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I’m on the ground in Denver, en route to the University of Colorado at Boulder, where the United States Student Association’s National Student Congress gets underway this afternoon.
USSA is the country’s oldest student activist organization — this Congress is the 62nd in the Association’s history. It brings together student government leaders and activists from all around the nation every summer to set USSA’s agenda and elect its leadership for the upcoming year. The Congress also features workshops and meetings of USSA’s various affiliate groups, as well as an incredible amount of informal networking and information sharing.
I’ll be here for the whole Congress — among other things, I’m co-facilitating one of USSA’s “allies” meetings tomorrow, and running a workshop on Thursday on media and social networking in student activism. More on each of those sessions, and on the Congress as a whole, as the week progresses, but right now I’ve got a bus to catch.
The conference’s Twitter hashtag is #NSC09, by the way, so you can keep up with events as they develop that way, too.
With Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s confirmation hearings getting underway this morning, now seems like as good a time as any to revisit the Supreme Court nominee’s past as a student activist.
The Daily Princetonian has posted seven letters and articles by or about Sotomayor from her undergraduate days, and taken together they reveal her to be a committed advocate for Latinos and Latinas on campus, an opponent of anti-gay violence, and as the recipient of the university’s highest undergraduate honor for her “dedication to the life of minority students at Princeton.”
In a May 10, 1974 letter, Sotomayor explained a complaint filed by “the Puerto Rican and Chicano students of Princeton” alleging “an institutional pattern of discrimination” at the university. In it she noted that there were then only 31 Puerto Rican and 27 Chicano students enrolled at Princeton, and rebuked the university for its “total absence of regard, concern and respect for an entire people and their culture.” (Sotomayor is quoted in two Daily Princetonian articles on the complaint as well.)
In a letter published on September 12, 1974, Sotomayor and five other student advisors to a search for a new assistant dean for student affairs laid out their criticism of the lack of direct student involvement in the search and the racial and ethnic dynamics of the process. (Sotomayor is quoted directly on the controversy here.)
In a group letter from February 27, 1976, Sotomayor and 38 other members of the campus community condemned the recent vandalism of a dorm room that was home to two students active in the Gay Alliance of Princeton.
And on February 28, 1976, it was announced that Sotomayor was one of two co-recipients of Princeton’s M. Taylor Pine Honor Prize, “the highest honor the university confers on an undergraduate.” The Princetonian article on the honor referred to Sotomayor as having “maintained almost straight A’s for the last two years, but” being “especially known for her extracurricular activities.” (The photo at above right accompanied this article.) A follow-up piece two days later noted that Sotomayor was the first Latino student to win the award.
The United States Student Association’s 62nd annual National Student Congress opens at the University of Colorado at Boulder in eleven days.
USSA, founded in 1947, is the nation’s oldest national student group, and its pre-eminent student government organization. I got my start in national student organizing in USSA, and I’m always thrilled to go back.
This year, I’ll be running a workshop, co-facilitating the Congress’s people of color “allies space,” and lending a hand in various other ways over the course of the week.
I’ll have more to say about the allies space later, and I’ll be blogging (and tweeting) from the Congress once I get there. In the meantime, here’s the title and description of my workshop, scheduled for Thursday, July 23rd, at two o’clock:
Media and Social Networking for Student Activism, Past and Present
Long before the creation of the internet, campus organizers were social networkers. What can their strategies teach today’s activists, and how can today’s students use new media and online networking to advance their work? This workshop, led by historian, activist, and blogger Angus Johnston, will explore the role of technology, media, and human contact in historical and contemporary student organizing.
Media and Social Networking for Student Activism, Past and Present
Long before the creation of the internet, campus organizers were social networkers. What can their strategies teach today’s activists, and how can today’s students use new media and online networking to advance their work? This workshop, led by historian, activist, and blogger Angus Johnston, will explore the role of technology, media, and human contact in historical and contemporary student organizing.
Hope to see you there!
The five remaining Jena Six defendants are expected to plead guilty to reduced charges today. No information on the specifics of the plea deal has been released.
The Jena Six were students at Jena High School in Jena, Louisiana, in 2006 when they were accused of beating a white youth. The incident followed months of racial conflict at the school.
The Six were charged with attempted murder in the wake of the beating, a far more serious charge than any white student involved in similar recent assaults. Wikipedia has a detailed discussion of the ensuing controversy here.
One member of the Jena Six pled guilty to battery in late 2007.
Cripchick has a great, thorough post up on how to ensure that your events are accessible to everyone. Here’s the list of topics she covers:
- childcare
- sliding pay scales
- different ways of getting information out
- gender-neutral bathrooms
- food options
- wheelchair and other mobility-related access
- structured schedules and awareness of time
- alternative formats
- audio description
- accessible language
- understanding different learning styles
- access to quiet space
- commitment to being anti-oppression
- trigger warnings
- arrangements for carpools/room sharing
- identities and experiences
There’s more in comments, too. Go read.
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