Student Activism

Med Students Want Truly Just Healthcare System

April 18, 2014 James Besante, www.commondreams.org Resist! Healthcare, Single-Payer, Student Activism, Youth

Cardinal Bernardin said, “Health care is an essential safeguard of human life and dignity, and there is an obligation for society to ensure that every person be able to realize this right.” But nearly two decades later, the realization of the “right to health care” remains elusive...The ACA doesn’t change this picture as much as some might think. People who signed up for private coverage in the exchanges are finding they have substantial cost-sharing, i.e. high deductibles and copayments, proven barriers to seeking care. Patients are also finding themselves squeezed into “narrow networks,” which significantly limit their choice of doctors and hospitals. Accidentally step out-of-network, and your costs soar. The sad truth is that for many health insurance is an umbrella that melts in the rain—when you need it most, it isn’t there. ... the business of corporate medicine is doing very well under the ACA. Health insurer profits, stock value, and CEO salaries are all up. In fact, the entire law was written around preserving the gluttonous bottom lines in American health care. The ACA handed private insurers $500 billion in taxpayer subsidies to continue profiteering off illness in our country.

Wash U Sit-In Against Peabody Coal

April 17, 2014 Jeff Biggers, www.huffingtonpost.com Resist! Peabody Coal, Student Activism

Entering its second week, the inspiring Washington University sit-in against Peabody Energy has already gone beyond its goals to cut school ties with the St. Louis-based coal giant, and forced the rest of the nation to ask themselves an urgent question in an age of climate change and reckless strip mining ruin: Which side are you on? Will other schools, alumni groups -- and investors in Peabody Energy -- follow the lead of the Washington U. students? Case in point: Tonight in my native Saline County in southern Illinois, the county commissioners genuflected to short-term Peabody coal dollars over the "negative impact on about a dozen homeowners who live near the site of the proposed mine," according to one cynical commissioner, and voted to allow the company to close off Rocky Branch road for a proposed strip mine expansion, despite the lack of EPA permits, and documented evidence of flooding, blasting and emergency access problems. Facing financial ruin, grave heath problems and displacement, the Rocky Branch residents will fight on, thanks to the Wash U. students, and continue to tell the truth: We all live in the coalfields now, in this age of climate change, and it is no longer acceptable to allow anyone to be collateral damage to a disastrous energy policy.

Organizing Lessons From the UCSC Strike

April 15, 2014 Joshua Brahinsky, www.viewpointmag.com Organize! Education, Organizing, Student Activism

“I appreciate the calm and professional manner in which UC police handled this morning’s challenge,” wrote Executive Vice Chancellor Alison Galloway in an official email about our April 2-3 strike at the University of California. This was just after one of us was dragged to the ground and forcibly arrested after publicly announcing an intention to legally picket, and complying with police demands to turn around. The “challenge” for the administration, it seems, represented an opportunity for the labor movement – our strike has been widely covered in the labor media. This confirms for those of us involved in UAW 2865 – the student-workers union which represents 13,000 teaching assistants, readers, and tutors across the UC system – that we aren’t just a student movement crossing over into labor politics. We are a vital and central part of the labor movement today, a movement looking for creative strategies. Along the same lines, we represent an institutional legacy of graduate student unionization, which is a crucial weapon for academic workers who face increasingly precarious conditions.

A Generation’s Call: Student Fossil Fuel Divestment Movement

April 10, 2014 Kate Aronoff and Chloe Maxmin, www.dissentmagazine.org Organize! Climate Change, Student Activism

Last weekend, some 300 students from dozens of universities across the United States and Canada gathered at San Francisco State University for the 2014 Fossil Fuel Divestment Convergence. Convened by the Fossil Fuel Divestment Student Network (DSN)—which was formed just over a year ago as a platform for building solidarity across campuses—the Convergence brought together a wide spectrum of activists: students were joined not only by veteran climate activists and direct action trainers, among them several frontline anti-coal and anti-fracking activists, but also by community and labor organizers including a Colombian union leader. With its distinct emphasis on racial and economic justice, the convergence is testament to a new kind of momentum in the climate movement, and to the radicalizing pull of the call to divest. The program notes foreground the goals of “collective liberation” and economic transformation.

Victory: Harvard Moves Toward Fossil Fuel Divestment

April 9, 2014 Jamie Henn, www.campaigns.gofossilfree.org Resist! Energy, Environment, Student Activism

After months of resisting student and alumni demands for fossil fuel divestment, Harvard University announced yesterday that they would be taking a number of new steps to address climate change and their investment portfolio. “A year ago Harvard was no way no how. But science is pushing everyone in the direction of action; students should be proud they've breached the dam of resistance,” said Bill McKibben, a Harvard graduate and founder of 350.org, which helps coordinate the fossil fuel divestment movement. In a letter to the Harvard Community on Monday, President Drew Faust wrote, “In addition to our academic work and our greenhouse gas reduction efforts, Harvard has a role to play as a long-term investor.”

Graduate Students Arrested For Striking

April 8, 2014 Rebecca Burns, www.inthesetimes.com Resist! Labor, Student Activism, Worker Rights and Jobs

A system-wide strike by graduate assistants at the University of California commenced yesterday with what their union calls an ugly irony. The work stoppage, staged in protest of past alleged attempts by UC to intimidate graduate workers for labor organizing, was quickly met with what workers say was a further attempt at intimidation: The arrest of 20 students at UC Santa Cruz who were picketing early Wednesday morning. As Working In These Times has reported previously, graduate assistants are one of several groups of workers who have been locked in intensifying labor battles with the UC system, which has been hit hard by nearly $1 billion in budget cuts during the past five years. In November, graduate student workers struck in solidarity with campus service workers, a rare labor action that is prohibited by most union contracts and that was enabled only by the expiration of the UAW’s contract earlier that month.

Students For A Just And Stable Future Walkout

April 6, 2014 Staff, www.creativeresistance.org Resist! Climate Change, Student Activism, Student protest

From CreativeResistance.org: Hundreds of students walked out of class on March 31, 2014, and marched on the Massachusetts state capitol demanding an end to fossil fuel investments and reinvesting in sustainable energy. Massachusetts Gov. Patrick Deval has agreed to meet with the students to discuss their demands. The walkout, organized by Students for a Just and Stable Future, featured speeches from Newton North High School junior Kerry Brock, Wellesley College sophomore Ashley K Funk, and climate activist Tim DeChristopher. Students for a Just and Stable Future (SJSF) is a New England-based student network fighting against climate disruption and political inaction and for a livable planet and a just society for our generation and the generations to come.

Right Wingers In Venezuela Threatening Universities Causing ‘Silent Strike’

April 5, 2014 Tamara Pearson, www.venezuelanalysis.com Educate! Student Activism, Venezuela

University authorities in the Central University of Venezuela (UCV) and other key autonomous universities are “creating the conditions” for a “silent” or forced strike, according to Jennifer Mujica, a UCV student representative. Mujica told VTV that the UCV council had suspended classes since opposition groups began destabilising actions in mid February. The almost two months so far of lost classes are in addition to around five months lost between May and September last year when the opposition aligned university union, FAPUV called a strike, affecting around 15% of the total higher education population. Mujica said that the university rector, Cecilia Garcia Arocha had finished her elected term in 2012, and “she shouldn’t be in the UCV”. Garcia is known to support the far right of the opposition. Last year legislator Pedro Carreno accused her and other UCV authorities of converting the university’s baseball stadium, soccer stadium, and its assembly hall into areas “basically managed by private companies or organisations not connected to the university”.

Thousands Of Quebec Students Protest Austerity Measures

April 4, 2014 Amanda Kelly, www.globalnews.ca Resist! Austerity, Quebec, Student Activism

Less than six minutes after it was scheduled to begin, the rally organized by one of Quebec’s more militant students’ federation, ASSE, was declared illegal by Montreal police. By 2 p.m., several thousand protesters had already gathered at the starting point for the march at Place Emilie Gamelin in downtown Montreal. The assembled crowd, wearing red squares and carrying placards, contained a mix of students, masked protesters and families. Riot police surrounded the square and declared the rally illegal because protest organizers did not provide a march route, as required by the controversial Montreal municipal bylaw P6. After an hour wait, the protesters set off, heading north up Berri Street and then west along Sherbrooke Avenue. After snaking its way through the downtown core, the march, which extended several city blocks, ended at Victoria Square, in front of Quebecor headquarters. The protest was declared over by student federation ASSE at approximately 4:20 p.m., although several hundred protesters continued the march.

Two Jailed In Illinois To Stop Logging, Strip Mine Expansion

April 3, 2014 James Anderson, www.truth-out.org Resist! Environment, Peabody Coal, Protestors Arrested, Student Activism

Police arrested two activists at a blockade set up on Rocky Branch Road in Harrisburg, Illinois, early on March 28, 2014, to stop Peabody Energy from continuing logging operations as part of the company's strip mine expansion. Daniel Goering, 20, and Alice Fine, 19, laid down a tarp on the road to block the route to be used for logging that day. Along with other environmental activists and with the support of community residents directly impacted by Peabody's operations, the two tried to forestall and possibly prevent further strip mining and the proposed closure of Rocky Branch Road. Goering and Fine - a self-identifying "radical power couple" - are students at Oberlin College in Ohio who joined with other activists intent on stopping Peabody, the largest private-sector coal company in the world. It has been active in mining operations around Harrisburg since 1999.

Students Walk Out On Dick Cheney During Speech

April 2, 2014 Travis Gettys, www.rawstory.com Educate! Protest, Student Activism, Wars and Militarism

More than two dozen students walked out on former Vice President Dick Cheney last week during a speech at American University. Some of the students called Cheney a “war criminal” Thursday as they filed out of the auditorium. “Walk out on war criminals,” one student can be heard yelling on video recorded during the event. The former vice president denied to The Eagle student newspaper that the Bush administration in which he served had used torture, although he conceded that three individuals were subjected to waterboarding. “Some people called it torture,” Cheney said. “It wasn’t torture.” Human rights groups say the practice was much more widespread, however.

Austerity Is Crap: A Brief History of the ‘#USM Future’ Protest Movement

March 28, 2014 Dennis Trainor Jr, www.PopularResistance.org Resistance Report Acronym TV, Asher Platts, Austerity, Cuts in higher education, Democracy, Education, Finance and the Economy, Freedom of Speech and Assembly, Occupy, Poverty, Resistance Report, Solidarity, Student Activism, Student protest, The Punk Patriot, USM Future, USM Protest, Worker Rights and Jobs, Youth

For this round of cuts and consolidations, a solidarity between students and faculty had been well established, and grew and flourished under the recognition that we had shared goals in preserving the University of Maine System, not only for their jobs, or for our quality of education, but for the broader benefit of society that a liberal arts education provides, in allowing all working class people to lift themselves up into an intellectual realm that had until only recently in human history been reserved for priests and nobility. A vote of no confidence was issued forth from the Faculty Senate, and Selma Botman resigned, only to be replaced by President Theo Kalikow, who has continued forth advancing the austerity agenda on the University of Southern Maine. Selma Botman, while vacating the seat of the President, was allowed by administrators to continued to draw her salary for the duration of her term, and was in fact hired back as a consultant, and paid an additional $300,000 to write a paper, putting her annual earnings well into the realm of the top 1%. As though to thumb their noses at the student protestors, Administrators gave themselves a raise of $20,000 and upwards.

Students Tour To Kick Teach For America Off Campuses

March 27, 2014 Julianne Hing, www.colorlines.com Organize! Student Activism, TFA

United Students Against Sweatshops, a national college student organizing group, wants Teach for America off college campuses. In a “TFA Truth Tour” launched this week, student activists, Teach For America alumni and local teachers are visiting college campuses and speaking up about the politics of Teach for America, and education reform. The tour is slated to hit over a dozen college campuses over the next two weeks to target the undergrads who are the backbone of the Teach for America teaching corps. TFA focuses its recruitment operations on college campuses and often partners with local universities to offer provisional teaching licenses to fresh college graduates who are brought in for two-year teaching stints in poor communities, says Jan Van Tol, a national organizer with USAS.

Students To Walk Out Over Fossil Fuel Plans

March 27, 2014 Students for a Just and Stable Future, www.thenation.com Resist! Climate Change, Student Activism

Dear Governor Patrick, we write to you today as students and youth of Massachusetts concerned about our futures. On Monday, March 31, we will be walking out of class to call for a ban on new fossil fuel infrastructure in the Commonwealth. We request that you meet us that day at a public rally on the Boston Common at 11:00 am to answer our call. The energy infrastructure built today will affect our entire lives, and we insist that these decisions not be made without our involvement. We are driven to this action by the desperation we feel as we see the impacts of political inaction on the climate crisis.

«1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 »

assetto corsa mods

Daily movement news and resources