Universidades Luta! Brazil's Faculty and Students Stand Together

Facing a two-front battle against Brazil's Sao Paulo state over funding and independence, students and faculty locked arms as one campus's strike spread to another, and to another. From a Reuters report:

Tens of thousands of students, professors and university employees are now backing the strike to demand more funding for education and protest a series of decrees issued by the state's new governor and presidential hopeful, Jose Serra, that they say trample on the universities' independence.

Nearly 300 students have been camped out in the dean's office at the University of Sao Paulo for almost a month, singing protest songs and holding political rallies. [Full article here]

Things are complicated, as the governor of Sao Paulo, Jose Serra, is also a prominent contender for next year's presidential election in the opposition Social Democracy Party. It remains to be seen whether he'll take a "tough law and order" stance regarding the protests, or if he, as a former student organizer against Brazil's military junta, will find common ground, a shred of solidarity with his political descendents. Interestingly, on May 24 the country saw a Federal University strike and protest further north in the coastal state of Alagoas, over decided structural reforms in which students did not have a say. Could we be seeing the beginning of another militantly assertive student movement, like last year's Chilean "Penguin Revolution"?

UPDATE: More details available here.