Eyes on Education 👀 : April 2025

April 25, 2025

Takes up: Administrators, teachers, staff, parents and supporters protest bills in Indiana that would reduce public education funding; the fight against a program that separates low-performing schools from their geographical districts in Tennessee; and Trump misusing Title IX to strip Maine of education funding.

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Hands Off march in Detroit

April 8, 2025

Participants’ report of a Hands Off march in Detroit, where thousands converged at the Detroit Institute of Arts. It was one of over 1,200 that took place on April 5 in the U.S.

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Bad [cuts] to the bone: DOGE at work

March 30, 2025

DOGE is slashing grants, contracts and jobs in federal agencies. Especially Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility, climate change, education and food safety. Resisting fascism means looking for ways to fight for real reform as steps toward revolutionary development by and for humanity.

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Destroy Columbia University? Because they can

March 14, 2025

On March 7, a task force created by Trump’s executive order cut $400 million in grants from Columbia University, accussing it of continued failure to protect Jewish students “from antisemitic harassment”, and of denying them learning opportunities. This is part of an ongoing repression since last spring’s campus protests against Israel war on Gaza.

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Detroit braces for Trump’s ICE invasion

February 4, 2025

Rumors about ICE are spreading in Southwest Detroit. In a school, student absences are already elevated. Meanwhile communities are gathering resources and planning activities. The sooner we gather, more people can be helped.

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Editorial: California fires reveal human power to ruin and heal

January 20, 2025

In California’s worst wildfires in its history, important factors include a century of land and water mismanagement and fossil fuel use that generates global warming. The fires brought out the best, mutual aid from below, and the worst, hateful scapegoating disguising climate denial. A global vision and humane principles in organizing ourselves are fundamental to a sustainable future.

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The importance of Palestinian history

November 15, 2024

Dr. Alice Rothchild, feminist obstetrician-gynecologist, received the National Arab-American Museum annual book award for ‘Old Enough to Know’, in which recent immigrant Palestinian children who have been bullied in school, learn the history of Palestine through their grandmother’s stories.

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Israeli soccer fans out of control

November 10, 2024

On Nov. 7, Israeli soccer fans were attacked in the streets of Amsterdam, bringing harsh memories to the Jewish community. However, news coverage barely touched on the Israelis’ provocations that led up to the attacks.

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Resistance grows to library book bans

September 30, 2024

Far-right campaigns aim to ban sex and LGBTQ+ themed books from children’s and teen’s sections in public and school libraries. Nevertheless, resistance finds multiple paths to defend the freedom to read.

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UK mail software robs postal workers

May 16, 2024

In 1999, new Horizon software was installed in post office branches across the UK. Immediately, sub-postmasters and postmistresses experienced inexplicable shortfalls from their branches. It has been called “the UK’s most widespread miscarriage of justice.”

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Review: A More Beautiful and Terrible History

February 22, 2024

Van Gelder reviews ‘A More Beautiful and Terrible History: The Uses and Misuses of Civil Rights History’, by Jeanne Theoharis, now available as ebook. The work is a deep critique of 21st century recall and commemorations of the Civil Rights Movement, and thus a valuable weapon to fight the suppression of Black history.

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‘Israelism,’ a documentary

February 14, 2024

Van Gelder reviews documentary ‘Israelism,’ in which two U.S. Jewish teenagers, filmed over a seven-year period, became disillusioned and then opposed their pro-Israel education. Since Oct. 7, 2023, requests for screenings have risen, despite discrediting, censorship and suppression.

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Universities under far-right attack

January 26, 2024

The “resignations” of presidents of the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard revealed the philosophical failings in academia, which is under attack by the far right for not suppressing criticism of Israel. Why didn’t academia know how to respond to the events in Israel/Palestine?

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Readers’ Views: November 2023

November 24, 2023

Readers’ Views on: Israel/Palestine; Revolt in Iran; in Canada for 2SLGBTQIA+; Trump, Biden too old to run; Racism in Tennessee; Prisoners miss ‘N&L’; Memorial for Paul Geist and Dan Bremer; Texas targets pregnant women & refugees; Ohio targets women and democracy; Revolutionary history; and Raining on those with disabilities.

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In Memoriam Dan Bremer

November 14, 2023

Dan Bremer passed away in October. We remember his kindness, his profound grasp of world and local politics, and his steadfast commitment to a more humane world based on the Marxist-Humanist philosophy of human liberation.

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Paul Geist (Paul Knopf) speaks at 2012 Convention of News and Letters Committees

In memoriam, Paul Geist (Paul Knopf 1927-2023)

September 21, 2023

In memoriam Paul Knopf (1927-2023), a jazz composer and performer; a revolutionary activist, philosopher and Marxist-Humanist; a poet, a lifelong learner with an encyclopedic mind and a friend and comrade to people both famous and unsung.

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Right threatens AIDS funding

September 9, 2023

Reauthorization of funding for the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) has been abruptly bogged down by Republican legislators under the false claim that it supports abortion providers.

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Hollywood strikes

July 17, 2023

60,000 Hollywood actors joined the 70-day-long screenwriters’ strike. Despite the glamor, all who work in this $134-billion entertainment industry under the capitalist system are subject to exploitation and alienation like any other worker.

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Palestinians silenced

June 9, 2023

Early this spring, Palestinian-American attorney and activist Huwaida Arraf was invited to speak at Bloomfield Hills Senior High School. The debate among Jewish, Arab and Muslim community members over whether her talk was anti-Semitic and anti-Israel continues to intensify.

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Women protest in Israel

June 8, 2023

More than 25,000 women dressed as handmaids formed human chains in 70 locations across Israel on International Women’s Day, protesting against proposed laws to turn Israel into a theocratic dictatorship.

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50th anniversary of the Walpole prison union

June 7, 2023

Fifty years ago inmates at Walpole Maximum Security Prison in Massachusetts assumed the management of the prison for two months until the state and the prison guards’ union pressured the Corrections Commissioner to allow what became a violent retaking of the prison.

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DTE payment strike

June 5, 2023

“You’ve heard of a POWER OUTAGE—we are calling for a PAYMENT OUTAGE.” A flyer circulated by Detroit activists responds to the one-two punch of more frequent and longer-lasting widespread power outages AND an 8% rate increase request by DTE Energy, the gas and electric supplier for Detroit and the surrounding suburbs.

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Detroiters Protest DTE Energy

May 12, 2023

“You’ve heard of a POWER OUTAGE—we are calling for a PAYMENT OUTAGE.” A flyer circulated by Detroit activists responds to more frequent and longer-lasting widespread power outages AND an eight percent rate increase request by DTE Energy (the gas and electric supplier for Detroit and the surrounding suburbs).

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The incomplete struggle for democracy in Israel

March 22, 2023

More than 25,000 women in red cloaks and white bonnets formed human chains in 70 locations across Israel on March 8, combining commemorating International Women’s Day with protests in opposition to the proposed laws to turn Israel into a theocratic dictatorship. Yet Palestinian women’s voices were missing.

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Stop tax handouts to Detroit developers

March 21, 2023

On Feb. 14, 2023, a small but vigorous demonstration in front of Cass Technical High School called by the Detroit People’s Platform protested tax increment financing (TIF) for downtown development projects, which flourish while tax-funded public libraries and schools struggle to make ends meet.

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Readers’ Views: March-April 2023, Part One

Readers’ Views on: This Society’s Ingrained Violence; After the Murder of Tyre Nichols; Women and Girls Face Oppression; Church Sexism and Hypocrisy; Fundamentalism vs. Women; Call to Action; Censorship Here and Now; Brexit Catastrophe; China’s Workers and U.S.; Iran Revolt Continues; Azadkar, In Memoriam

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Win for Michigan workers

January 24, 2023

At last over 600,000 Michigan workers will receive increased minimum wages and earn paid sick leave, thanks to a court ruling this summer overturning a 2018 law the state legislature had quickly and cynically passed.

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Michigan workers’ victory

December 16, 2022

At last over 600,000 Michigan workers will receive increased minimum wages and earn paid sick leave, thanks to a court ruling this summer overturning a 2018 law the state legislature had quickly and cynically passed four years ago.

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Readers’ Views: November-December 2022, Part One

November 11, 2022

Readers’ Views on: Iran: Woman, Life, Freedom; Election Threats and Battles; Women’s Marches and Enemies; Sexist Supreme Court; Ukrainians Fight for Freedom; Para-Transit Disservice; Mike Davis; Labor Struggles, from Amazon
to the Bank.

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Votes that matter

November 8, 2022

The election of 2020 gave a giant push for the Right to turn elections into weapons for abrogating rights and freedoms, especially those of women and minorities. It is a primrose path to outright fascism.

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War on teachers is a war on students

September 10, 2022

In school districts across the nation all eyes are on 4,500 striking teachers in Columbus, Ohio, who agreed to return to the classroom after a three-day strike under a “conceptual agreement.” This army in red T-shirts sparked widespread parent refusal to log in to remote classrooms set up while the teachers were out.

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Readers’ Views: July-August 2022, Part One

July 12, 2022

Readers’ Views on: Supreme Court’s Attack on Women’s Freedom; Abortion, Healthcare and Women’s Movement; Abortion Unseparated from All Freedom Struggles; Gay Pride: Whose Bodies? Ours!; Colonizers Past and Present; Let Them Eat Rockets; Oppression of Homeless; Only 14 More Mass Shootings!; Church, State and Football

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Down with gun culture

Until recently, the outrageous power and impunity of the NRA dominated U.S. thinking on guns, opposing ANY measures to improve gun safety as a Second Amendment violation. But millions are determined to build a more humane society.

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Editorial: Climate report: revolution or disaster

May 18, 2022

The battle over the latest UN report on climate change laid bare the stark alternative between business as usual and the forces fighting for social transformation to stave off catastrophe. Protesting scientists called for “climate revolution.”

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Avalanche of book bans

May 14, 2022

As banning books that take up racism, feminism or LGBTQI+ subjects alarmingly escalates, students fight back, creating groups to read censored books.

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Review: ‘The 1619 Project’

‘The 1619 Project’ tackles U.S. history since the first enslaved Africans were brought to Virginia—from multiple perspectives. Each essay is grounded in original sources, scholarly works, interviews and oral histories. Historical events, photographs of ordinary African-Americans and poetry surround each essay, adding a human touch.

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