Lisa Rae Gutierrez was one of the students at San Francisco State who took part in the longest student strike in the nation’s history fifty years ago.

Shereen Marisol Meraji

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Shereen Marisol Meraji

Lisa Rae Gutierrez was one of the students at San Francisco State who took part in the longest student strike in the nation’s history fifty years ago.

Shereen Marisol Meraji

The largest public university system in the country, the Cal State system, just announced a new graduation requirement: students must take an ethnic studies or social justice course. But ethnic studies might not even exist if it weren’t for some students at a small commuter college in San Francisco. Fifty years ago, they went on strike — and while their bloody, bitter standoff has been largely forgotten, it forever changed higher education in the United States.