The Nation

Students protest George W. Bush’s humanitarian award in Denver. (Credit: COSPA)

E-mail questions, tips or proposals to studentmovement@thenation.com. For earlier dispatches on student and youth organizing, check out the previous post. Edited by James Cersonsky (@cersonsky).

1. Amid Rising Pressure, Sallie Mae Quits ALEC

After months of pressure from Jobs with Justice, the US Student Association and the Student Labor Action Project, Sallie Mae has quit the American Legislative Exchange Council—the fiftieth corporation to do so. At Sallie Mae’s shareholder meeting in May, more than 150 students and teachers turned out to voice concerns about Sallie Mae’s predatory lending. In partnership with the Responsible Endowments Coalition, Jobs with Justice worked to have several students and activists present a shareholder resolution inside the meeting calling for Sallie Mae to disclose its lobbying practices and end ties with ALEC. Following the shareholder meeting, students and recent graduates from across the country sat down with Sallie Mae’s CEO, Jack Remondi, and demanded Sallie Mae leave ALEC in June. After being denied, students continued to build pressure and collected nearly 15,000 petition signatures before ALEC’s fortieth-anniversary conference. Now with ALEC out of the equation, students will redouble efforts to pressure Sallie Mae to end its predatory practices and provide debt relief for struggling borrowers.

—Chris Hicks

2. In the Wake of Moral Mondays, Students Launch Voter Defense

Less than six weeks after North Carolina passed the most severe voter suppression laws in the country, right-wing activists gathered in the town of Morrisville for a “Voter Integrity Boot Camp” to continue to battle the alleged specter of rampant voter fraud. Attendees learned all about this nonexistent problem from experts, many of whom were employed by Art Pope–funded think tanks and Heritage Action NC. While the provisions of the law that require all NC voters to have a state-issued ID—state-issued school IDs don’t count—doesn’t take effect until the end of 2014, what will be in effect starting in January is a new provision that allows anyone the ability to challenge another’s vote when they show up at their precinct. In response, students launched the NC Vote Defenders Project, a youth-led effort to train peers to be Precinct Defenders. While plugging into existing efforts, such as the Election Protection hotline, activists will monitor key precincts, give out information about voting rights at the polls and help those who run into trouble advocate for themselves, seek remedy and thoroughly document any incidents.

—NC Vote Defender Project

3. Denver v. Bush

On September 9, more than 100 students, alumni and faculty from the University of Denver rallied against the university’s decision to grant the “Global Service Award” to former president George W. Bush—disregarding 1,600 petition signatures and months of pushback. Created and granted by Dean Christopher Hill of DU’s Josef Korbel School of International Studies, who served under Bush as ambassador to Iraq, the award was originally named the “Improving the Human Condition Award,” a title that sparked outrage among the university’s community and was changed in response. Even after two-thirds of the Korbel faculty signed a letter opposing any award given to Bush and students collected more than twenty nominations for alternative recipients, Dean Hill moved forward. Korbel students and members of the Colorado Student Power Alliance responded by organizing a protest and press conference outside of the award ceremony in Denver. Alumni have also organized a boycott campaign, known as “Not A Dime!” to discourage Korbel graduates from donating to the school until their “Restore Integrity to Korbel” Committee’s platform is adopted. While an evangelical Christian university in Canada cancelled an appearance from Bush in response to campus protest the same week as the DU protest, the DU and Korbel administrations have yet to respond.

—Roshan Bliss

4. CUNY v. Petraeus

In response to the militarization of the City University of New York, students, professors and faculty members are organizing actions to protest the renewed presence of the Reserve Officer Training Corps and the hiring of former CIA director and army general David Petraeus to the Macaulay Honors College. The ROTC was ousted from CUNY in 1971; the administration’s decision to invite it back parallels declining economic opportunity among working class students. The ROTC is currently targeting institutions like Medgar Evars, City College, York College and the College of Staten Island—campuses with some of the highest numbers of people of color, who are traditionally targeted to fight in wars and staff military operations throughout the world. Meanwhile, at a protest outside his first class, students chanted “David Death Squad Patreaus, out of CUNY!” By confronting war criminal David Petraeus, students voiced resentment toward his involvement with the illegal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which have taken thousands of lives. Students are committed to organizing weekly actions outside Petraeus’s class and protesting the ROTC’s presence at CUNY.

—Sharmin Hossain

5. UC v. Napolitano

Since Janet Napolitano was appointed president of the University of California this summer, students across the state have been organizing for her removal. Students at UC-Irvine and, conditionally, at UC-Berkeley have passed votes of no confidence on the grounds that she has no experience in education and is a threat to the safety of undocumented students. As a leader in education, UC’s decision to hire Napolitano, former secretary of homeland security, is a clear example of the university’s direction: privatization. Through Napolitano’s networks and contacts, UC will now be at the vanguard of developing surveillance technology, drifting further toward private partnerships and away from comprehensive, accessible education. Moreover, as the person charged with the largest deportation program in US history, Napolitano’s appointment creates a hostile environment for undocumented students and their allies. The UAW Local 2865, which represents graduate students in the UC system, demands that the Board of Regents retract this hire and stand with students for access to a safe campus climate.

—Mar Velez

6. In Long Beach, Students Resist 200 Percent Hikes

On September 3, students from Long Beach City College took to the streets to protest AB 955, which would allow six California community colleges to increase tuition up to 200 percent for some classes during the summer and winter course periods. More than 600 students have petitioned in opposition to the bill, which is supported by Eloy Oakley, president of the college. If signed by Governor Brown, the bill would create a two-tiered fee system which limits access for students who can’t afford higher costs. The pretext of the bill is that it will provide funding to increase the number of classes during these periods; but with Proposition 30, which increased taxes to create more revenues for education, the volume of classes in the California community colleges has already increased. While putting pressure on the governor to veto the bill, students are planning a protest during the LBCC Board of Trustees meeting on September 24.

—Andrea Donado

7. In New Haven, the Movement for Survivor Justice Spreads

On September 10, more than 100 students rallied at South Connecticut State University to protest the retention of Professor David Chevan after he sexually harassed a student. In 2011, Wendy Wyler reported this harassment to SCSU, which discouraged her report. SCSU now faces a private lawsuit under Title IX for how it handled the report despite ultimately finding Chevan in violation of its sexual harassment policy. While Chevan has received a minor suspension, the rally and an online petition underscore community outrage over his continued employment. The protests match nationwide activism to enforce Title IX. Swarthmore, the University of North Carolina, Dartmouth and the University of Southern California face Title IX complaints made to the US Department of Education, which is under pressure by #EdActNow to better enforce Title IX. SCSU students will continue to take action until Chevan is removed.

—SurvJustice and Promoting Awareness, Victim Empowerment

8. Citywide Disorientation

StudentBlocNYC, a coalition of student activists from NYC colleges and universities, emerged from an education-focused contingent organizing in solidarity with labor rights groups on May Day 2013. Energized by the free university and citywide convergence on May Day, activists from public and private universities developed a disorientation campaign over the summer, including a citywide disorientation zine and an Agitate! Educate! convergence in Washington Square Park on September 14 to supplement campus-specific campaigns. StudentBlocNYC will continue to create space to coordinate actions, share resources and build both citywide and campus campaigns for New York student activists. Our aim is to critique, unravel and reimagine our college communities; to build solidarity with one another; and to document and discuss dissent, resistance and change.

—StudentBlocNYC

9. Southern Strategy

Students across Virginia, from Richmond to Fairfax to Blacksburg, are organizing the first-ever Virginia Student Power Convergence on October 5 and 6 in Charlottesville. Coming out of the National Student Power Convergence this August in Madison, Wisconsin, a group of attendees from Virginia decided to bring the grassroots model to their own state, which ranks fortieth in the nation for state and local appropriations spent on higher education, faces a watershed governor’s race this fall and currently lacks any coordinated student organizing framework. At the convergence, students will hear from longtime Virginia organizers, deepen their organizing skills and strategize across campuses for statewide action. Organizers from other statewide student organizations, including the North Carolina Student Power Union and the Ohio Student Association, will share lessons from their own successful efforts organizing across campuses. Building from the convergence, the burgeoning Virginia Student Power Network plans to organize against the corporatizing forces that are making Virginia education less affordable, accessible, diverse and democratic and to build youth power around issues of social, racial, economic and environmental justice.

—Claire Wyatt

10. Who’s Next for Labor?

Being at the AFL-CIO convention made it clear to me that our more seasoned peers see what I have seen organizing young workers in Boston: that young workers are a powerful force in the fight for social and economic justice. Between the passage of a young worker resolution recognizing our importance at all levels of the labor movement, a “Hunt for Justice” for young workers, where we stood up for carwash workers while learning about labor history and organizing efforts in Los Angeles, and a special action session, young workers were prominent at the convention. The work ahead is to translate this energy into action. Just as the Dancers Alliance figured out how to organize their young membership, all the young worker groups in the AFL-CIO, from Next Up chapters in different cities to union caucuses like AFSCME’s Next Wave, are working on the same.

—Rosa Blumenfeld

Larry Summers (Reuters/Jason Reed)

When it became clear that members of President Obama’s own party would not support a nomination of Larry Summers to serve as the next chairman of the Federal Reserve, something—or someone—had to give.

On Sunday, Summers gave up.

The former Treasury secretary, whose Clinton-era assaults on Glass-Steagall protections and opposition to the regulation of derivatives were blamed by critics for weakening safeguards against financial turbulence, withdrew his name from consideration for Fed’s top job.

Remarkably, the decision came exactly five years after the financial meltdown of September 2008.

Progressive critics of Summers had argued for months that he was not the right candidate to tame the big banks—or to address the fundamental challenges facing the US economy.

But Obama continued to consider the man who served as his director of the National Economic Council.

Now the president must find another nominee.

Obama is said to be considering several candidates. With Summers out, speculation will focus on the possibility that Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Janet Yellen, who has drawn significant support from key Democratic senators, may be chosen to replace outgoing Federal Reserve chair Ben Bernanke. But former Fed vice chairman Don Kohn is also thought to be in the running. And the president could consider others.

Obama does not have a lot of time, however. The selection must come before Bernanke is set to exit early next year.

The Summers withdrawal was a shocker. But it came for a reason.

Though he had friends in the White House, Summers faced mounting opposition from Democrats in the Senate and from grassroots progressive groups. The prospective nominee was criticized by women’s organizations for controversial statements made during his tenure as president of Harvard. He was criticized for revolving-door Wall Street ties. And in the most dramatic show of anti-Summers sentiment, key Democratic senators began to signal in recent days that they could not confirm a man who has so frequently opposed needed regulation of the financial sector of the US economy.

“The truth is that it was unlikely he would have been confirmed by the Senate,” said Senator Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent who caucuses with the Democrats. “What the American people want now is a Fed chairman prepared to stand up to the greed, recklessness and illegal behavior on Wall Street, not a Wall Street insider whose deregulation efforts helped pave the way for a horrendous financial crisis and the worst economic downturn in the country since the Great Depression.”

Sanders has long argued that the Senate should get more serious about checking and balancing the Federal Reserve.

The Fed is a staggeringly powerful institution, with the resources and influence to define the direction of the US economy, the character of the nation’s “too-big-to-fail” banks and the extent to which unemployment issues are addressed.

Unfortunately, the Fed has a long history of serving Wall Street while neglecting the rest of the country. Be they Democrats or Republicans, be they theorists or doers, past Fed chairs have tended to embrace the thinking of the free-market fundamentalists and free-trade absolutists who have created an economy characterized by declining wages and expanding income inequality.

The trouble is that, as Franklin Delano Roosevelt explained almost eighty years ago, “We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; we know now that it is bad economics.”

At an uncertain moment for the economy of the United States, and more importantly for the great mass of citizens whose depend on that economy, the choice of a new Fed chair took on a higher degree of significance in the eyes of senators from both parties. So critical, for so many Americans, that at least some Democrats began placing principle before party loyalty.

That’s why, as the speculation rose about the prospect that President Obama would select Summers, Democratic senators started announcing that they would vote with Republican critics of the administration to block confirmation of Summers.

As with Supreme Court nominations, nominations to chair the Fed must be confirmed by the Senate. That might not be a problem for many prospective nominees, even in a filibuster-frenzied Capitol. But when a significant number of populist Democrats indicated they would oppose Summers, prospects for getting from nomination to confirmation started to look tougher.

The objections expressed by key Democrats had historical and contemporary roots:

• During Bill Clinton’s second term, Summers worked with then–Fed chair Alan Greenspan and then–Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin to block moves by Brooksley Born, who headed the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, to regulate the derivatives market. When that market began to deal in to include the toxic instruments that led to the 2008 financial market crisis.

• A year later, Summers led the fight to gut Glass-Steagall rules, which had provided an additional measure of protection against bank meltdowns.

• Early in Obama’s presidency, Summers resisted sufficient stimulus spending to jump-start the economy.

• Summers has always been a militant free-trade advocate, and he showed little interest in efforts to renew American manufacturing.

• Summers’s tenure at Harvard has remained a subject of clear controversy, with serious objections being raised with regard to his statements about women. The National Organization for Women complained about “Summers’ own history of misogyny—as president of Harvard he opined that women might lack an ‘intrinsic aptitude’ for science and engineering.”

“In short, Summers is simply the wrong person, male or female, to lead the Fed,” argued NOW.

Like many progressive organizations, NOW expressed discomfort with the approach Summers has taken to core economic questions. “Summers’ deregulatory zeal contributed directly to the Bush-era economic crash. Summers cannot be trusted to lead an institution that can do great good—but also great harm—to the economy overall and to women’s economic security in particular,” read a NOW action alert urging support for Yellen.

Progressive and populist Democrats who were in positions to do something about a possible Summers nomination shared the popular concern that the former Treasury secretary simply had not shown an inclination to steer the fed toward policies that are beneficial to the great mass of working Americans.

A key objection was that Summers defaults toward approaches that simply have not worked.

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“I start from a position of being extraordinarily skeptical that his background is appropriate for the role of the head of the Fed,” said Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley, a Democrat on the Banking Committee. “If you nominate someone who is a life-committed deregulator to be in a regulatory position and if you believe regulation is necessary to prevent fraud, abuse, manipulation and so forth, then there’s a lot of questions to be asked: Why is this person appropriate?”

If a Summers nomination were to come to the Banking Committee, it was expected that Merkley would vote “no.”

Montana Senator Jon Tester, a Democratic committee member, emerged last week as a definite “no.” His office announced that “Senator Tester believes we need a consensus builder to lead the Federal Reserve. He’s concerned about Mr. Summers’ history of helping to deregulate financial markets.”

Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown, a Banking Committee Democrat who circulated a letter praising Yellen and urging the White House to consider nominating her, was also expected to vote “no.” Brown said that his letter—which attracted signatures from top Senate Democrats such as Illinois Senator Dick Durbin and California Senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer—was pro-Yellen, rather than anti-Summers. “But,” he added, “there is obviously a lot of opposition here to Summers.”

That counted up to three probable “no” votes on a committee where the Democrats have only a two-seat advantage over the Republicans. Some Republicans were likely Summers backers, however. That prospect turned attention toward Senator Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts, a committee member who reportedly told the administration that she had “serious concerns” about the prospect of a Summers nomination.

In August, Warren and Sanders circulated a letter that raised questions for whoever is nominated to chair the Fed.

Sanders and Warren argued that “the next Fed chair will have an opportunity to get our economy back on track and to help rebuild America’s middle class. But that will require the right temperament and a willingness to take on Wall Street CEOs when necessary. It is critical that the next Fed chair make a genuine, long-term commitment to supporting those who don’t have armies of lobbyists and lawyers to advance their interests in Washington—working and middle-class families.”

To test that commitment, the senators asked:

1. Do you believe that the Fed’s top priority should be to fulfill its full employment mandate?

2. If you were to be confirmed as chair of the Fed, would you work to break up “too-big-to-fail” financial institutions so that they could no longer pose a catastrophic risk to the economy?

3. Do you believe that the deregulation of Wall Street, including the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act and exempting derivatives from regulation, significantly contributed to the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression?

4. What would you do to divert the $2 trillion in excess reserves that financial institutions have parked at the Fed into more productive purposes, such as helping small- and medium-sized businesses create jobs?

These were (and remain) questions, especially for Summers—who presumably did not to wantr to wrestle with the “repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act” issue raised in Question 3.

He will not have to do so. But it should now be clear that whoever is nominated to replace Bernanke will have to take seriously not just those particular questions but the greater concern about whether the Fed will serve Wall Street or Main Street.

Take Action: Tell President Obama to Break Up the Old Boys’ Club and Appoint Janet Yellen

John Nichols lends advice to the next head of the Fed.

Secretary of State John Kerry waits to testify on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2013, before the House Armed Services Committee hearing on Syria on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

Ever since Secretary of State John Kerry seemed to stumble into a diplomatic way out of the Syrian chemical weapons crisis, the media have had trouble deciding which cliché best describes his persona.

Is he a droning bore or a Biden-league gaffe machine? A Mr. Magoo, safely bumbling through dire dangers, or a shrewd strategist secretly in full control of the situation, his foot-in-mouth moments actually clever feints in the world’s largest poker game?

And depending on how the Syrian situation is resolved, they’ll be asking, Is he (like his boss) a world-class chump or champ?

However the diplomacy works out—Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov are talking in Geneva as Putin preens and Assad makes dead-end demands—you gotta give Kerry credit for getting the ball rolling. The Syrian crisis changed, literally overnight, when CBS reporter Margaret Brennan asked him at a London press conference on Monday if there was anything Assad “could do or offer that would stop [a US military] attack?” “Sure,” Kerry said, as we all now know. “He could turn over every single bit of his chemical weapons to the international community in the next week. Turn it over, all of it, without delay, and allow a full and total accounting for that. But he isn’t about to do it, and it can’t be done, obviously.”

The State Department walked that back, saying Kerry was merely “making a rhetorical argument.” So most media decided that his suggestion was just another gaffe—after all, he had just given them a real flub to snark at, his idiotic promise that any US strike on Syria would be “unbelievably small.” (Obama had to walk that back, saying, “The US does not do pinpricks.”)

But then of course Putin and Assad took Kerry up on the offer, more or less. As difficult as it will be to reach, much less enforce, an international plan to secure and destroy Syria’s chemical arsenal, the whole world sighed in relief. And Kerry-to-the-rescue surprised everyone.

Including himself, according to Andy Borowitz, who “quotes” Kerry saying:

“Whether as a senator, a Presidential candidate, or Secretary of State, I’ve devoted countless hours to thunderous and droning speeches that people have consistently tuned out,” he said. “So naturally, to be listened to all of a sudden came as something of a shock.”

Even after Russia jumped at Kerry’s proposal, most media continued to portray it as a faux pas. Maureen Dowd sniped, “The bumbling approach climaxed with two off-the-cuff remarks by Kerry.” Jon Stewart said Kerry’s “ill-thought-out hypothetical statement” was an act “of Magoo-esque accidental genius,” while Joe Scarborough called the whole thing “Mr. Magoo’s foreign policy.”

More biting, Andrew Sullivan scoffed that, “Kerry, who is already doing a huge amount to make Hillary Clinton’s tenure at Foggy Bottom look magisterial, winged it,” adding, “Sometimes, it seems, Kerry’s incompetence strikes gold.” (After Obama’s Tuesday night speech on Syria, Sullivan went back to favoring the president with a “meep meep,” as one reader complained he’d “gone from slamming Obama for being imperial, idealistic, bloodthirsty, foolhardy…to praising him for his subtlety, nuance, willingness to listen, and so on.” Sullivan hasn’t, however, extended the hosannas to Kerry.)

But as it turned out, Kerry’s statement wasn’t a gaffe or ill thought-out, and he didn’t entirely wing it. “This wasn’t an accident,” a top White House official told The Huffington Post.

In fact, as the Times reported, Obama had raised the idea of securing Syria’s chemical weapons with Putin as far back as June 2012, at the G-20 summit in Mexico. In May of this year, Kerry discussed it with Putin, who asked him to work on the issue with foreign minister Lavrov; Lavrov and Kerry spoke more frequently after the August 21 sarin gas attack that killed some 1400 Syrians outside of Damascus. And before committing his “gaffe,” Kerry was briefed on Putin and Obama’s conversation at the G-20 summit last week about how Syria might prevent US air strikes by surrendering its chemical stockpiles. That conversation was “more constructive than previous conversations on this subject,” an administration official told the Times. “But there was not yet an indication that this could be ripe enough for immediate action.”

Kerry made it ripe, and Putin plucked it off the tree. Whether Kerry intended to make the proposal public when he did is less important than that he consciously (not Magoo-like) let it leave his lips—unlike Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, who when asked a nearly identical question by NPR two weeks ago, dodged the question (saying, “I don’t speculate on hypothetical situations”). Kerry, purposely, didn’t dodge.

So was this all planned out, Kerry’s words less slips than tricks-of-the-tongue, long-game moves to throw off foes from Fox News to Vladimir and Bashar? Maybe Kerry isn’t a doofus or a Magoo but a Machiavelli.

Of course, Kerry, like most people, can’t be so neatly packaged. What comes out of his mouth is the result of intention and impulse, foresight and blind spots. Let’s give him props, much as we did Joe Biden for revealing, apparently without White House approval, that Obama supported gay marriage—a revelation that, contrary to fears it would cost him votes in the 2012 election, helped set off waves of equal-marriage legislation and court decisions.

Obama critics can’t stop complaining that his Syria policies don’t follow a straight line. But with luck, the administration’s zig-zagging will lead to a Cuban missile crisis–like solution—achieved back then through a much messier process than the smooth version John and Robert Kennedy presented to the public.

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Howard Fineman had it right, likening “America’s ever-evolving policy on Syria” to “Middle Eastern bazaars" where "it’s easy to get lost, haggling is the order of the day, and things are never quite what they seem.”

The way media gravitate toward either/or clichés parallels the either/or choices they’ve tended to present on Syria: either attack militarily or do nothing.

But now an idea has expanded the world’s imagination, making it thinkable that we’re not stuck between two untenable choices. We’ve crossed a blue line and discovered this third thing, diplomacy, which until this week was dismissed as unworkable. And whatever happens, it will be that much harder to go back to seeing this crisis, and maybe future ones, in blinding two dimensions.

Read John Nichols on Obama's decision to pursue a more dipolomatic path in regards to Syria. 

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On this week’s Moyers & Company, Dave Zirin, sports editor for The Nation—the magazine’s first sports editor in the publication’s 148-year history—joins Bill Moyers to talk about the collision of sports and politics.

— Andrés Pertierra