We’re in Iowa City NOW with a group of undergrads, grad students, healthcare workers, and community members demanding #IACampusesClose #UntilItsSafe and #FairTuitionNow
After a land acknowledgement, Iowa Student Action leader @dulce_amargadx is kicking things off. They tell the crowd: “All of Iowa needs classes to be online if we want to see everyone survive this year, or even the next few weeks.” 
We are a nationwide movement of student fighting for #FreeCollegeForAll. We believe that education is a right.
One sick student, faculty, staff, or community member is too many. @IowaRegents, and @UIowa and @IowaStateU admin want us to blame each other. But they are responsible for putting every community member’s life at risk for profit.
We will not be silent. We will not be complicit
We will not be silent. We will not be complicit
We’re moving now, and people are holding signs including “Value Lives Over Profit,” “Save Lives, Go Online,” and “Degrees not Disease.”
We’re starting to block the intersection. A group of ISA leadership has hung two banners over Iowa Avenue. Together, they read: “Board of Regents: Our Blood, Your Hands.”
We’ve closed off the intersection, and Iowa Student Action leader K is speaking now about how UIowa’s failure to close and high tuition forced her to drop out of school. “The choice Bruce is asking us to make is whether or not we would die for an education. That’s not a choice.”
Cathy Glasson, a nurse at UIHC, and President of SEIU Local 199, spoke next, from the perspective of a nurse at the hospital.
Picketers are chanting "education is a right, not just for the rich and white." We've been holding the intersection for over 15 minutes now.
After Cathy’s story, Dulce is called Suresh Gunasakaran, CEO of UIHC. He didn't answer.
.@dulce_amargadx is speaking again. “I wish the regents saw Iowa as their home too. I wish they saw community in Iowa. But all they see is profit profit profit. They don’t care if I die, or if anyone in my life dies, or if any of you do.”
Dulce then left a voicemail for Mark Braun, director of @IowaRegents: “Classes at UIowa start in 4 days, classes at ISU and UNI started 4 days ago, and this pandemic is not over. Students, workers, and community members will die, and that blood will be on your hands.”
Kelsey, a graduate student, instructor, and @COGSUnion member is speaking now. “How can we engage you when we think sitting in a room together might kill you? How can we learn and provide safe spaces with that level of anxiety in the room? We can’t, it’s impossible”
Dulce is now sharing our demands: “We demand that all classes be moved online until it’s safe, that students lose no scholarship or financial aid if they take a leave of absence during the pandemic”
“That students be able to cancel and receive full reimbursement for their housing and dining contracts, that tuition is reduced by 50% and all fees are waived for as long as classes are online, and that tuition is frozen for 5 years.”
Sorry for the delay in getting updates up, we had some technical difficulties, but that rounds out our program from todays action.
We left after holding the intersection for an hour and a half, but the fight doesn’t stop until #IACampusesClose and we have #FreeCollegeForALL including formerly incarcerated and undocumented students
