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June 13, 2013
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Education
More than 100 members of the Dignity in Schools Campaign-New York (DSC-NY), a coalition of students, parents, teachers and education advocates, attended the Department of Education (DOE) public hearing on the Discipline Code on June 6. They demanded changes that would limit the use of suspensions and require that schools use more effective alternatives, such as peer mediation and restoration justice. Keep reading »
June 11, 2013
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Food
The 2013 Farm Bill, which sets the course for U.S. agricultural and food policy, including the future of the country's food assistance programs, was voted on in the Senate yesterday and will be voted on in the House later this month. The version of the bill passed by the Senate includes alarming cuts to SNAP, which stands for Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, and is commonly known as... Keep reading »
June 10, 2013
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Education
A chant of "solutions not suspensions" echoed through the Stuyvesant High School auditorium on Thursday evening, where a crowd largely made up of youth leaders assembled for the Department of Education's annual hearing on the Discipline Code. Keep reading »
June 4, 2013
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Education
DSC member organization Portland Parent Union successfully pushed for the passage of a bill to reform school discipline and roll back 'zero-tolerance' policies in Oregon. On May 21, 2013, the Oregon legislature passed HB 2192-B, removing mandatory expulsion requirements from the state's school discipline statute. The new legislation will go into effect in July 2014. Keep reading »
June 2, 2013
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Housing
The New York Times Magazine cover story today is an article by Ben Austen focused on the Chicago Anti-Eviction Campaign (CAEC), a group that, in the words of its co-founder Willie Fleming (a.k.a. J. R.), moves "home-less people into people-less homes." The article chronicles how the CAEC liberated twenty foreclosed homes for use by people who really need them, and its hopes to... Keep reading »
May 30, 2013
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Education
Today the New York Times wrote a welcome editorial affirming the findings of the NYC School-Justice Partnership Task Force which calls for a mayoral-led initiative to reduce suspensions and school-based arrests and summonses. I have had the privilege of sitting on this Task Force ably guided by Judge Judith Kaye and supported by Advocates for Children. As the Task Force noted at an event to release... Keep reading »
May 23, 2013
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Housing
Starting Monday May 20, 2013, over 100 protesters gathered outside of the Department of Justice headquarters in Washington D.C. This protest, organized by Occupy Our Homes along with a collection of community organizations, like the Home Defenders League as well as evicted homeowners, was centered on demands that the Obama Administration, especially Attorney General Eric Holder, Keep reading »
May 3, 2013
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Economic and Social Rights
Today the New York Times reported that suicide has increased dramatically among middle-aged people in the United States, with disproportionately more men killing themselves. The article raised the question whether it was economic distress that was driving our people to kill themselves in larger numbers. The likely answer depends very much on how you define economic distress and the... Keep reading »
May 3, 2013
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Work with Dignity
In the last 15 years, the modern UN Human Rights system has been forging an evolving consensus around the human rights obligations of private actors. Last year, the UN adopted Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, and launched a working group . That group culminated its first U.S. trip on May 1st by holding a press conference and issuing a statement. While the... Keep reading »
April 28, 2013
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Work with Dignity
“There is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquillizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy.” –Martin Luther King Jr. Keep reading »
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