Local News in Brief : CSUN Students Begin ‘Sleep-In’ in Protest Against Apartheid

Agroup of students at California State University, Northridge, Wednesday night began a “sleep-in” in the university’s administration building, calling it a show of support for students arrested in recent anti-apartheid demonstrations at state universities in Berkeley and Santa Barbara.

Zeke Zeidler, the college’s student body president and an organizer of the protest, said he expected 35-50 students to spend the night in sleeping bags in the lobby of the building. College officials had agreed to allow the students to remain through the night, provided they stayed in the lobby and out of administrative offices.

About 25 students had gathered in the lobby by 9 p.m. Wednesday. They were watched from a distance by a member of the university’s police force.

Zeidler said the demonstrators included three members of the Student Senate and leaders of other student groups. The event grew out of a march through the campus Wednesday to protest South Africa’s apartheid policies, he said.

Student groups around the state have urged administrators in both the University of California system and the 19-campus California State University system to sell off stock in companies that do business with the segregationist government of South Africa.

The CSUN Associated Student Senate voted on March 19 to remove its $125 bank account from the Bank of America to protest that bank’s South African connections.

Zeidler said Wednesday evening that the demonstrators had not yet decided when they would leave the building.