To all supporters-

I apologize for my lack of updates over the past few weeks.  Miami's campus
has been alive with student activism and organization.  On Saturday, Feb.
27, the recently formed student coalition held its "Progressive Day of
Solidarity" which was a day for student and community activists from around
the state to begin building a state and region-wide network for
coordinating our efforts and begin building a state activist organization.
Several schools were in attendance, including, Bowling Green State
University, Ohio University, Northern Kentucky University, Earlham College,
Wooster College, and University of Toledo.  In addition, activists from
Detroit and Cincinnati also took part in the day.

We held four workshops--alternative media networking, organizing against
sweatshop labor, protesting the school of the americas, and revising
university sexual assault policies--all of which were filled to capacity.
After the workshops, we held a march and rally in uptown Oxford, calling
for an alliance among activists to fight oppression in our communities.
All said, there were just over 60 people in attendance, which we consider a
huge success.  We are now building a state wide electronic network between
the schools in attendance to further the discussions and organizing efforts
begun during the Day of Solidarity.  This event has taken a considerable
amount of time and resources to organize, which accounts in part for the
lack of updates.

On the Miami 7 front, we had our second pre-trial this morning (3/5).  The
jury date is now set (for sure this time) for April 23, 1999 which is a
Friday.  As I have relayed in earlier updates, we feel like we have a very
strong case, and hope to beat the charges against us.  Although I cannot go
into details here, we will make a strong case based upon Constitutionally
protected Civil Rights and unjust arrest.  There will be a vigil April
22--the night before the trial.  I will forward more information on this
event when we make the final preparations.

Many people have expressed concern that our case is put in jeopardy by the
arrest of Nate Snow and Brad Allen for the Center for Black Culture and
Learning incident, but I want to reiterate that we do not believe this is
the case.  First, Nate and Brad have yet to be found guilty for the CBCL.
Secondly, regardless of the outcome of their case, the protests were not
ONLY a response to the CBCL incident, but were in response to a long
history of racial violence and a hostile environment on the Miami
University campus.  Thirdly, we continue to support Nate and Brad
regardless of the outcome of their trial.  Even if they are found guilty,
we recognize that they contributed substantially to building an active,
conscious, and organized activist community throughout their years here.
We owe them a tremendous amount for their labor and history of speaking out
against the hostile environment at Miami before we had national media
attention.  We need to recognize that history and not simply focus on the
CBCL incident.  We know that regardless of the outcome of their case, the
hostile environment, the racial and sexual violence, which takes place on
this campus and around the country is very REAL.  It was for this reason
that we were protesting and were arrested on November 11, 1998.  As of this
writing, both Nate and Brad insist that they are innocent.

The news media is beginning to take notice of the history of Miami once
again.  This past weekend, a reporter for SPIN magazine was on campus,
writing a story about the protests, the arrests of the Miami 7, Nate and
Brad's  arrest, and the activism that has been growing on campus.  This
morning, following our pre-trial, several of us, Jerry Greene, Chantae
Pennyman, Robert Jackson, Brad Allen, and myself, were interviewed for
about an hour by Newsweek.  The Newsweek story, we were told, will be a
three page narrative about the events at Miami over the past several
months.  We were informed by Mark Shone, the senior contributing writing
for SPIN who conducted the interview of us last week, that part of the
reason that Miami is of interest to the national media has to do with a
right-wing think-tank located in Boston.  This organization (I will let you
know their name after I speak to Mark again) is saturating newspapers and
TV stations around the country known to have conservative editorial staffs,
with propaganda about the rash of "hate crime frauds" around the country.
Mark pointed out to me, that the statistics they are generating grossly
overstate the degree to which "hate crime frauds" take place and are trying
to influence the national debate over the "reality" of sexual harassment
claim, the degree of racial violence, and the need for affirmative action
programs.  This is yet another example of how well-funded right-wing
organizations are fighting to gain control of the national discourse on a
grassroots level.  This also shows us the path of an upcoming struggle.

The Miami case, it appears, will be a major battlezone over how the
discourse of race, gender, sexuality, and class will be defined in the next
year.  This is of particular interest if you take in consideration that the
right-wing is undertaking this campaign just as candidates begin to gear up
for the next election cycle.  I hope you will join us in combating this
campaign on a local level, in a sort of hand-to-hand manner, with the right
in your communities.  Here, we are trying to gather information from around
the country of examples of how the debate over "hate crime fraud" is
appearing in local media.  At Miami, we have already seen the effect of
this campaign.  A few months back, the Cincinnati Enquirer ran a story
about "hate crime fraud" based upon the information provided by the Boston
think-tank.  James Garland, the president of Miami, then used the
statistics from that article, without checking on their validity or source,
in a university press release and letter to the community.  Since his
letter, the discourse of "hate crime fraud" can be heard in all sorts of
informal discussions on campus, including the classroom.  This is how the
debate will be shifted to the right if we fail to combat this assault.

I hope all of you are well and will find this update helpful in
understanding the systematic and national impact our "local" case will
potentially have in communities all over the country.  We thank you again
for your continued support.

Kevin Mahoney