The right has been generously funding conservative student activists for years. On the other side, the Davis-Putter Scholarship Fund is currently taking applications for grants for progressive student activists for the 2007-08 academic year. These need-based scholarships are awarded to both full-time undergraduate and graduate students actively working for peace and justice.

The maximum grant is $8,000 and awards may be considerably smaller depending on the applicant’s circumstances and the funding available. There are 25 to 30 grants awarded each year with all funds come from individual donors. Grants are for one year although students may re-apply for subsequent funding. The deadline for applying is April 1.

Created in 1961, the Fund was originally established as the Marian Davis Scholarship Fund, a memorial to a teacher and outspoken advocate for racial justice and the rights of labor who died of breast cancer in 1960. While raising her family, she was also at home in the classroom, on the picket line, or in a jail cell. Marian’s husband, Horace B. Davis, organized the Fund as a tribute to a talented teacher, loved by her students, who was persecuted for her work for peace and freedom.

Recent grantees have been active in the struggle against racism, sexism and homophobia; in building the movement for economic justice; and in working toward peace through international anti-imperialist solidarity.

If you’re a student, click here for info on how to apply.

If you’re not a student but want to join Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky, Grace Paley, Pete Seeger and Bernice Johnson Reagon in supporting the Davis-Putter Fund, click here. All funds come from the contributions of individual donors — there is no endowment. The Fund depends entirely on the generosity of sympathetic individuals to support a new generation of progressive students.