A Campaign Doorknocking How-To
Student Activism
by Angus Johnston
3y ago
I’ve let the blog go pretty much dormant, but I’ve been thinking I should at least start archiving my big Twitter threads here for future use. So here’s today’s. Three weeks to election day. Let’s talk about volunteering. Giving money is good and important, but the closer we get to election day, the less useful donating is, for a whole bunch of reasons. What campaigns need most in these final days is your time. There’s lots of stuff you can do remotely if you’re not near a swing district—writing postcards, phonebanking, texting—and that stuff all helps. But if you can get out and knock on doo ..read more
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Free Fight Fascism Stickers
Student Activism
by Angus Johnston
3y ago
2019 Update | After a bit of a hiatus, the project is up and running again. If you have a pending sticker request from back in the day, please fill out the form at the new link below, and I’ll be sure send them out to you. •          •          • Okay, so I bought some stickers. Specifically, I had some stickers made. More specifically, I had more than  two   five   eleven   seventeen   twenty  twenty-eight thousand stickers  made. Want some? Each of the stickers is one inch tall ..read more
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Here’s What You Can Do to Beat Trump.
Student Activism
by Angus Johnston
3y ago
Okay, so I’m going to say some stuff at the start of this post that’s going to be a bit of a drag, but I want you to stick with me. It’ll be worth it, I promise, and there’s no way around what I have to say at the top without going through it. So I’m just going to jump in, and I’ll meet you on the other side. Here we go… America’s current crisis isn’t one crisis, it’s a hundred. We’ve got a crisis in access to medical care, and it’s about to get worse. We’re in a deep crisis in mental health care, and again, it’s about to get worse. Ditto access to reproductive healthcare. Two of the last five ..read more
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Some Thoughts for Civil Libertarians on Fighting the Far-Right on Campus
Student Activism
by Angus Johnston
3y ago
In recent weeks two public figures with far-right views—Breitbart provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos and white supremacist Richard Spencer—have made headlines with high-profile visits to American campuses, while their opponents on the left have made headlines by trying to derail those appearances. With both Yiannopoulos and Spencer planning more campus talks, and with campus organizing on the rise in the wake of Trump’s victory, such protests, and the free-speech debates that accompany them, are going to gain much more attention in the coming months. As a civil liberta ..read more
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Prayer for a New Mother
Student Activism
by Angus Johnston
3y ago
The things she knew, let her forget again— The voices in the sky, the fear, the cold, The gaping shepherds, and the queer old men Piling their clumsy gifts of foreign gold. Let her have laughter with her little one; Teach her the needless, tuneless songs to sing; Grant her her right to whisper to her son The foolish names one dare not call a king. Keep from her dreams the rumble of a crowd, The smell of rough-cut wood, the trail of red, The thick and chilly whiteness of the shroud That wraps the strange new body of the dead. Ah, let her go, kind Lord, where mothers go And boast his pretty word ..read more
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The Death of ITT Tech: What Happened?
Student Activism
by Angus Johnston
3y ago
Less than two weeks after it was slammed with stiff new sanctions by the Department of Education, and just days before its fall semester was scheduled to start, giant for-profit college chain ITT Tech has closed its doors. ITT announced the shutdown in a blistering statement, released early this morning, in which it called last month’s sanctions “unwarranted . . . inappropriate and unconstitutional.” The statement described “the damage done to our students and employees, as well as to our shareholders and the American taxpayers” as “irrevocable.” The Department’s actions, howeve ..read more
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Mandatory Trigger Warnings at Drexel? Maybe Not.
Student Activism
by Angus Johnston
3y ago
A point I’ve often made in response to sky-is-falling critics of classroom trigger warnings is that there’s no substantial movement afoot to make them mandatory. Where trigger warnings have been adopted, it’s been voluntarily by professors. Indeed, even activists who’ve pushed for their use haven’t typically attempted to have them made a requirement. Last year’s notorious Columbia University op-ed on the subject merely “proposed that [the university’s Center for the Core Curriculum] issue a letter to faculty about potential trigger warnings and suggestions for how to support tri ..read more
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A Civil Libertarian Rebuttal to the University of Chicago’s Dean of Students
Student Activism
by Angus Johnston
3y ago
By now, most people who read this blog have seen the letter that the Dean of Students of the University of Chicago sent to incoming students this week: In a welcome letter to freshmen, the College made clear that it does not condone safe spaces or trigger warnings: pic.twitter.com/9ep3n0ZbgV — The Chicago Maroon (@ChicagoMaroon) August 24, 2016 The crucial paragraph of the letter was the third: Our commitment to academic freedom means that we do not support so-called “trigger warnings,” we do not cancel invited speakers because their topics might prove controversial, and we do not condone ..read more
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Department of Education Cracks Down on Predatory For-Profit College ITT Tech
Student Activism
by Angus Johnston
3y ago
The Department of Education yesterday imposed massive sanctions on for-profit college chain ITT Tech, giving the predatory college thirty days to place $153 million in escrow to protect students and taxpayers from potential costs associated with the company’s malfeasance. At the same time, the Department banned ITT from enrolling new students using federal financial aid money. ITT’s stock fell 35% in half an hour after yesterday’s announcement before trading was halted to stop the slide. It opened down another 50% this morning, leaving the total stock value of the company a ..read more
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What Happens if Trump Drops Out?
Student Activism
by Angus Johnston
3y ago
It’s been summer, and I’ve been busy with other work, so I haven’t posted in a while. This started as a Facebook thing, but I figured I’d put it up here to knock the cobwebs out. •          •          • I’ve read a few things recently on how things would go with the election, logistically, if Trump dropped out, but none of them put the whole story together. So I’m gonna. This is going to be long. Here goes. If Trump withdraws from the presidential race, the responsibility for choosing his replacement will fall to the RNC. (That’s the Repub ..read more
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