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Latest News - Social Justice
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GA Wades into Immigration
After state-wide controversy over an undocumented Kennesaw State student paying in-state tuition, the Georgia Board of Regents has agreed to find a way to check the citizenship status of all students.
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Universities Cut Exchange Programs with Arizona
In what University officials argue could be the first of many such cancellations, two Mexican universities ended their exchange programs with the University of Arizona because of the states’ controversial new immigration law.
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Researchers React to AZ Law
While most of the country is focused on the impact of Arizona’s new immigration law to immigrant and minority communities, a research association is now also raising alarm bells about the impact the law could have on academic research.
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Prosecutors Probe Beating of UMD Student
Prosecutors have launched a criminal investigation into the beating of a University of Maryland student by three police officers last month after a video showed that the student was unarmed and was not menacing.
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Student Sued for Facebook Page
A towing company in Michigan sued a Western Michigan University student for $750,000, claiming that his Facebook group has cost the company that much money in business.
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Whitman Students Rally for Immigration Reform
Immigration reform supporters from Whitman University joined thousands of protestors rallying last Saturday in Seattle to put pressure on Congress to update and expand the nation's immigration laws.
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UW-Madison Ends Nike Contract
The University of Wisconsin-Madison gave up nearly $50,000 per year in revenue Friday by deciding not to renew its contract with Nike Inc. because of alleged human rights abuses overseas.
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Sit-Ins for Safe Sleepovers
Students gathered in dorms across the West Virginia University campus last week to protest the school's overnight visitation policy.
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Health Care Reform’s Impact on Students
Supporters of the healthcare bill signed into law by President Barack Obama on Mar. 23 argue it will aid students, campus health centers and medical schools in immediate and quantifiable ways.
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Students Lead War Protests in Hollywood
Streets in Hollywood, Calif. were filled with performers who limped like zombies, cradled busts of dead family members, and nursed wounded soldiers on March 20, as thousands protested the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
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Humanities on Chopping Block, UI Faculty Speak Out
A group of 138 University of Iowa faculty signatures were featured on a full-page ad in the student newspaper the Daily Iowan last Thursday, opposing a task force that is recommending cuts to arts and humanities courses.
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The New Feminism: HERstory Month on Campus
In honor of women's history month, the Women's Coordinating Council (WCC) at the University of Tennessee is hosting a number of events to celebrate women’s achievements and raise awareness about today’s gender-based inequalities, including pay disparity and domestic violence.
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Silent Race Rally at UC Berkeley
About 200 hundred students took part in a silent demonstration at UC Berkeley Monday afternoon to draw attention to racial inequalities on campus and in the UC system.
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Are Hate Incidents Now a Trend in the UC’s?
The March 2nd discovery of a KKK-style hood on a public statue at UC San Diego marks the sixth incident in a recent rash of events in the UCSD community many students are referring to as hate speech.
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Racial State of Emergency at UCSD
Hundreds of students of color at the University of California-San Diego declared a “racial state of emergency” following a fraternity party that flaunted racial stereotypes and a racially charged video on student television.
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WSU Students Challenge Coke Contract
The Progressive Student Union, a student organization at Washington State University, held a rally Jan. 20 to try and prevent WSU from renewing a contract with Coca-Cola.
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UNM Affirms DREAM for Immigrant Students
The Associated Students of the University of New Mexico (ASUNM) passed a resolution in favor of the DREAM Act with near-unanimous support, following a long chain of nation-wide student activism around the issue.
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Student Cooperation Gets Immigrant Peers out of Jail
Brothers Jesus and Guillermo Reyes were released from an immigration detention center Friday in Miami after the Students Working for Equal Rights (SWER) helped get the support of politicians, lawyers, and U.S. Senator Bill Nelson of Florida.
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USAS Boycott Wins Against Russell
After months of protests, the United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS) declared victory this Tuesday when Russell Athletic reopened a factory in Honduras and rehired 1200 workers who had attempted to unionize.
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UNT Votes on Same Sex Couples
The student body at University of North Texas will vote this week to decide whether same-sex couples can run for homecoming court.
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Students Prepare to Teach Immigrants Their Rights
Last week, a handful of University of Iowa students attended a “Know Your Rights” training session geared to help them educate immigrants about their constitutional rights and spread the message that no human should be considered illegal.
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Health Care Rally at UNM
As the U.S. Senate starts to consider health care reform, four graduate students from the University of New Mexico sought to educate their peers with a rally for the public option last week.
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Students Lobby for DREAM at UCLA
Students at University of California at Los Angeles lobbied Oct. 22 and 23 for the DREAM Act—legislation designed to provide financial aid for undocumented college students.
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New Law Helps Students Retain Health Insurance
On October 9th, a new federal law went into effect allowing college students with serious illnesses to take a one year leave of absence from college while still retaining health insurance coverage through their parents’ plan.
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Students Help Dining Services Workers Gain Contract
Following a rally October 1st and a week of organized pressure from workers and students, Brown Dining Services workers at Brown University ratified a new three-year contract with the University on October 15th.
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Students Take Back the Night
North Dakota State University (NDSU), Minnesota State University at Moorhead and Concordia College students marched from their campuses to the Fargo Civic Center September 28th to condemn sexual violence in an event with the Take Back the Night Foundation.
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Students Celebrate National Coming Out Day
As the National Equality March in Washington D.C. grabbed headlines this past week, students at campuses across the country also held events celebrating National Coming Out Day.
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UNM Students Hold ‘Indigenous Day’
This past Columbus Day, students at the University of New Mexico celebrated ‘Indigenous Day’ for the sixth time to confront the impact of colonialism and Western expansion on indigenous peoples.
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Ohio Students Spend the Night Homeless
Students of Wilmington College in Ohio raised more than $1,400 for the Clinton County Homeless Shelter on Oct. 2 at an event where they spent a night living in “Cardboard Village.”
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Students Protest Paving Project at VCU
Twenty students and community activists protested Virginia Commonwealth University’s plan to pave a parking lot they believe is a historical black burial ground.
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Students Question Hiring of New Law Professor
An LGBT student group at New York University, NYU OUTLaw, is questioning the University's decision to hire a visiting professor from Singapore to teach human rights law who has vocally opposed LGBT rights.
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Miami Students Push for Dream Act
On June 23, about 40 students and faculty at Miami-Dade Honors College held a protest to raise support for the Dream Act and oppose the deportation of 23-year-old college student Walter Lara.
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UNM Students Push for Fair Trade Food Options
University of New Mexico students with the Fair Trade Initiative are working to raise awareness of worker exploitation and to advocate for more Fair-Trade products to be served on campus.
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Taking back the night
This April, students across the country are coming together to draw attention to sexual violence by participating in Take Back the Night rallies. Take Back the Night brings students and community members together to break the silence around sexual assault, and reclaim cities and campuses as safe spaces for everyone.
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Students participate in National Day of Silence
Schools across the country are participating in the 12th-annual national Day of Silence. Participants take a vow of silence to call attention to the harassment brought against the LGBT community, and the silence that is forced from being in the closet.
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Students Pressure Universities to Drop Russell Athletic
Twenty-five universities have canceled their contracts with Russell Athletic after a November 2008 report by the Workers Rights Consortium (WRC) documented a two year effort by Russell to stop union organizing at two factories in Honduras. As the number of schools severing ties with Russell has grown over February and March, students on campuses across the country are stepping up efforts to add their university to the list, in a campaign coordinated by United Students Against Sweatshops, ‘Rein In Russell.’
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Students Celebrate Cesar Chavez Day
On March 31, students in California, Oregon, Texas and Colorado honored civil rights leader Cesar Chavez with marches and speeches and by advocating for public policies continuing Chavez’s legacy.
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Hampshire Divestment Causes Controversy
Hampshire College recently divested from a State Street Global Advisors mutual fund, drawing both praise and criticism from students, alumni, and other individuals who claim the decision was made because of pro-Palestinian political motives. Hampshire’s Board of Trustees made the decision to divest after a student-led group, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), petitioned for divestment and received over 800 signatures from students, staff and alumni.
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Scared Aware
A student group at Northern Michigan University plans to kidnap students from campus this week and campus police won't try to stop it. The Promoters for Nonviolent Peace Resolution (PNPR) will stage a series of kidnappings to spread awareness of human trafficking.
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NJ Senator Proposes Bill to Limit Credit-Card Companies on Campus
New Jersey State Senator Barbara Buono has proposed a bill requiring credit card companies to educate student card-holders and prohibiting on-campus promotional give-aways, the latest example of a growing effort to prevent students from falling into the credit trap.
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Anti-War Group Petitions Administration
150 students at the University of Vermont gathered to present a petition to the university’s Vice President for Finance and Administration, Richard Crate. The petition, which now has over 1,500 signatures, demands that the university begin withdrawing its investments from defense companies such as Halliburton, General Dynamics, and Lockheed Martin.
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Harvard Rally Against Poverty
Over one hundred students rallied at Harvard University on October 17 to join over 100 million people worldwide in a movement called “Stand Up & Take Action Against Poverty.”
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Noose Found on SA President’s Chair
Daniel Paul Watkins, president of the Students’ Association at Abilene Christian University in Texas, found a noose on his office desk chair last week in what students condemn as a “hateful” and “wrong” act of racism.
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Title IX Investigations
Federal agencies like the National Science Foundation, NASA, and the Department of Energy have quietly launched several Title IX compliance reviews in university science and engineering programs since 2006, leading some to question the impact the anti-gender discrimination law could have on departments that have traditionally been dominated by men.
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Burger King Agrees to Student, Tomato Picker Demands
In a sharp reversal, Burger King agreed last week to increase wages and improve working conditions for tomato pickers in Florida. The agreement is a victory for the Coalition for Immokalee Workers and Student/Farmworker Alliance who have been pressuring Burger King for the last year to adopt the agreement.
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Students Convince University to Employ Food Workers
After more than a year of student and worker demonstrations, UC Davis recently announced that food-services staff will soon become eligible for University of California employment, providing them with health insurance and retirement benefits.
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Students, Tomato Pickers Want it Their Way
Last week the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), a community-based organization that represents immigrant farm workers in Florida, and their student partners, the Student Farmworker Alliance (SFA), presented Burger King with a petition asking for a penny per pound pay raise for Florida tomato pickers.
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Arrests End Student Sit-ins on Three Campuses
This week, students staged sit-ins at Appalachian State University, The University of Montana and Penn State, all demanding their university sign on the Designated Supplier Program (DSP). The sit-ins all ended with arrests, the largest at Penn State where 31 students were arrested.
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Food Not Bombs Feeds Day Laborers
Students involved with Food Not Bombs at Rutgers University are reaching out to the local immigrant community by handing out free coffee, fruit, and muffins once a week to the day laborers who spend their mornings in a local park, waiting for work.
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Students Tackle Poverty through Fundraising
Over the past two weekends, students across the country volunteered their time and raised money to fight hunger and homelessness on the local, national and international level. Coordinated through the National Student Campaign Against Hunger and Homelessness, the event has so far raised 70,000 dollars, included over 2000 volunteers, and was held on 100 campuses.
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Students Talk Tibet
Students are showing their support for Tibet on campus in response to recent protests across the world in observance of Tibetan National Uprising Day.
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Gay Marriage Advocates Work Locally for State Campaign
Vassar student organization ACT OUT is teaming up with social justice organization Soulforce Q for The Right to Marry campaign, a campaign across the state of New York to change marriage laws to include gay and lesbian marriage rights.
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Students Challenge Red Cross
Over the past few years the American Red Cross has received flack on many college campuses and in some churches and communities for its policy of restricting gay men from donating blood. The Binghamton University Student Assembly is considering a resolution asking university officials to publicly acknowledge that the Red Cross’s guidelines violate the university’s non-discrimination policies.
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Obama Inspires Race Conversations on Campus
Responding to Senator Barack Obama's now famous speech on race in America, Tufts' Emerging Black Leaders (EBL) is looking to sponsor a series of follow-up discussions on race that they hope will unite students on campus.
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Students Fighting Poverty ONE Day at a Time
Three Susquehanna students are working to eliminate the problem of world poverty. Last fall the students became involved in the ONE campaign, a national advocacy organization, and since then they have been working to make people more aware of poverty around the world.
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Same-Sex Gym Hours
Harvard University made the decision on January 28th to honor the request of a group of six female Muslim students and institute all-female gym hours at one of the facilities on campus.
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Human Rights Week on Campus
In honor of Human Rights Week, which begins today, members of Amnesty have organized a week-long series of discussions, movie screenings, and other events to raise awareness on campus.
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Eve Project for Women’s Month
This week Pepperdine University is holding their second annual Eve Project week to celebrate Women’s History Month.
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Free the Slaves
University of Washington freshman Whitney Hahn recently organized a benefit concert called “A Red-Light to Slavery” to end human trafficking in the U.S.
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Superqueer to the Rescue!
It’s a bird….it’s a plane….it’s…Superqueer! Out of the brilliant mind of Bowling Green State University student Jennifer Dietsch comes the world’s first gender-neutral superhero: Superqueer, champion of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights.
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Tibetan National Uprising Day
Hundreds of protesters, many of them NYU students, gathered last Monday in Union Square for the 49th annual Tibetan National Uprising Day, a demonstration held each year to oppose China’s occupation of Tibet.
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The King and his Surfs
Student members of the Georgetown Solidarity Committee (GSC) recently protested at a Burger King in downtown DC, greeting BK customers with cheers and fliers as they stopped in for their lunch breaks.
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Shabbat for All
Tensions that might normally exist between Muslim and Jewish communities on campus have no place at Princeton University, where Jewish and Muslim student communities have forged a friendly and integrated relationship.
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Students Fight Silent Relationship Abuse
Students at the University of Georgia have created an organization to advocate violence prevention and give a voice to the thirty-two million Americans who are silent sufferers of sexual or relational abuse.
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Students Speak Out Against Homophobia
On February 4th and February 8th death threats were found scribbled on a gay student’s dorm room at Northern Arizona University--incidents that many feel bring to light the undercurrent of intolerance at the university and deficiencies in its protections for students (NAU is the only in-state university to not include the protection of gender identity and expression in its bylaws.)
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Students Lead the Way
In order to change Stanford University's intolerance policy, five Stanford students from the group Leading through Education, Activism and Diversity (LEAD) showcased a photography project of recent events characterized as acts of intolerance at the university.
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Queerally
UCLA’s Queer Alliance held a rally last week to speak out against hatred and homophobia in light of the recent deaths of several Southern California teenagers who were the victims of hate crimes.
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LGBT conference
This past weekend the University of Illinois hosted the 16th annual Midwest Bisexual Lesbian Gay Transgender Ally College Conference, attracting over 1,500 students from schools across the Midwest.
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Students Visit Sweatshops
UCLA's Student Activist Project brought students to sweatshops in downtown Los Angeles to see the conditions that exist in these students' backyards.
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African History Week
The month of February is winding down but students at the University of Washington are still actively celebrating Black History Month.
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Coke Kills….No, Not Cocaine
Students for Peace and Global Justice at the University of Vermont have joined “Killer Coke,” the national campaign against Coca Cola and are working to remove Coca Cola products from the university campus.
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Clinton Urges Students Toward Global Service
Bill Clinton took a break from the campaign trail this week to announce the launch of the Clinton Global Initiative University (CGIU), a new extension of his non-profit group that promotes commitment to finding solutions to global and local problems.
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Students Protest Discriminatory Policies
The Coalition for an Equitable Community (CFEC) at Florida State University, in collaboration with the Pride Student Union, held a demonstration to include protection for sexual orientation and gender identity in the university’s current nondiscrimination policy.
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LGBTQ Awareness Week
Arizona State University's Pride Alliance has been working with the school’s LGBTQ community since last semester planning an awareness week to raise consciousness and build support for the LGBTQ community.
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Speak Up! Tackles Hate Speech
This week, the Ethnic and Cultural Affairs Commission and the Gender and Sexuality Commission at UC Davis will introduce Speak Up! 2008, a campaign to fight hate speech and hate crimes.
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Red Hand Day Comes to Campus
The University of Miami’s chapter of Invisible Children, a club started by students last semester, is participating in Red Hand Day on Tuesday to raise global awareness of the struggle of child soldiers in The Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, and Uganda.
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Peace in the Middle East Month
Colleges and Universities across the country are holding events to promote peace, tolerance, and awareness of the Middle East and Islam.
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Colombian student association marches against terrorism
The Colombian Student Association at Florida State University held a march against the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), or FARC, which they term a terrorist guerrilla group in Colombia.
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Fair Trade Coffee on Campus
The Association of Social Entrepreneurs, a student group at Texas A&M University, held an educational seminar and dialogue on Fair Trade coffee.
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Students Protest Anti-Immigration Laws
Students and community members from the University of Utah demonstrated outside the Capitol Building on Tuesday in opposition to an anti-illegal immigration bills going through the Utah State Legislature –House Bill 241 which would repeal in-statue tuition for undocumented college students.
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Black History Month
This week marked the beginning of Black History Month, an annual celebration and commemoration of African American history.
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Jewish, Muslim and Arab Students Bridge the Gap
Student group leaders at the University of Pennsylvania have launched a collaborative initiative called Bridging the Gap, aimed at fostering friendships and mutual understanding between Jewish, Muslim, and Arab students.
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Kenyan Students Speak
The Daily Iowan at Iowa State University recently interviewed Kenyan students about their country’s recent presidential election and the consequent sprees of violence and ethnic killings that it has caused.
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Yale Students Perform for Kenya
Yale’s members of Ivy Council, a nonprofit group of student leaders from the Ivy League schools, organized “Crank Dat for Kenya”, a performance event to raise money for victims of the recent political violence in Kenya.
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Students Protest for Palestinians
Over 200 Arizona State University students and community members gathered in downtown Tempe, holding signs and lighting candles, to protest what they see as inhumane treatment of Palestinians by Israel.
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Students Remember MLK
In remembrance of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Students Organizing Against Racism led tours along Brandeis' freedom trail.
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AIDS CAMPAIGN ACTIVE ACROSS CAMPUSES
Student leaders from the nation’s top 100 schools active with the ONE campaign – an effort to combat global aids and extreme poverty - attended the ONE Campus Challenge Power 100 Summit in Washington D.C from January 2nd through 5th.
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Fighting sweatshop labor
Reacting to student concerns, the University of South Carolina joined the Workers’ Rights Consortium, a collection of 175 schools committed to using sweat-shop free school apparel.
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Emory students protest military training site
Two carloads of students from Emory joined thousands of protesters at the annual protest of the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation – formerly known as the School of Americas.
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Hunger strike fallout
In the wake of a ten-day hunger strike by Columbia students demanding changes to several academic programs and the proposed university expansion into a nearby neighborhood, the Columbia Spectator surveyed students to review student opinion on the striker’s tactic.
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Darfur Now
Fourteen campus groups sponsored an advance screening of the movie “Darfur Now” at UCLA. The movie features a recent UCLA alumnus who as a student helped pass a state law divesting state resources from companies doing business in Darfur.
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Students Come Out across country
Last week was national Coming Out Week, and students across the country used the opportunity to educate, celebrate, and advocate.
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Burma Protest
Organizers at Stanford held a protest on Friday to highlight political oppression in Burma. Besides educational speeches, students also collected petition signatures asking the Chinese government to step in and stop the crackdown.
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Diversity discussed after editorial carton
In the wake of an editorial cartoon comparing Greek rush to a slave auction and the ensuing protests, students at the University of Kentucky gathered to discuss proactive steps to promote diversity on campus.
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Students focus on Darfur
While students are getting familiar with the crisis in Myanmar, they continue to work to stop the genocide in Darfur.
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Students take action to support the Jena 6
The story of the Jena 6, which has been spreading across campuses through word of mouth, blogs and Facebook, burst into national prominence this week with a march in Jena and rallies on campus across the country.
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When global is local
For many students concerned about working conditions in other countries, the issue is far away. Not so in Arizona, where Mexican miners are on strike 25 miles south of the Arizona border.
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Students Struggle with Health Care
Almost half of Texans 18-24 lack health Insurance. Texas A&M’s “The Batt” explores how different students deal with the challenge of paying for college and affording health care.
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Congressman, students demand Darfur Divestment
At the University of Chicago, students involved with Students Taking Action Now: Darfur (STAND) and the Coalition for Immediate Divestment (CID)were joined by United State Representative Bobby Rush as they protested the University’s decision not to divest from companies that provide support to the Sudanese Government.
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Northeastern Students Rally for Darfur
On Sunday, April 29, Northeastern students joined people from around New England for a protest on the Boston Common, ending 'Global Days for Darfur', a week-long series of events held around the world.
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Birth Control Prices Strike Again
Williams College is the latest school to announce it will no longer carry birth control for students in its Health Center due to the 2005 Federal Deficit Reduction Act, which took effect in January of this year.
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Social Justice Homework?
A special feature in the Bi-College News of Bryn Mawr and Haverford Colleges considers social justice course requirements.
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Bringing the AIDS Epidemic Home
A videocast from the University of Washington shows a student group there hoping to bring home the severity of the AIDS epidemic by attempting to get five percent of the campus community into orange tee shirts bearing the word “orphan” on May 11 and May 15
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Students Lend a Hand to their Neighbors
An article from the University of Maryland considers the intersection of the College Park campus and the immigrant community that surrounds it, examining some of the challenges facing those in the immigrant community, and what students and those in the wider University community are doing about them.
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Everybody’s Doing It
Students at the University of California Santa Barbara have started a hunger strike against the UC’s involvement in nuclear research labs that would be responsible for producing replacement parts for the nuclear weapons stockpile, if Congress approves the Reliable Replacement Warhead Program.
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Sleeping Out to Raise Awareness
A student at Northwestern University is spending 35 nights sleeping outside at a campus landmark in order to raise awareness of homelessness, particularly encouraging a subset approach pointing to veterans, single women and their families, children, and individuals in need of drug or alcohol rehabilitation.
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Asians Consider Identity
At the University of Maryland, more than 100 people met to discuss the ways different generations of Asian Americans are dealing with the repercussions of the Virginia Tech tragedy and the end of the model-minority myth.
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Harvard to Meet with Hunger Strikers
As members of Harvard University’s Student Labor Action Movement entered their sixth day of hunger striking—and first hospitalization—Harvard’s administration agreed to meet with SLAM about living wages for the school’s security guards.
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Raising AIDS Awareness
University of Delaware students helped to raise AIDS awareness with an “I am a Ghost” event, drawing attention to the 2.8 million who die each year from AIDS.
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The Meaning of Marriage
University of Minnesota alumnus Tony Dungy will speak at the school's Annual Alumni Celebration, but some students say the coach’s actions against homosexuality and gay marriage are offensive and plan to protest the event. In separate but related news, Queer Pride Week at UC Santa Barbara culminated in "Queer Wedding."
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Hunger Strike for Workers' Rights
Eleven members of Harvard University’s Student Labor Action Movement kicked off a hunger strike last week, hoping for better working conditions for campus security guards.
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Small World, After All
The student group Students for a Free Tibet at the University of Wisconsin Madison invited a Tibetan Harvard student to speak on campus to raise awareness of the circumstances of the Tibetan people.
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For Women Graduates, the Gender Pay Gap Persists
The American Association of University Women Educational Foundation released a report, ‘Behind the Pay Gap,’ which discovered that within their first year of graduating women make 80% of what men earn—but after ten years of working, women make only 69% of what men earn.
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Coffee Break
Students at Vassar College handed out free coffee last week in return for signatures on a petition to get the school to switch from Starbucks coffee to Just Coffee, an organic coffee grower cooperative based in Salvador Urbina and Chiapas, Mexico.
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Students Push for Divestment
Die-Ins and rallies were held to raise awareness of the Darfur genocide and to promote divestment as a tool in efforts to halt the conflict.
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Displaced
Students at the University of Minnesota, the University of Texas Austin, and the University of Delaware participated in “Displace Me” events to raise awareness of the harsh conditions displaced peoples in Uganda face.
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Can One Student Change a Campus?
An article from Cornell examines how student activism changed the University from a zero percent Fair Trade campus to a majority Fair Trade campus, and how the coffee debate is still active. In other news, the University of New Mexico’s Fair Trade Initiative held a “Fair Trade Gala."
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Student Arrested in Protest
A University of Maryland graduate student and member of the student group Feminism Without Borders was arrested last week at a protest demanding that the University join the Designated Suppliers Program (DSP).
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“Students March Against Apple”
About 15 students at Columbia University marched across campus to present the Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Bill Campbell, with a petition to protest Apple Computers’s environmentally unsafe practices (which include poor recycling habits and the use of toxic chemicals).
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March Against Darfur Ties
More than 75 students marched to Northwestern University's President’s office in protest of University investments in businesses operating within Sudan. Students at the University of Delaware joined professors and local residents in a vigil for the victims of Darfur.
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Evangelicals For Social Change
A Daily Northwestern article examines how Evangelical Christian students are looking to promote social change on campus.
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Darfur Action
Students at the University of Chicago have stepped up their efforts to inject a measure of social responsibility into University investment policy.
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Students Displaced
Students at Susquehanna University and Purdue University participated in “Displace Me” events, which call attention to displacement camps in Uganda through overnight sleepouts in tents made of cardboard boxes.
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EWB Working on Water in Honduras
The chapter of Engineers Without Borders at the University of Southern California is working to bring clean running water to La Estanzuela, a village of 300 in Honduras, by building a better pumping and filtration system.
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Banding Together For Bananas
Several student groups at Columbia University have written a letter to the director of dining services urging him to discontinue use of Chiquita bananas, citing Chiquita's ties with Colombian paramilitary groups as the reason.
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Darfur Advocacy Continues
Big Red Relief, a student group at Cornell University, staged a concert last week in an effort to raise both money for, and awareness of, the ongoing genocide in Darfur. In other Darfur news, American University’s Eagle reports on a new Google Earth feature that may help Darfur activists’ cause.
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Refugee for a Night
Boston University students organized a mock refugee camp made to look like a refugee camp in Pakistani Kashmir. Students from Invisible Children United at the University of Georgia pitched cardboard tents in a 12-hour event designed to raise awareness of refugees in Uganda.
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Student to Help AIDS Orphans
Katie Whitney, a Kansas State sophomore, will be traveling to Africa this summer to help orphans with AIDS. For 50 days she will be offering assistance at schools and working with widows who need welfare assistance.
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Never Again
Never Again!, a student organization at Denver University, organized a Holocaust and Genocide Awareness Week that included speaker Lani Silver, a survivors panel with survivors of the Holocaust and the genocide in Darfur, and a candlelight vigil.
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Students Consider Palestinians’ Plight
At both student-sponsored actions and department-sponsored events, students showed their interest in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at a several schools.
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A Little Bit Louder, Now
Students pushing for their schools to join the Designated Supplies Program (DSP) were high-profile this week at the University of Southern California and Penn State University.
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Pride Marching
The Rainbow Alliance at the University of Pittsburgh held its sixth annual Drag Show last week, designed to raise awareness of Pride Week on campus, and to raise money for the Pittsburgh AIDS Task Force.
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Raising Awareness of Human Rights
Students at the University of South Carolina, the University of Connecticut, and the University of North Carolina Human Rights Week events.
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Students Send Help to Africa, Asia
Students from Tufts University, the University of Utah, and Iowa State University gave knowledge and assistance to the poor of Cambodia and Uganda.
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Engineers Without Borders
The Engineers Without Borders group at the University of Massachusetts traveled to a small village in Kenya to improve drinking water. The Engineers Without Borders group at Colorado State University is hosting the second annual Globe-Trot 5K to benefit the group and their projects.
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Student Activists Arrested
Twelve student activists from the University of Michigan were arrested last week after refusing to leave the University President's office.
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Campus Groups Fight New Incidents of Racism
Two new racially themed fraternity parties caused Cornell University students to hold a rally protesting such actions. Several campus groups at Princeton University have teamed up to decry the recent anti-Semitic picture drawn on a chalkboard in a campus study room.
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Darfur Activism Continues
Students worked to raise awareness about the crisis in Darfur at the University of Minnesota, Boston University, and Rutgers University.
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Different Kinds Of Black
Inequality and the effects of stereotyping on the African Diaspora was once a topic of debate among African-American leaders—and apparently it still is.
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Students Hold Holocaust/Darfur Vigil
Students at the University of Arizona held a vigil to commemorate the lives lost in the Holocaust and linked the event to the current genocide in the Darfur region of the Sudan.
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Students Push for Living Wage
The Miami University group Students for Staff (SFS) has decided to make their campaign more public in an attempt to build campus awareness about their living wage campaign.
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A Matter of Tactic
About 25 members of the Student Coalition Against Labor Exploitation (SCALE) at the University of Southern California attempted to storm the University President's office to protest the use of sweatshop labor in University apparel.
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Providing Medical Care in the Developing World
Students and professors from George Washington University traveled to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to assess the community’s medical needs. Three years after graduating from Dartmouth College, Milton Ochieng and his brother Fred are opening up a clinic in their native town of Lwala, Kenya.
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Race (and Religion) Matters
Students worked to tackle discrimination this week at the University of Pennsylvania, the University of South Carolina, and Boston University.
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Racial Profiling?
The United Minorities Council at the University of Pennsylvania alleges racial profiling was involved in the detention of a black male student last week.
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Out of the Closet
From gay fraternities to conferences and panels for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersex students, gay student action was "out" in the news this week.
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Giving Back to Africa
The African Student Association at Indiana University, along with other groups, organized a dinner to benefit Giving Back Africa. The Magellan Society at Baylor University, a student group focused on world issues, held a fundraiser to benefit people in northern Ghana.
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Tulane Works to Save Darfur
Amnesty International volunteers at Tulane are drawing attention to the crisis in Darfur as part of their National Student Week of Action.
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Students Create Street Theater for Corrie Anniversary
Students with Boston College’s Global Justice Project held a protest at the Israeli Consulate in commemoration of the 2003 death of Rachel Corrie, an American college activist who was crushed to death by an Israeli bulldozer as she attempted to prevent the destruction of Palestinian homes in the Gaza Strip.
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Exploring an Alternative World
Students from the University of Delaware traveled to Nairobi, Kenya for the World Social Forum (WSF) this past January.
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Darfur Genocide Doesn’t Go Unnoticed by Students
The University of Delaware’s paper The Review profiles its latest registered student organization (RSO), a chapter of STAND (Students Taking Action Now: Darfur). Cornell University students have been actively decrying the genocide as well.
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Raising Awareness of Ugandan Children
Students at Brigham Young University are working hard to raise awareness of the children soldiers fighting in Uganda, subject of the documentary Invisible Children.
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Students Work to Save Darfur
The University of Chicago, Harvard University, and the University of California Los Angeles have Darfur-related activities in the news.
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Faces of AIDS
A University of Oregon student presented a series of photos taken during a summer spent interning and volunteering at an Ethiopian orphanage. The photos deal with the HIV/AIDS epidemic that has devastated much of Africa.
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Students Hold Holocaust Litany
University of Colorado students in Boulder commemorated the Holocaust with a 24-hour event, sponsored by The Holocaust Awareness Week Committee, in which the names of the millions of Jews who perished in Nazi concentration camps were read.
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Student Group to Promote Socially-Responsible Investing
Middlebury College’s student-led Advisory Committee on Socially Responsible Investment (ACSRI) announced that it will increase efforts to promote socially responsible investment, following Middlebury’s mark of “C” from the Sustainable Endowments Institute.
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In or Out?
A number of campus articles addressed gay rights last week.
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Students Reflect on Darfur Crisis
The first part of a series of articles in the Cornell Daily Sun explores the situation in Darfur and the role that Cornell University students are playing in hopes of ending the crisis.
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Students Fight Global AIDS
Boston University student groups, including the American Medical Students Association and the Rotaract Club, joined forces with the School of Medicine and School of Public Health to combat global AIDS.
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UC Schools Celebrate Women
“Victory over Violence” day at the University of California Santa Barbara spread awareness with a day of festivities, baked goods, and performances. The 2007 UCLA Lunafest film festival will focus on issues important to women, including breast cancer and body image.
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SweatFree Smith
Talk of the Designated Suppliers Program (DSP) comes from Smith this week, where students with SweatFree Smith sponsored two women from Nueva Vida Women's Sewing Cooperative in Nicaragua, and a speaker from the Center for Labor Studies and Support and Just Garments in El Salvador, to present on Latin American labor issues.
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Students Aid African Orphans
When Jenne Blackburn’s friend showed her pictures from a trip to a Kenyan orphanage, Blackburn was inspired to do something for children of Africa. With help from her mother, Blackburn stared the nonprofit Omega Kids.
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Students Promote Knowledge of Oaxacan Conflict
The Associated Students, International House, and Migrants’ Rights Awareness at the University of California San Diego held an educational event to raise awareness of ongoing tensions in the Mexican state of Oaxaca.
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Students Hope to Foster Campaign Support
The Killer Coke Campaign attempts to force Coke to be more responsible for worker justice and environmental concerns by banning Coke products from campuses. At Vassar College, the Vassar Greens have sponsored a visit by justice activist Ray Rogers in order to build popular campaign momentum.
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Bearing Witness
Students at the University of Pennsylvania organized Witness Week, a week of speakers, film screenings, and rallies focused on human rights.
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Sweatfree On Parade
The Sweatfree Coalition—an amalgam of groups that includes Students Organizing for Labor and Economic Equality and the University chapters of Amnesty International and the American Civil Liberties Union—marched across the University of Michigan's campus last week to protest the University's use of sweatshop labor in its University apparel.
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Fair Trade for All
Read more about fair trade bananas at Dartmouth, or more on the Fair Trade International Convergence from BU.
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Deaf Culture in Wisconsin
Students at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh have formed Deaf Culture Diversity to educate students about deaf culture, as well as to promote diversity on campus.
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FEMA Asks Students For Katrina Aid Back
Students who lived in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina are being asked to give back the money the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) gave them.
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Dueling Darfur Petitions
A Darfur divestment movement has been active at MIT since last fall, when student Kayvan Zainabadi G started circulating a petition. But a counter-petition is now circulating, and the Advisory Committee on Shareholder Responsibility (ACSR) won’t consider Darfur divestment until at least early March
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STAND and Deliver
Less than a week after the University of Chicago’s Board of Trustees announced that they would not divest from companies supporting the current regime in Darfur, the U Chicago chapter of STAND held a protest.
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The Return of Trade Justice
American University has a new student group that is focused on the inequities that result from current systems of global trade.
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Students Use Film to Help Ugandan Children
Susquehanna sophomore Kirsten Sands has single-handedly arranged for the documentary Invisible Children: Rough Cut to come to her campus. The film is about Ugandan “Night Walkers,” children who walk several miles a night in order to avoid being kidnapped and forced into military service.
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Blackface Debate Continues
Schools across the country are still contemplating the wave of race-themed parties that caused anger, sadness, and controversy at campuses nationwide.
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No Dirty Class Ring
Here’s something you might not think about every day: how environmentally and socially responsible is the company that mined the metal for your class ring?
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Modern Abolitionists
Students at the University of Minnesota have formed Students Against Human Trafficking to try to put an end to modern slavery.
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AIDS Work Continues
At Marquette, students have formed the first student chapter of Peace House Foundation, an organization that provides schooling for AIDS orphans in Tanzania. At Stanford, a 24-hour dance will raise money for Partners in Health.
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Hunger Strike for North Koreans
Binghamton University’s chapter of Liberty in North Korea (LiNK) has begun a hunger strike to raise awareness of the plight of North Koreans refugees.
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STAND Down
In a blow to the highly visible work of the University of Chicago’s chapter of STAND (Students Taking Action Now: Darfur), the administration of the University of Chicago has announced it will not divest from companies whose business supports the ruling regime in Darfur.
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Student Group Organizes Conference
The Berkeley chapter of STAND: A Student Anti-Genocide Coalition organized a conference on genocide, focusing on the genocide in Darfur.
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Race on Campus Today
Several articles this week explore fascets of the recent explosion of racist incidents on campuses nationwide.
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Marquette Explores Going Sweat-less
Students at Marquette have met with a member of their administration to discuss the possibility of the University joining the Designated Suppliers Program, in an effort to ensure that Marquette University clothing was not made under sweatshop conditions.
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Arrested Student Will Seek Damages
A Howard University student was arrested last week is planning to sue the Hyattsville City Police Department due to the officers' alleged use of unnecessary force.
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Carbonated Controversy
UVM's Students for Peace and Global Justice (SFPGJ) have taken up Killer Coke’s baton in the collegiate race to make Coke a socially responsible corporation.
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Darfur 101
If you feel like you need the quick and dirty—but relatively complete—lesson on the genocide in Darfur (or just a refresher course), then this is the videocast for you!
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Students Remember Slain Journalist
If you were to think the assassination of a journalist half a world away wouldn’t matter to students in the United States, you’d be wrong—as this article from the University of Texas shows.
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Considering the War
This weekend in D.C., tens of thousands of people protested against the War in Iraq. Students on campuses across the country also considered the war and what it means to them.
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Anti-War CAMEO
The University of Texas at Austin’s chapter of CAMEO (Campus Anti-War Movement to End the Occupation) is gearing up for Saturday’s nationwide anti-war march.
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Students Weigh in on Roe v. Wade
Twenty-four years after the decision, Roe v. Wade remains one of the most divisive Supreme Court Cases in American history - on campus as well as off.
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Muslim Student Groups Gather to Support Man Accused of Supporting Terrorism
By Sam Dolgin-GardnerChicago-area Muslim Student Associations (MSAs) have been attending the trial of Mohammed Salah, a resident of Bridgeview, Illinois whom the US Government is accusing of fundraising for Hamas. MSAs from the University of Chicago, DePaul, Northwestern, and University of Illinois-Chicago are attending the trail to provide moral support for Salah and his family and draw attention to what they believe is a deeply flawed government case. Students point to the fact that the prosecution relies heavily on evidence gathered in Israeli prisons—using methods that would be unacceptable in the American justice system—as one major flaw of the trial. Another criticism of the case surrounds the admission of closed testimony by code-named Israeli agents. Finally, students feel the prosecution’s case conflates the trial with the wider Israeli-Palestinian conflict, rather than dealing with the individual merits and evidence of this particular case.“The government is not trying to separate this trial from issues of Israel-Palestine as a whole,” said Afshan Mohiuddin, a 3rd-year undergraduate who is coordinating trial attendance from the University of Chicago. “The defense lawyers have to start from to ground up, and they have to tackle the assumptions that the American general population has—which is what the jury would have—about terrorism and about Hamas: that Hamas necessarily equates to a terrorist organization.” Salah, a U.S. citizen of Palestinian origin who was born in Jordan, ran the Quranic Literacy Institute, an organization that raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for causes in the Occupied Territories. On a 1993 trip to distribute money there, Israeli authorities apprehended Salah and accused him of giving that money to Hamas, a Palestinian group that has called for Israel’s destruction. Although Salah claims he gave money only to humanitarian causes, the Israelis jailed him for five years before returning him to the United States, where he was considered a “Specially Designated Terrorist” by the US Treasury Department. Although Hamas—currently the democratically elected leadership of the Palestinian people—was not considered at terrorist organization by the United States in at the point Salah was arrested in Israel, it is considered such today. Many believe that if the US Government prevails in this case, they’ll use this case as a precedent for further prosecutions of American supporters of Hamas and other designated terrorist organizations. This worries many American Muslims who wish to send money to their homelands, but are concerned that the U.S. may label legitimate charities as terrorist organizations. Compounding this worry is the prevalence of organizations in the Muslim world that have both militant and charitable arms, such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Muslim Brotherhood. A well-meaning American Muslim who gives money to charities with innocuous names might find himself prosecuted for supporting terrorism, his assets frozen and his job taken away.While the reasons for Muslim students to attend the Salah trial are obvious, Mohiuddin wants encourage non-Muslim students to attend as well, citing Muslims’ deteriorating civil liberties a reason for all citizens to be concerned. “The defense lawyer came and spoke to us,” Mohiuddin explained, “and he said that twenty years down the line, everyone’s going to look at this trial and be ashamed, just like we’re now ashamed of the internment camps. That really struck me, because once a group loses civil liberties, it affects everyone.”
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Human Rights Week
The University of Dayton is gearing up for Human Rights Week, which runs from January 28th to February 3rd.
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Students Remember the Reverend
At Boston College, several on- and off-campus groups—including Campus Ministry, Black Campus Ministry, the Black Student Forum, College Democrats of America, Episcopal Campus Ministry, the Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship, the NAACP, and United In Christ—celebrated the life and legacy of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. While commemorative events happened all over the country, we especially love how uniquely student-heavy this event seems to have been.
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Every Action Has an Equal and Opposite…
We think it’s probably accurate to say that the civil rights group By Any Means Necessary (BAMN) is as far to one side of the political spectrum as the conservative group Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) is to the other.
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Brigham Young Joins AIDS Awareness Efforts
A group of students at Brigham Young have formed a non-profit organization called Students for Africa; the group has organized a joint seminar and service fair known as the World AIDS Day Symposium.
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Human Rights Awareness
Penn State students held an event to raise awareness about ongoing humanitarian crisis worldwide.
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What’s Under Your Napkin?
Members of Columbia’s student groups (including Students Promoting Empowerment and Knowledge, United Students of Color Council, and Students for Environmental and Economic Justice) joined members of the labor union UNITE to protest Columbia University’s contract with a non-union cleaners.
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Hunger Strike Fruitless
The hard lesson from Purdue this week? If ever you start an on-campus hunger strike, do so as far before a major holiday as possible.
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Northwest Students Organize on AIDS
Willamette University’s Student Global AIDS Campaign organized its first Northwest AIDS Conference on World AIDS Day (which was December 1st).
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Kick Coke Some More
We recently brought you news of Swarthmore College’s decision to kick Coke off campus. In this article, the student paper of Drexel (Swat’s Philadelphian neighbor) provides more background on the campaign, Coke’s responses, reasons for skepticism about the independence of the organizations that Coke says absolve them, and a list of some other schools that have booted Coke from their campuses.
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Make It Official
Marquette University’s Darfur Action Coalition voted Wednesday night to pursue official student group status.
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African Awareness, AIDS Awareness
St. Joseph’s University has a new African Awareness group called Harambee, which, apparently, refers to a Kenyan tradition of community self-help as well as meaning “pulling together” in Swahili (and does anyone remember how we learned stuff before Wikipedia?).
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World AIDS Day, Redux
Smith’s chapter of the Student Global AIDS Campaign, along with volunteers from Voices for Planned Parenthood on Campus (VOX) and Population Connection, held a series of AIDS awareness events that included a die-in (students lay in front of the campus center with their mouths taped and paper headstones in their laps).
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The Mexican Connection
A group of students from UC Santa Barbara have been working to raise awareness of the political situation in the Mexican state of Oaxaca.
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Take Back the Night
The 100 students and community members who participated in a Take Back the Night march in the Mission Beach area of San Diego last week were met with cheers and encouragement from neighborhood residents.
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York Who?
If you don’t know who Louis and Clark are, I advise you to wikipedia fast and secretly. But raise your hand if you’re familiar with York, the Louis and Clark expedition’s most successful ambassador to Native American peoples—and William Clark’s slave.
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Impact 1
Despite the well-documented failure of many Christian denominations in the early days of the AIDS epidemic, Christian students at the University of San Diego are at the head of an educational multimedia exhibit detailing the impact of AIDS in Africa.
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And Now They Wait
Purdue’s student body is awaiting word from its President after his meeting with the University’s hunger-striking students.
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This Is Not a Dave Chapelle Joke
Macalester students are working with faculty and staff to end racial descriptions of criminal suspects in campus-related incidents.
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No to Anthropological Torture
What would you do if you learned people in your academic discipline were using their research to further human rights abuses in other parts of the world?
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AIDS Activism Continues
At Baylor, the Student Global AIDS Campaign’s World AIDS Day event featured pictures of 1,000 children infected with HIV/AIDS in Africa; the children were up for sponsorship, and each child who was sponsored had his or her picture removed.
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STAND and Protect
Students at Swat Sudan (Swarthmore’s Darfur action group) are expecting to host 150 students for an anti-genocide conference this weekend.
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Coke Gets the Boot
Swarthmore students are kicking Coke to the curb as part of a campaign to hold the Coca-Cola Company accountable for widely alleged environmental and human rights abuses.
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AIDS Awareness Week & World AIDS Day
College campuses across the country commemorated the victims of the AIDS epidemic this week through marches, vigils, art shows, performances, and editorials.
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Remember Transgender
Kansas State students were among those celebrating the 8th annual Transgender Remembrance Day this week.
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Thanksgiving’s Foot Soldiers
Donelle Sauer, a junior at Baylor, spent her Thanksgiving in India washing the feet of Untouchables, the unfortunate victims of India’s rigid class structure.
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Starving for Worker Justice
After a year of urging their administration to join the Workers Rights Consortium (an organization that campuses can join to ensure that their school apparel comes from factories monitored for human rights abuses) members of the Purdue Organization for Labor Equality (P.O.L.E) have started a hunger strike.
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Solidarity with Oaxaca
Hoping to raise awareness about the ongoing conflict in the Mexican state of Oaxaca, Vassar College’s MEChA (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano/a de Aztlán) held a day of solidarity that included a march and discussion.
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Sweat-Free Fashion
Are your sweats sweat-free? If you aren’t sure, Lehigh’s Progressive Student Alliance would love for you to consider some alternatives.
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Getting to Know the Hermit Nation
While many Americans think of Kim Jong-Il as equal parts nuclear threat and fashion victim, students at Carnegie Mellon are raising awareness of the terrible living conditions and human rights abuses widely alleged to exist under his Glorious Leadership.
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School of the Americas Protest
Every year, tens of thousands of people converge on Ft. Benning, Georgia to protest the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), formerly the School of the Americas (SOA).
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Taser Controversy Continues
If you don’t already know about the student who was “Tased” by a UCPD officer in the UCLA library last week, take a nice deep breath before crawling out from under that rock.
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Death in Kenya
Thanks to this feature published in St. Joseph’s University’s newspaper The Hawk, you can read a first-hand account of AIDS in Kenya from the comfort of, well, wherever you happen to be.
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