The Point: Drop Ice
2/19/2026
As always, this edition of The Point represents the views of its authors (this week, The Point collective) and does not represent the official position of the FSU.
There were many heartening things about the “Drop ICE” webinar that some of the Point crew (and other UMB community members) attended on zoom this past Sunday night. By far the most uplifting aspect of this event was the sheer number of people attending—four hundred and more when we stopped counting—and the range of constituencies and communities represented. As we have seen with the grassroots resistance to ICE in Minneapolis, there is nothing like an occupying force of fascist stormtroopers to organize a truly inspiring range of people. It’s not just that the backlash to ICE is bringing together all kinds of already-engaged political activists (and getting them to work across sectarian lines that sometimes divide them); the Drop ICE movement is activating people who don’t usually do this kind of thing.
One of the most thrilling realities of the webinar was how fully it was steered by very young people—organizers from the Sunrise Movement, YDSA, Build the Base, and elsewhere. They spoke with enthusiasm and wisdom and, among other things, offered first person narratives of the amazing community resistance that has developed over the past few months in Minneapolis. Without sugarcoating the realities of living under this occupation by the federal government, Aru Shiney-Ajay (director of the Sunrise Movement) reminded us that while we might be outgunned, we are certainly not outnumbered at this moment.
We found it especially revealing when our colleague Eric Blanc, who teaches labor studies at Rutgers, began his remarks with a reference to the campus anti-sweatshop movement of the 1990s and 2000s, an underappreciated protest movement of recent history. Spearheaded by students, but ultimately bringing together a broad alliance of union members, academics, and others, the anti-sweatshop movement opened up a conversation about consumer power on college campuses that ended up racking up numerous important victories. Blanc reminded us that these began as hyperlocal campaigns to raise consciousness about the ways campus stores participated in terribly extractive global economies and resulted in a variety of new and more justice-oriented policies about labor justice and branded university gear. (See a fuller elaboration of this history and a call to action by Blanc, Sandberg, and McEnany here.)
Boycott and divestment have been at the heart of so many global/local social justice movements of the modern era. From the 1980s anti-apartheid movement—which derived so much energy from campus activism—to the No Sweat movement, to Palestine liberation work in our time, committed participants have understood that targeting corporate enablers of unjust social and political arrangements is a profoundly effective tactic.
The current anti-ICE movement also has roots in the Central America sanctuary movement of the 1980s; there has been growing activism here in Boston and elsewhere aimed at establishing college campuses as sanctuary spaces. (For an overview of sanctuary activism, see here and here.) We support these students insisting that university officials commit to not cooperating with federal agents should they appear on campus – and better yet to set up rapid response systems to notify vulnerable students when ICE makes an appearance (this recent sanctuary push actually began in Trump’s first term). Perhaps even more encouraging we have also witnessed tens of thousands of high school students walk out to protest ICE in their communities, including in Texas where the state government is now threatening to arrest students and/or withhold funding from school districts deemed complicit.
It’s an amazing political energy that has been tapped, and as union members, educators, and citizens, it is incumbent on us all to do what we can to tend this political fire and keep it blazing strong. We started drafting this issue of this Point on the day after Jesse Jackson died, and thinking not only of the powerful political force he helped create known as The Rainbow Coalition— inspired both by Chicago Black Panther Party leader Fred Hampton and Boston's own Mel King, whose 1983 mayoral run under the "Rainbow Coalition" banner helped shape Jackson's presidential campaign the following year."
(Note: Healey Library holds some fascinating resources on this front. Mel King donated his papers to UMass Boston in late 2020, and his collection serves as a testament to his commitment to civil rights and our local community. Mel King’s profoundly influential work, particularly his 1983 mayoral campaign, is reflected across many of our other Boston-based archival collections, too, such as the Roots of the Rainbow exhibit collection, the Tess Ewing collection, and the Kathleen Gannett papers, among others. Email library.archives@umb.edu if you need more information!)
The dialectic of local and national is always a core dynamic of major social and political movements, and we left Sunday’s Drop ICE webinar with a renewed commitment to organizing here in our community.) This was the central takeaway of the webinar and this is where we urge you to join the movement actively, if you haven’t already. First have a look at this incredibly useful toolkit created by the coalition of organizations (including the AAUP, HELU, the AFT and others) that created the webinar: it is full of information and accessible actions that will create important resistance to the Federal ICE regime: stop booking guests to campus at Hilton Hotels, just for instance—they have been working hand-in-glove with ICE. If you have more bandwidth and want to get even more deeply involved, see here for how you can volunteer to become an organizer for this crucial, necessary movement.
The committee for this year’s The Point currently includes Jessica Holden, Healey Library; Nick Juravich, History; Jeff Melnick, American Studies; and Steve Striffler, Labor Studies. If you want to write an edition of The Point, or if you just have an idea, please write us at fsu@umb.edu