Join the University of Texas at Austin Campus Environmental Center in opposing the Keystone XL Pipeline:
September 28, 2011
State Department holds hearing on Keystone Pipeline
Time: 3:30-8 p.m.
Description:
State Department holds hearing on Keystone pipeline
The State Department holds a hearing on the proposed and controversial Keystone XL pipeline, which would bring tar sand oil from Alberta, Canada, to the Texas Gulf Coast. Join the Campus Environmental Center in opposing this pipeline.
The extraction process would destroy pristine boreal forest the size of England. The pipeline is expected to average 91 spills over the next 50 years. The refinement of this oil would further pollute Texas' most polluted city, Houston. Finally, the project would raise the oil and gas industry's total greenhouse gas emissions by one-third.
For more information about this pipeline, this hearing or to find out what you can do to help go to:
Dear White House Administration and those with disabilities in Higher Education - What positive changes have taken place sense fall 2008?
I have never returned to any campus for fear of retaliation. Is it safe to return and can I bring my guns back to my farm so the police cannot make an excuse for "due cause?"
Unlike our Governor Rick Perry who has 24/7 armed security protection paid for by the state, we really do have a Coyote infestation and an occasional rabid animal. A three foot copper head just bit my dog on the nose yesterday before I step on it! Once in a while we have a Private Security Firm creeping around in the dark like lone wolves of terrorism!
Speak Up or Forever Hold Your Peace! Letters to the White House Administration [edited] by G N O'Dell 04/15/2010
Higher Education ADA regulations have become so overwhelming burdensome that they no longer aid the disabled student with equal access to colleges and universities, which is the original ADA Act legislative intent enforced by the Office of Civil Rights.
If you have had the misfortune of participation in the process, you will have experience retaliation not only from the school that you filed against but the Office of Civil Rights.
If you have the misfortune of living in a succession philosophy state such as Texas, and file a grievance, you will be targeted by Private Security firms funded by the 911 Patriot act for terrorism, and will be investigated as if you are an enemy of the State. The Office of Civil Rights as well, will use of the 911 Patriot Act against you and is an unnecessary expense- a wasteful burden on tax payer. Do I need to mention the consequences of the poor student who is attacked by this type of retaliation for filing an ADA grievance?
"If I ever lose my mouth, all my teeth north and south, I won't have to talk no more!" (Cat Stevens)"
The way it once worked, and it did work much more efficiently, was the right for a student to declare a Handicap to his classroom professor before, or the first few days of class, then the professor could make an assessment concerning the disability and try to find a way the student could complete all the tasks and be honored with the same credit value after completion of the course just like any other student.
Example: A student with an amputated foot should have the right to approach the professor of Physical Education Class and declare his/her handicap and the professor can make an informal assessment by understanding the students impairment and modify the curriculum in a way that would demand more or equal participation that would satisfy the course just as any student with both feet.
After successful completion of the course by the disabled student, credit for the course would hold the same value as any other student.
The way it works now [Fall 2008], the student must register with the department of disabilities, and once that is done, given a visa as if to walk the campus or attend a class, the disabled student is treated as if a foreign national that must show his visa on demand. Prior to 2008, and it may still be a practice, all disabled students registered with the department of disability were considered having a mental illness, even if the disability was/is an amputated foot.
Students should have an opportunity to opt out of college disability registration and declare a handicap with the professor of a particular class without any formalities or repercussions and ensures that the disabled student's diploma at the end of the 4-8 year process has the same value as any other student.
Certainly, there are many cases were the student is dependent on the services of the campus disability office and should use those services and be free to file an ADA grievance, just as a student that has disclosed an informal handicap request to his professor without the fear of retaliation!
The biggest problem that we have seen is there are some students that are severely mentally impaired and could be a danger on campus. There is only one way to solve this problem and that is that every student (each and every one) are required to submit a mental health certification at the time of registration. If birds that do not have wings cannot fly, then it is just a fact of life that those that suffer from mental illness that could be a danger to others should not be registered on a college campus in the first place.
Lastly, a student should be able to by-pass disability campus registration with the disability office by declaring themselves with a handicap and make minor reasonable request such as a chair or those things that are not an overwhelmingly burdensome on the school.
Any person that believes the disabled are protected by the ADA act as if they are no longer mistreated, abused, raped, killed, retaliated, discriminated against, and protected by law are complete fools and I believe the money invested in the DOJ Office of Civil Rights Disability office is a complete waste of funding because it is totally ineffective [As of Fall 2008].
Why do I believe that the DOJ Office of Civil Rights is ineffective [April 2010]? The principles and ideologies where set into place to win the election of George Bush Senior without the consultation of those that are disabled and the appointments to that office and workers should be those suffering by a disabling condition who are by-far the experts in the knowledge of what the DOJ should base their founding principles and ideologies.
Further, the hiring of disabled experts in management positions of the DOJ can rewrite and rebuild a better cost effective program that works and the attorneys assigned to enforce the law would actually represent (work for) the disabled and would be chastised or terminated for trading personal political favors to play down important cases that would make the ADA work like it should.
This same approach can be applied to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid; however, I never see anyone with a disability working in these offices; especially in a management or chief directive office of these departments.[In Texas we have one exception but he is an elected official, Greg Abbot Texas Attorney General]
If you cannot get a job in the government organization that writes the laws of affirmative action, how can you expect the private sector to hire the disabled if our government officials do not take the lead and hire these highly qualified experts in the area of the disability concerns, that far exceeds the criteria that is used to hire or appoint to these offices.
I'm not the biggest fan of the University of Texas' Student Government, but I do enjoy my campus's tradition for joke candidates and campaigns. Last year, Zak Kinnaird insisted he deserved the student body presidency because he looked good in a suit. A handful of students voted for him, but no one thought he was truly ready to run student government.
It was a joke, and it was funny. A guy named Liam O'Rourke was elected student body president and everyone moved on. We laughed safely because student government only slightly affected our lives. But for a real government leader, one in a position that significantly affects my life, to put on a suit and expect us to think good of him?
Oh wait. We have Rick Perry. Bill White succeeded to make education a priority in the 2010 election talk, because that's part of what state government does. In response, Governor Rick Perry just puts on a suit. He's just disguising himself and looking good.
Education Facts To those who paid heed to Rick Perry's misrepresentation of border violence facts, it should come as no surprise that he's doing it again with education facts. The topic of the week is the dropout rate, and he insists that only 10% of Texas students drop out of school. Or something like that, which is a more obvious fabrication than his attempts to mislead the state about our border communities. Those who lived on the border saw how wrong Perry was then; everyonesees how he's wrong now. (For the record, Bill White and his campaign has pegged that number at 30%.)
Even conservative leaders criticize Perry's numbers. The method he is using has been criticized by the Texas Association of Business, for instance. Representative Rob Eissler, the Republican Chair of the House Public Education Committee, said, "Yeah. That's not what I base my stuff on. You've got to categorize that as a bit campaign rhetoric. If our dropout rate were just 10 percent, I'd be feeling a lot better."
Since Rick Perry failed to avoid education as a campaign issue, he just decided to make himself look better here. But his suit is out of fashion. The truth is, the dropout situation is an ugly one, and almost everyone sees it. As Lisa Falkenberg reports,
The organization [the Intercultural Development Research Association] generally calculates that Texas public schools fail to graduate one out of every three students, with the percentage inching up to 40 percent for black and Hispanic students.
These numbers shouldn't surprise anyone who's been paying attention. They're in line with what a diverse array of groups, from Education Week's Research Center to the Manhattan Institute to the Libertarian-leaning Foundation for Educational Choice (formerly, the Milton and Rose D. Friedman Foundation) have found.
Education Policy It's old news when Rick Perry and Kay Bailey Hutchison promote education policy ideas that Democratic groups have been promoting for years. But here's a new one: promoting ideas that Democrats have already passed This suit of Perry's is fancy, indeed, as he promotes an idea passed in a bill authored by Democratic Representative Scott Hochberg. Perry wants such a bill considered in 2011.
Hochberg's House Bill 2488 allows Texas to use online textbooks. What Rick Perry wants has already been done. The law has been effective for over 7 months, too.
The Governor of Texas has the power of appointment. If Rick Perry focused on doing good instead of looking good, he would have appointed a State Board of Education chair who wanted to move forward on this issue, but the SBOE has not.
The presentation of this idea looks good on the surface, but truly Perry is just ignoring the issue, and a deeper look shows his lack of leadership. Online textbooks is not a proposal for which we need to wait on the legislature.
RIck Perry's getting all dressed up for the Texas voters, but he can only try to hide his deficiencies. With two issues this week, he has ignored the thoughts and actions of Representatives Rob Eissler and Scott Hochberg, the Republican and Democratic Chair and Vice Chair of the House Public Education Committee. He first claimed our education problems (with dropouts, specifically) are much lower than reality. Then he wanted to do something that has already been done.
Just like Zak Kinnaird, Rick perry has put on a suit that he looks good in. But in no way is Rick Perry a joke candidate. He's a candidate for the dominant political party in this state. So let's ignore the suit, and let's look at the issues. Some people might have voted in Student Government elections for good looks, but remember: we are electing the governor of Texas. I like Zak Kinnaird, but this won't ever be my vote for Governor:
Not since 2002 has there been a runoff for the top spot in UT-Austin's Student Government elections. Today and tomorrow, current students will have the opportunity to decide who will represent the university in online voting between the two remaining Executive Alliances for President/VP of the Student Assembly.
Going into the runoff, the (more establishment) executive alliance of Minator Azemi and Justin Stein lead by a mere 400 votes with 46% of the vote. Challenging them in the first fully credible and organized "alternative" option in nearly a decade is Scott Parks and Muneezah Kabir who garnered 42% of the vote in the first round.
In my years at UT, I had volunteers for a handful of losing campaigns and tickets that challenged the SG establishment. And while all the candidates have ties to or current positions in student government, I'm encouraged by Scott and Muneezah's campaign this year. They are endorsed by both the Daily Texan and the University Democrats. And in an unusual twist, are also endorsed by State Reps. Strama, Bolton, & Rodriguez who represent pockets of students around Austin. Plus, getting the endorsement of the Texas Travesty's first round losing executive alliances is a good thing in my book.
While I certainly encourage our University of Texas readers to check out both Scott and Muneezeh's website as well as Minator and Justin's site, I'm going to encourage and ask Burnt Orange Report readers that are students and can vote in the SG elections to cast their runoff vote for Scott and Muneezeh.
Vote online here before tomorrow, Wednesday, at 5pm.
Early this morning, University of Texas students once again began visiting utsg.org to vote in Student Government elections. There is a runoff for President and Vice President for the first time since 2002. The runoff pits Scott Parks and Muneezeh Kabir, two members of the current SG Administration, against Minator Azemi and Justin Stein, two university-wide representatives.
A recent editorial in the Daily Texan discussed student excitement in 2008, and it then attempted to encourage students to go vote. Particularly, the piece encouraged votes for Parks and Kabir, but my largest criticism of the editorial is the implication that people are not involved enough in student government elections. In the first vote, 9,274 students voted in the race for student body president and vice president.
With a population of about 50,000 students, that's over 18% turnout. In elections for Student Government, I tend to think that's pretty good. Especially when, simultaneously, elections pertaining to County and State Governments were happening. That 18%+ is close to 3 times the Travis County Democratic Primary turnout (6.65%) and over 2 times the Travis County Republican Primary turnout (8.68%).
And when you look at the raw numbers, to look at just students, it's probably worse. I reviewed the numbers in precincts 137, 146, 148, 152, 247, 266, 267, 275, 277, 420, 429, and 431. Each of these precincts has more students than not, and a few of them are heavily dominated by UT undergrads. A vast majority of student voters are probably registered in these precincts. The total number of voters here: 3,020. Democratic and Republican Primaries combined.
That is over 3 times less than the amount of students who voted in the SG elections, and the story worsens after more parsing. Not one of these precincts is lived in entirely by students, and the ones with the most raw turnout (266, 247, 420, 427, and 275) also have the heaviest amount of non-student activists and voters of any of these precincts.
Truth is, the number of UT student voters is probably a lot closer to 2 thousand than 3. And possibly a lot less than that, too.
I don't suggest that we should expect more students to vote in the Texas Primary than in their student government elections. Students have friends deeply invested in Student Government, and so they'll always vote there in higher numbers. But the turnout was borderline embarrassing when students had two weeks to walk into a popular building on campus (the FAC) to cast their votes. It was embarrassing, and all these apparently-political folks on campus didn't seem to notice.
They were all too busy running elections for government that has much less effect on our lives. In the 2008 General Election, the University Democrats were proud to partner with Student Government, among many others, to help get out the student vote. Student Government should change their election days, so they can partner on such efforts with the Primary, too. The Primary may not matter nearly as much, but it's pretty darn important, too.
This year, The Daily Texan asked every candidate in the University of Texas student elections for his or her position on the issue of guns in classrooms.
The NRA has worked hard to make keeping schools free of guns appear to be a partisan issue, but the Texan's fearlessness in asking about the issue in its endorsements demonstrates that student leaders aren't buying it. More tellingly, only two candidates are listed as "in favor" of guns in classrooms.
This time last year, there were two bills in the Texas Legislature that would have allowed students to carry guns in classrooms. Both bills were ultimately caught in the Texas House, after one (SB 1164) passed the Senate, in part because of the time and energy spent by student leaders on the issue.
Although Students for Gun-Free Schools was created as a response to such bills, the organization pursues other strategies for preventing campus violence as well. "Our focuses are access to mental health, and various measures which can keep at-risk students from falling through the cracks," said SGFS's Southwestern University chapter president.
The organization's statewide director, John Woods, had this to say: "There's not a lot of violence on college campuses, and we'd like to keep it that way. But over thirty thousand people are killed every year by guns -- that's more than terrorism worldwide most years. We have a responsibility to make students aware of these issues."
Volunteers with SGFS have also put together resolutions against guns in classrooms and in favor of closing the gun show loophole. They plan to introduce these at some precinct meetings Tuesday, in an attempt to unify the Texas Democratic Party around common sense public safety issues.
"Our biggest obstacle right now is getting the word out about our organization," said Woods. "There are so many troubling things happening in Texas that sometimes keeping our classrooms safe gets pushed to the back of the line. Students know about what we're doing, but parents generally don't."
Campus-wide elections begin Tuesday at 9 AM and end Wednesday at 5 PM. Voting may be done online at utsg.org, or at computers on campus.
The University of Texas Student Government has passed legislation like it before - but never so convincingly. The student body recently took a favorable step towards equal rights on a university that should be Texas's bastion for progress.
From the Student Government press release:
Today, student body president Liam O'Rourke, of the Student Government at The University of Texas at Austin, signed a resolution in opposition of the ongoing denial of benefits to university employees in same-sex relationships. The resolution, A.R. 26, passed the Student Government Assembly overwhelmingly with no debate (24-1-1).
"The University of Alabama provides these benefits. All the Ivy Leagues have these benefits. Nine of our eleven peer institutions offer these benefits," said principal author John Woods, a doctoral student in Cell & Molecular Biology and Graduate School Representative in the Student Government Assembly.
Government senior and Liberal Arts Representative Andy Jones said, "The University of Texas wants to be the best public university in the country, but it's working with one hand tied behind its back in terms of recruiting."
Texas law has banned recognition of same-sex marriage and civil unions since 2003. There are, however, other states with such laws, including Michigan and Alabama, where universities do not deny benefits. In Texas, both the City of Austin and Travis County provide COBRA-like benefits to all employees in committed relationships. Many private schools such as Rice University, Baylor College of Medicine, Trinity University, and Southwestern University provide these benefits as well.
While UT-Austin President William Powers has publicly stated that he is opposed to the denial of competitive benefits, such decisions rest with the UT System's Board of Regents.
John Woods continues to prove himself one of the most effective leaders on the UT campus. He helped start and organize the successful Students for Gun Free Schools that stopped the legislature from allowing concealed handgun license holders to bring their arms to school. This is just another important cause that he puts has put his name behind.
The chairman of the UT Board of Regents, James Huffines, stepped down earlier this week. The board elects one of its own the next chair, but hopefully Rick Perry's radical influence won't inhibit the board from making the right choice.
I don't often like to post about organizational events or fundraisers, especially if they are specific to just one city in the state, but we wouldn't be the Burnt Orange Report without the University Democrats at UT-Austin.
The University Democrats, established in 1953, is the largest and oldest political organization at The University of Texas at Austin and the leading force of progressive student activism in the state of Texas. Today, they are the largest College Democrats chapter in the country - working to bring democratic ideals to UT, the state of Texas, and the entire nation.
Last year they broke records by registering 12,000+ young voters across the state and mobilizing an entire generation of young Texas activists to blockwalk, phonebank, and elect strong Democrats to the County Court House, the State House, and the White House. After the elections, they continued to be at the forefront of the youth movement in Texas by organizing students to be the voice on important legislative issues like tuition relief, gun-free schools, tax-free textbooks, and the disenfranchising voter ID bill.
This year they have pledged to be at the forefront of the movement to turn Texas blue. University Democrats has built a large and committed team of extraordinary student activists who are ready to organize young people to bring change to our state. With a plan, BLUEPrint for Texas, the mission is to turn Texas blue from the ground up by mobilizing student activists to:
• TRAVEL to swing districts across Texas to work for candidates.
• DISTRIBUTE voter registration cards in key neighborhoods.
• REGISTER new voters.
• KNOCK on doors for key candidates.
• CALL households on behalf of Texas Democrats.
• MOBILIZE young people to vote early.
In order to be effective in mobilizing students for change in Texas, Unversity Democrats needs the resources and support from community leaders like you! Please support them by making a donation at their fundraiser this Wednesday. I know I'll be writing them a check.
University Democrats: BLUEPrint for Texas
8:00 p.m. Wednesday, November 18th, 2009
UT-Austin Business School Special Events Room (CBA 3.304)
The Texas A&M Chapter of the Young Conservatives of Texas is a group of the most conservatives students on the most conservative college campus in the nation. However, the YCT contends that Texas A&M is not as conservative as it is portrayed. The mission of the YCT, as articulated by the Chairman, is to "turn a passive, silent, oblivious majority of conservatives into an active, vocal, aware majority" and to "defend and revive conservatism among the American people...before we lose what has made Texas and this country great and blessed." So how exactly are they going to accomplish their mission? By fighting "liberalism wherever it may be."
A new tool being used by conservative activist is CampusReform.org, which was created by The Leadership Institute, a Virginia based training organization for potential conservative political leaders. The Leadership Instituted, which labels itself as a "a non-partisan educational organization," includes such notable "non-partisan" alumni as Republican Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican Congressman Joe Wilson, President of Americans for Tax Reform Grover Norquist, and the "non-partisan" Karl Rove.
As Campus Progress reported, the Leadership Instituted launched a social networking site CampusReform.org so students can report and organize against professors that they view as politically biased. One of the main features of the site is the ability of students to rate professors anonymously, using a scale ranging from liberal to conservative.
There where five faculty members of Texas A&M University that where listed: Antoin Schwab, Ben Harper, Kimberly Brown, Tanya Weathers, and Terence Lamb. Besides being labeled as liberals they all have one thing else in common: all of them are African-American. According to the Office of Diversity, of 2609 faculty members at Texas A&M 93 are African-American (3.5%). The probably of choosing five African American faculty at random is 5x10^-6%, or one in 19,000,000. This gives the perception of racism because it insinuates that African-American professors are "not like the real A&M", and "not like us".
Last year there was certain energy around campus: perhaps one of the most significant elections in recent history was taking place and political activism was coming to life on campus. It did not matter what political ideology you identified with, or what issue you found to be most compelling, there was a conversation happening somewhere on campus. The question is now whether or not a campus that has never been significantly politically active will continue to expand on that political and activist energy, or during the relative quiet during a year when there is not a presidential or congressional election will that energy fade away.
What may capture the interest of the student body is a debate that has heated up during the month of August as students prepared to return to campus for the fall semester. The debate over health care reform has already sparked some student activism, as students participated in the recent town hall on health care reform that was presented by Congressman Chet Edwards. The Texas A&M Chapter of the Young Conservatives of Texas voiced opposition to health care reform, while the Aggie Democrats voiced their support of health care reform. However, it is difficult to predict if this single issue will be able to propel students who have not been involved in politics or activism before to become involved now. Despite being the most politically conservative student body in the country, there is not a considerable amount of conservative political activism on campus. Perhaps the most consistently politically active group of conservative students have been active in off campus activism; over the last several years several students have been actively involved with the pro-life activism off of campus. Students have regularly been among the protesters who stand outside of the fence at Planned Parenthood, and many join in the 40 Days for Life campaign which now takes place twice a year. However, many other students have joined those like myself who stand inside the fence, and escort patients and clients inside the clinic to provide them with support and be there for people who are making a very difficult choice.
There is a new group of activist students that may be reaching out on campus, a group of students that a much more progressive but do not actively participate in partisan politics. The Human Rights Coalition, which was founded as a local grassroots organization earlier this year, is working towards becoming recognized on the Texas A&M campus. Originally founded by Charles Biash, Amelia Mayer, and Renee Robinson, this group of community members and students has focused on several issues from social justice to animal rights, and has modeled itself less after the hierarchal political organizations and more as a community of activists. Currently Braden Deckard is working with anthropology professor Michael Alvard to gain recognition as an organization on campus, and to bring more progressive activist opportunities to students. Most recently the Human Rights Coalition played a very significant role in the protest of the immigrant family detention center T. Don Hutton in Tyler, Texas, and the coalition of activist organization that protested the detention center eventually lead to the closure of the facility as a family detention center and the changing of the Obama Administration's policies towards immigrant detention. However, organizations like this one are the exception that proves the rule.
