Feature Archives

In a small, still mostly segregated section of rural Louisiana, an all-white jury heard a series of white witnesses called by a white prosecutor testify in a courtroom overseen by a white judge in a trial of a fight at the local high school where a white student who had been making racial taunts was hit by black students. The fight was the culmination of a series of racial incidents starting when whites responded to black students sitting under the "white" tree at their school by hanging three nooses from the tree.

On June 12th, teaching assistants and other members of UAW Local 2865 held a grade-in at the Baytree Plaza at UC Santa Cruz as part of a statewide action to highlight the UAW's demand for better protections against excessive workload. The action turned out over a thousand TAs, readers, and tutors across seven UC campuses. In the bargaining session that took place June 18th and 19th, progress was made towards adding protections against discrimination on the basis of pregnancy or gender identity.

The Renaissance Garden Project started when UC Santa Cruz students responded to a call for help that Renaissance High School students sent out about the lack of nutrition they were receiving at school; students felt unhealthy. Students from the Education for Sustainable Living Program at UCSC came to the rescue. A garden was constructed to provide nutritional food and health education.

Students and youth are participating in a week-long fast aimed at urging the California congressional delegation to move forward immigration reform that includes legal residency and a path to citizenship for hundreds of thousands of undocumented youth. On July 5th, students and supporters held a rally at Senator Dianne Feinstein's office and then marched back to Civic Center Plaza to greet approximately two dozen students who came from all over California to join the fast.

Students at D-Q University in Davis, California's only tribal university, are facing eviction from campus by the Board of Trustees. The students, who have been the sole residents at D-Q since the college lost its accreditation in January 2005, are demanding the right to stay on campus and a voice in determining the school's future. On June 30, the Board will vote to refuse current students housing on campus.

A day after students and workers held a protest outside administrative offices, the University of California Santa Cruz (UCSC) rehired Crown custodian and AFSCME 3299 member Angela Ruiz. Ruiz was fired on April 9 for attending a union-sponsored protest against UC President Robert Dynes, even though she had received excellent evaluations and the protest was during her lunch hour. Angela's re-hiring marks the 3rd victory in the past month for activists at UCSC.

UC Santa Cruz is preparing to cut down approximately 150 acres of trees on upper-campus to make room for all the new buildings that are part of the much-criticized expansion plan. This would be one of the most serious logging operations on UCSC's campus in decades, meaning the loss of well over 1,000 trees — mostly 2nd generation redwoods and mixed evergreens.