As the Philadelphia Inquirer reports, yesterday at Penn's Trustees' meeting to approve Amy Guttman as President, "a jolt of student moxie arched trustee spines": About 75 graduate students abruptly stood up during the meeting. Over the objections of trustee chair James Riepe, one belted out a harangue that dressed down the trustees for blocking the students' attempts to unionize... Once the meeting let out, a small welcoming band of students led Gutmann and the trustees across the Penn campus in University City. Students stood along the route and waved, blue and red Penn balloons danced in the teasingly warm air, and the graduate-student protesters tagged along in blue shirts that read, "Penn Works Because We Do." They competed with the band's sunny rendition of school songs by chanting "Count the votes!" ...During the trustee meeting, graduate student David Faris, chair of the unionizing group, stood and blasted the trustees for opposing the students. Riepe tried to silence him several times, saying: "This is not an open forum." Finally, Riepe relented. "You can end this today. Drop your appeal," Faris said. "If not, we'll do what we have to do, and we will see you in the streets." Not an open forum indeed... As Zach observes: Provost Robert Barchi claims that students are being "manipulated and coopted" by unions. Guess it says a lot about his faith in the people who he admits to his grad school and who teach his undergraduates that he doesn't think they know when they're being screwed over and when they're fighting for justice... Meanwhile, looks like one uber-capitalist (after whom the major library of Penn's uber-capitalist business school is named) believes that strong unions lead to strong work: Before the trustee meeting, Jon Huntsman, a philanthropist, chemical company magnate and Penn trustee, approached the row of seated graduate students, shaking every hand, smiling broadly, welcoming them. Later, student organizer Tina Collins said Huntsman told her that his company has thousands of union employees who helped make his company successful. Funny - Henry Ford said the same thing. How twentieth-century of him...