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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Trump grabs power, spreads hate, stirs resistance

February 3, 2025

President Donald Trump is encouraging deadly hate toward women, Blacks, people of color, LGBTQ people, people with disabilities, and immigrants. It is grassroots responses and mutual aid that can block Trump’s power grab. More forms of revolt will erupt in the face of the downward spiral of this capitalist world in crisis.

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In Memoriam Erica Rae (Erica Sufritz) 1958-2024

February 8, 2024

As youth, woman, and educator, Erica Rae (Erica Sufritz) made many contributions to News and Letters Committees since she was a teenager. We will miss the comrade who loved music passionately and sang with the North Shore Choral Society and who cheerfully worked alongside us for revolution for her whole life.

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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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World in View: Citizens’ revolt erupts across Sri Lanka

May 19, 2022

A massive citizens’ revolt is taking place in Sri Lanka. It is focused against the authoritarian President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and his family members, who occupy many government posts. Tens of thousands of Sri Lankans have taken to the streets in the capital, Colombo, demanding that the President leave.

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Readers’ Views: January-February 2022, Part One

February 5, 2022

Readers’ Views on: Labor: Teachers Face Politician Bosses; Labor: Automation and the New Humanism; Socialism, Statism and Philosophy; Fake ‘Right to Life’; Eviction Tsunami; Agribusiness vs. Planet; Afghanistan Exploited; Taiwan Faces China and U.S.; Desmond Tutu; With the Migrant Caravan; U.S. vs. Palestinians

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Editorial: Republicans savage democracy and history

July 1, 2021

The worldwide protests over George Floyd’s murder and other protests of Republican-led policies led them to erode, stifle, obfuscate, erase from memory and repress democracy, passing laws to subvert elections and teaching. Republicans decided that democracy must be destroyed so that they can rule in perpetuity, representing the 1% in the name of white Christian America.

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‘Virtual’ teaching or hazardous workplace

November 29, 2020

A teacher of six-year-olds in a low-income Illinois suburb tells of her experience teaching during COVID-19 and how those who run the schools have no comprehension of what the job entails and no interest in protecting the mental and physical health of teachers, staff, or children.

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Detroit dispatch #9: Children learning during the pandemic

July 25, 2020

Educator Susan Van Gelder breaks down the difficulties and political realities of what happens to school children, teachers, and others trying to educate children during the crisis caused by the pandemic and Donald Trump’s and Betsy DeVos’ attempts to destroy public education.

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Chicago March For Our Lives

March 25, 2018

On a bitter cold morning on March 24, 2018, over 85,000 of us jammed into Union Park on Chicago’s west side to be part of the March For Our Lives and to join with protesters in 800 other cities across the U.S. and the world.

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Retirees help Detroit schools

May 1, 2017

Retired teachers and community residents have come to the aid of Detroit high schools abandoned as failing by the State of Michigan and the Detroit school system.

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Union betrayals

November 30, 2016

Latina union activist in Detroit questions how working people lost out in the school board elections and the ballot measures in the recent election and, noting that the AFL-CIO supported the Dakota Access Pipeline, asks, “Which side are you on?”

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Brooklyn, New York, teachers win big

October 3, 2016

Teachers at Long Island University in Brooklyn, New York, with support from students and staff, won their strike against the University who locked them out after they refused to accept a bad contract.

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From the Writings of Raya Dunayevskaya: Nixon’s ‘racist mayhem’ lingers today

May 18, 2016

Our era, when racist police gun down Black men, women and youth, continues a history as old as the U.S. The piece excerpted here shows some of that history and how racism can be spurred on by this country’s leaders and would-be leaders, out for power. It takes up how Left movements respond to racism and the attempt to answer the question by funneling liberatory impulses into the dead end of electoral politics. The relationships between the Black freedom movement, anti-war youth, workers, and philosophy of revolution remain as critical today as when this article was written.

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Youth in Action, January-February 2016

January 26, 2016

Colorado student-teacher-parent walkouts lead to recall of reactionary school board members; Oxford students campaign to remove images of racist imperialist Cecil Rhodes; student activism sweeps South Africa.

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Youth in Action, Nov.-Dec. 2015

December 15, 2015

McGill Univ. tent city for fossil fuel disinvestment; New Delhi College of Art protest; Westmount High School student picket supports teachers; Beirut “You Stink!” protests

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Stop charter schools!

September 6, 2015

The expansion of charter schools comes at the expense of unionized teachers, students and public education. It is a money making venture for the few while destroying public education in the process for the many.

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Letter from Mexico: CNTE teachers’ goal: autonomous learning

August 31, 2015

The National Coordination of Education Workers (CNTE) has been struggling for autonomy, new labor relationships and a non-capitalist educational model. In September 2013, tens of thousands of people—teachers outside the CNTE, students, parents and activists—demonstrated throughout Mexico to show their rejection of the government’s privatizing educational reforms.

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Chicago teachers prepare to strike

June 29, 2015

Over 1,000 teachers and labor supporters rallied three weeks before the Chicago Teachers Union contract expires. The Thompson Center plaza was a sea of red T-shirts with teachers and other unionists chanting “This means war!” about the contract battle ahead.

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The todayness of Selma, USA, 1965

In acquainting readers with coverage of the forces of revolution in News & Letters over its first 60 years, we present “Continuing Magnolia Jungle terror exposes reality of ‘Great Society,’” written by Charles Denby in February 1965, in the midst of the bloody campaign for voter registration in Selma, Alabama.

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Youth in Action, November-December 2014

November 25, 2014

Newark high school protests; Egypt bans student movements; students and teachers defy Colorado school board brainwashing; Yemen youths’ political graffiti; Philadelphia high school students strike to support teachers.

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Educators rally in New York City

From the July-August 2014 issue of News & Letters

New York—More than 300 teachers—as well as education personnel, parents, students, and community leaders and supporters—from New York City and other parts of the tri-state area concerned about education inequalities rallied outside New York City’s City Hall.

In a “Take Back Our Schools” rally, we [=>]

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School’s out! Where’s my next job?

July 9, 2013

People may imagine that teachers here hit the beach or kick up their heels poolside, sipping cocktails and working on a suntan. For me and many other teachers, though, Monday will be the kickoff to the summer routine of registering for unemployment benefits and looking for work, as, once again, a year’s contract has come to an end.

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July-August 2013 issue of News & Letters is now online

July 1, 2013

News & Letters, July – August 2013. Lead: Turkey, Syria and Iran at crossroads of world revolt; From the Writings of Raya Dunayevskaya: ‘Russia more than ever full of revolutionaries…’; Editorial: Support striking prisoners!; Essay: Communization theory and its discontents truncate Marx’s dialectic; Workshop Talks: The boss is spying; Revolutionary from Turkey speaks; Brazil’s uprising; Teacher and school struggles; and more…

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Teachers and allies fight restructuring

February 20, 2013

Lake County, Ill.—Recently, teachers in my district received a warning that the district would be undergoing “restructuring” for the 2013-14 school year. When the superintendent visited our school after the winter break, she informed us that scores were still not reaching our goal and that sweeping changes would be necessary.

She needed to submit a “bold [=>]

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