On Monday, July 27, over 600 people packed the State House CORI Hearing as part of an extended CORI Day of Action. Organized by the Commonwealth CORI Coalition, supporters demonstrated the severity of the CORI crisis and raised the need for immediate reforms.

A protest was held on the steps of Cambridge City Hall to support Harvard professor Henry L. Gates vs. the Cambridge Police. According to the event organizers, the arrest of Prof. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. by a Cambridge police officer - after Prof. Gates showed two forms of identification to a police officer who arrived to find Prof. Gates safely in his own home in a predominantly white, upscale neighborhood known as “Harvard Square” - has brought the struggle against racism to the front pages of newspapers throughout the US and around the world. Read More | Watch Video

Why young people should be social champions.

Public education in the United States is under heavy attack. And because a so-called “progressive” President is leading the charge, many education activists have been lulled to sleep while on lookout duty. Obama recently announced his “race to the top” program to “reform” education. Much like Bush’s No Child Left Behind, Obama’s plan represents progress for education in name only. In reality, Obama’s plan is to lure cash-starved schools into a “competition” to accept federal funds, with dangerous strings attached. The two most devious conditions are the widespread creation of charter schools and the implementation of teacher merit pay. Both of these items have been long-condemned by progressive educational advocates as well as the majority of the nation’s teachers. If implemented, they would have a destructive effect on public education.

When a suburban Philadelphia swim club kicked out a group of black and Latino kids on June 29 because of their skin color, the incident generated much outrage throughout the country. But it would be a mistake to think that such incidents and attitudes are a rare exception.

Activists from the Student Farmworker Alliance (SFA) dropped two banners protesting farmworker exploitation from the school's admissions and student center buildings as dozens of prospective students and their parents toured Georgetown.

Rochester Indymedia has resolved to witness Tyquan Rivera's pretrial hearings and trial, first-hand, after observing an ongoing pattern of sloppy and inaccurate reporting of the case by the local corporate media. With the help of a journalist from Boston Indymedia, who was also present on July 1st in Judge Joseph Valentino's courtroom for his rulings, Rochester Indymedia began to notice other disturbingly oppressive patterns developing in Rivera's case, enacted both in the courtroom and in the ongoing corporate media coverage.

Additional Information: A Child in Chains: A reportback from Tyquan Rivera's pretrial hearing | Media Review of Last Month's Pretrial Hearing | Digging for Truth in the Tyquan Rivera Case | Let’s Not Retreat into Cocoons of Expedient Simplicity and Pretentiousness

Audio: Eye-witness e-mail account of police brutality before Tyquan Rivera allegedly shot into police as read on WDKX on February 4th, 2009

Related: AARM Holds Second Event on the Media and Racism | Racism and the Media Community Discussion a Success | Facts about Juvenile Injustice | Activists Against Racism Movement

The Governor and the California General Assembly approved wage reductions for in-home assistance to elderly and disabled as part of an overall budget reduction proposal earlier this year. On June 23rd, activists from "The People's Day of Reckoning" protested those cuts as well as the governor's accusations that state funded In-Home Support Services is "rife with fraud." Seventeen people, many in wheelchairs, were arrested. On July 15th, members of that coalition were joined by labor activists, educators, and students at a larger protest at the same location.

Advance the Struggle writes:"The murder of Oscar Grant set Oakland on fire, but who put the fire out? The working class people of Oakland, their consciousness set ablaze, found an inadequate set of organizational tools at their disposal to do the work that deep down we all know has to be done - confront the state (government) and its underlying property relations."

"There is no more apt theme for this conference at this fear-driven moment in political history."

With those words, journalist and scholar Charles E. Cobb Jr. kicked off his keynote address Friday to the national Free Minds Free People Conference in Houston, which took place at the city's convention center from June 25 to 28. The gathering drew a diverse crowd of about 400 U.S. teachers, high school and college students, researchers, parents, and community-based activists/educators build a movement developing and promoting education for liberation by engaging youth of color and low-income youth in the fight for social justice.

The second Free Minds conference, with the first taking place in Chicago in 2007, this year's event was organized by Houston's S.H.A.P.E. Community Center, The Brotherhood/Sister Sol of New York, Chicago Freedom School and the Education for Liberation Network. [Read Full Article]

Free Minds Free People Conference Highlights from the Houston Indymedia Radio Show

Recently, members of Rochester Indymedia sat in on the latest iteration of Tyquan Rivera's court case. We were moved to witness this process because of the disturbing imbalance in the corporate media coverage of the proceedings we'd seen thus far. We found the experience to be a strange brew of truth being lost between the lines of the prosecution’s witness testimonies mixed up with absurdly dysfunctional, if not incompetent, corporate media behavior. We'd like to share some of our observations that day with our Indymedia readers.

June 11, 2009—Tyquan Rivera was in Judge Joseph Valentino’s Supreme Court for a pretrial hearing regarding testimony from witnesses who saw Rivera near the scene of the shooting of Rochester police officer Anthony DiPonzio on January 31, 2009, or knew him before the shooting. Rivera, 15-years-old, was charged earlier this year with attempted murder in the second degree and assault in the first degree. If convicted, Rivera could be imprisoned for up to 10 years. By virtue of being 14-years-old when the shooting occurred, he was spared being tried as an adult. District Attorney Mike Green was arguing the case for the state; Defense Attorney Culver Bar was present to represent Rivera... Read More

Additional Information: Digging for Truth in the Tyquan Rivera Case | Let’s Not Retreat into Cocoons of Expedient Simplicity and Pretentiousness | | | Audio: Eye-witness account of police brutality before Tyquan Rivera allegedly shot into police as read on WDKX on February 4th, 2009 | | | Related: AARM Holds Second Event on the Media and Racism | Racism and the Media Community Discussion a Success | Facts about Juvenile Injustice | Rally Against Gang Enhancements and the Overcriminalization of Youth

In response to the disastrous cuts to the LAUSD budget, community members have taken a number of actions in opposition and protest.

A roving campout of hunger-striking teachers, eager to add their life experience to their in-class pedagogy, along with their supporters, traveled from campus to campus. They eventually set up in front of the downtown district office, where they were visited by veteran activist Dolores Huerta.

High school students walked out of class and marched to neighboring schools and to the LAUSD office, where some engaged in direct action at a board meeting.

After nearly a month, the teachers broke their fast in front of Supertintendent Cortines' house. While the teachers have ended their strike, the dancers of Danza Cuauhtémoc have take it up, and are currently camped in front of the LAUSD office. The danzantes, who are present at almost every march, rally, and action that occurs in the Los Angeles area, normally give willingly of their feet, voices, and talent to provide their blessing. But this time, inspired by the teachers and impressed with the urgency of the situation, they have taken the extra step of sacrificing their own bodies as well. [ Read Full Reports with Pics From Newswire ]

On Wednesday, June 17th, from 8-10am, the newly formed Alliance Against Gang Enhancements will rally on the steps of the Santa Cruz County Courthouse to educate the public about the realities of gang enhanced sentences. Organizers say the sentencing "enhancements" [sic] broadly criminalize youth and do not deter future gang crimes. Rather, they result in huge costs passed on to taxpayers and overcriminalize youth in marginalized communities.

Unsatisfied with the short-term victory gained from the previous rally on May 28th, over two hundred enraged custodians at UW continued to escalate the fight alongside students today to retain their nightshift jobs by directly confronting the Assistant Vice President of Facilities Services, Charles Kennedy, who administers Custodial Services.

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’ keynote address at the University of Washington met resistance, as students and community members objected to his record as a war criminal.

Students and activists protested the appearance of Robert Gates at The University of Washington's graduation ceremony. Gates, who served as C.I.A. director under Papa Bush, has served as Defense Secretary under Baby Bush and Obama. Gates was awarded an honorary UW Doctor of Laws degree for authorizing torture delivering the commencement speech. Read More & Pics | VIDEO

Related: UW Custodians Continue to Fight On-Campus Abuse

On Saturday morning June 6, 2009 the University of Houston Students for Fair Trade (SFT) did a house protest at Emily Messa's house in Clear Lake, TX which is a suburb of Houston. Messa is the Assistant Vice President for University Services, but another title she goes under is the asst. VP for finance and administration. This means she facilitates all the contracts at the university. About 20 people, mostly students, gathered to speak truth to power. At one point there were seven police cars. The police did not do anything though because we had a sound permit and were just exercising our first amendment rights.

Recently we've asked the administration to make our campus an all fair trade campus. That means as many as possible products such as sugar, fruit, coffee, tea and others sold on our campus should be certified fair trade by third party independent Transfair USA.

Our other request is that they pay the Aramark food service workers on our campus $10 to $11 an hour to come in line with the City of Houston 2008 contract with its 13,000 employees. See: article from AFSCME.org | full article with photos and video

For several months, the Rochester City School District has been considering changing it's policy to not send student information to military recruiters unless parents explicitly consent to it being sent out. The board has discussed the issue at several meetings, with no clear consensus - although virtually every speaker from the community has opposed changing the policy (reportback #1, reportback #2).

Activists have been heavily organizing to keep the current policy that protects students. On Wednesday, they organized a Teach-in build skills and hone strategies for protecting privacy. They followed that up by showing up in force at Thursday's school board meeting to oppose changes to the current policy, joining an even larger force of community opposition to teacher lay-offs. Mary Adams gives a reportback on the board's discussion of the policy change.

On May 28th, students, staff, workers, and faculty rallied at the base of the UC Santa Cruz campus to protest the UC administration's decision to cut Community Studies department staff, Latin American Latina/o Studies professors, and director positions at the American Indian Resource Center and the Women's Center. The rally was organized by the New UC, a coalition that seeks to save quality of education in the UC from regressive, belt-tightening attacks, to ensure universal access to education, and to promote freedom of thought in the university.

The Rock n' Roll On the Knoll Benefit Concert scheduled to occur on the UC Santa Cruz campus on Sunday, May 17th has been canceled. This was announced with very short notice on the afternoon of May 14th. Apparently, UCSC had to export some of it's police force to a graduation ceremony at UC Merced where Mrs. Obama will be speaking.

The Santa Cruz County Task Force for LGBTIQ Youth presents the 12th Annual Queer Youth Leadership Awards on Saturday, May 16th at Scotts Valley High School. There will be a community resource fair at 5:00pm, dinner beginning at 5:30pm, and the Awards Ceremony beginning at 7:00pm. A community dance with DJ Eko follows the show.

On Wednesday, April 29, UC Berkeley Police, apparently acting on behalf of ICE and introducing themselves as ICE agents, arrested Jesus Gutierrez, a worker at the Clark Kerr Campus Dining Commons and a union activist in AFSCME Local 3299. Acting on information alleging that Gutierrez was using false papers to work at UC Berkeley, the UCPD charged him with identity fraud. Gutierrez has been placed under ICE immigration hold as he sits in Santa Rita Jail. On Wednesday, May 13, a rally and a march will be held at at Sproul Plaza, UC-Berkeley, to demand the release of Jesús Gutiérrez from ICE custody.

Gutierrez is suspected of no crime apart from the allegation of working using false identification. He is currently charged with felony identity fraud, a charge that is reserved for people who use identity information to steal money.

In a statement, Ronald Cruz, a member of BAMN, writes, “There is a strong likelihood this is an effort by UC Berkeley to intimidate organized labor. Jesus was a rank-and-file union activist in AFSCME Local 3299, which just had a strong one-week strike in summer 2008 and won a contract that includes language requiring ICE to contact AFSCME before arresting a worker. Surprisingly, the arrest has come from UC Berkeley itself.” Read more

ICE kidnaps UC Berkeley employee | Berkeley Protests ICE Raids | AFSCME Strike Postponed -- What's Next?

On Friday, May 1st, a group of staff, students, and faculty held two rallies at Vassar College. We were loud. We were disruptive. For the first time in years students and faculty at Vassar are standing in solidarity with staff with more than just words.

Former Secretary of State Rice Assailed by Students, Faculty, Former Students at Stanford

After a 10-year hiatus, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is back at Stanford University. Rice has said she's ready for spirited debate, but she was recently caught on video being cornered by a student who demanded that she explain her role in authorizing torture. This week about 150 veterans of the fight 40 years ago to dislodge Stanford University from the War in Vietnam, called on Stanford to sever relations with the former Provost.