Members and supporters of the Olympia Coalition for a Fair Budget, which meets weekly at the Evergreen State College, held a mock funeral for public education yesterday as part of a nationwide day of action centered in California. Students and other community members marched a coffin up the steps of the capitol building, some somber and silent, others wailing and crying. The performance was halted at the doors to the capitol, where State Troopers informed students that they could not bring the large coffin, with the words “RIP Education” written across it, into the capitol building. The group abandoned their coffin, bags and signs at the door and quietly filed into the rotunda, then the Senate gallery.

Once in the gallery the group stood, clad in black funeral garb, as the Senate debated a bill proposing changes to a constitutional bail setting issue. They began humming and then singing a parody of “Amazing Grace,” with lyrics that conveyed the gloom of the dying public higher education system. Lieutenant Governor Brad Owens attempted to silent the group by rapping the gavel and calling on the Sergeant in Arms to remove them. However, the group was permitted to finish their song and filed out peacefully at the end. Following their performance, several members of the Senate applauded, some of them standing to do so.

Following the demonstration, the group convened outside the North entrance of the capitol building to applaud themselves and make plans to testify in the Senate Ways & Means hearing, to be held at 4:30 pm, on a proposed tax of high incomes. Some dozen students were present for the hearing, with around eight testifying in support of the bill. Because the public hearing was announced a mere three hours prior, the bulk of those testifying in support of the bill were those students and community members who had participated in the demonstration and were already on campus. Those opposing the bill included lobbyists for private interest, citizens concerned with already high taxes, and a representative from the Evergreen Freedom Foundation, who highlighted the inability of concerned parties to make it to Olympia to testify in the short amount of time provided.

Full video of the gallery performance

(beginning at 1:42:30)

and alumna & student testimony in Ways & Means

(beginning at 39:15)