of color were totally excluded from the naming process, because his reading skills have told him Carrie Chapman Catt wasn’t politically racist (and presumably not xenophobic, nativist or classist either). Third, his edict forbidding peaceful assembly and free speech in the lobby of Beardshear Hall takes precedence over the First Amendment.

The September 29th Movement categorically rejects all three of these views. The Movement wants to find out whether democracy or top-down management will carry the day at ISU. (I’m betting on democracy.) Jischke has repeatedly rejected a conflict resolution expert, so this time we’ll meet with him without one, all 400 of us.

We’ll stay in his office — our office — until he understands he governs with the consent of the governed, and demonstrates willingness to discuss our differences from that perspective. Only serious students need apply to attend because we’ll take our books and study, since he’s stubborn and we may have to wait. We’ll ask our professors whether lectures can be taped so that we won’t miss course work, and ask those with us to organize tutoring sessions. We’ll take some laptop computers so papers and assignments can get done. We’ll take food, and make arrangements to get more. We’ll take sleeping bags, a few television sets, CD players and cellular phones.

Now, most of us aren’t nationally known athletes, so the administration may try and charge us with various infractions of the ISU handbook. They may even decide to charge or arrest all 400 of us, which should make quite a national news story.

If we have 400 students going to see Jischke, then I’ll bet there’ll be another 100 or 200 outside. That’s a lot of folks to arrest. It’s a lot of folks to charge with “unauthorized entry.” And it’s a lot of people to piss off.

At the University of Massachusetts Amherst recently, 175 students inside the building, and another 100 sleeping on the steps, won 21 demands from an administration that sounds a lot like ours, and they did it in just six days. Are you paying attention, ISU?

What will our demands be? While we wait in Jischke’s office to talk with him, we can work on that. But, for starters, how about: An immediate change in ISU policy that respects the First Amendment in clear and direct language; a multicultural committee to reexamine the naming of Catt Hall; some seven-figure amount to immediately invest in the ethnic and gender studies programs; substantially increased funding for more personnel to work in recruitment; a retreat, where representatives of every campus group that’s interested — from the most conservative to the most radical: residence halls, political groups, fraternities, sororities, non-traditionals, internationals, everybody — can go with a diversity expert or experts and talk, yell, scream and maybe, just maybe, learn to develop some love, or at least a little respect for each other; any faculty and staff issues they find necessary; and whatever else we think might benefit this university, since the man we’ll be waiting to talk to doesn’t seem to have a clue.

We stay in his office until it’s clear he understands how democracy works. It might take an hour, a week, a month. But if we’re committed, we can, and will, democratize this university and hopefully promote some healing. If you’re one of the 167 students, or if you’re an interested faculty or staff member, my phone number is 296-8556; my e-mail address is [email protected]. You will be notified when we’re ready to go see the president.

Milton McGriff is a graduate student in English. He is spokesman for The September 29th Movement.