After an influx of revealing stories submitted by students who have been abused and traumatized by Greek organizations and their members at USC, it has come to the attention of USC's student body that these organizations are doing much more harm than good to our community. A recent study has grounded these perspectives in data, and those involved and uninvolved in Greek life at USC have shown us that empty promises and reforms are no longer tolerable. College is an introduction to adult life for many students, and Greek life acts as a precedent for how students should behave socially after they finish their time at USC. The normalization of sexual assault, white supremacist ideals, and gender or sexuality-based discrimination have no place in our students' first steps towards adult independence. The world around us is progressing rapidly, but by choosing not to stand with the abolishment of IFC and Panhellenic Greek organizations, USC will be left behind in social evolution.

The NRSC has taken hundreds of thousands from Occidental/Anadarko Petroleum, the company responsible for the 2017 Firestone home explosion. The claim that Gov. John Hickenlooper did not levy a fine against Anadarko is false. An 18M fine was levied against Anadarko after a nearly three-year investigation into the tragedy initiated by Hickenlooper's administration. The NRSC is using donations from Occidental/Anadarko to finance an ad making false claims about the response to the Firestone home explosion over the objections of the survivor of the tragedy. This almost incomprehensible act of hypocrisy and malice toward the victims of negligence by the oil and gas industry cannot be allowed to stand. The NRSC must take this ad down and apologize to Erin Martinez.

Emergency Action Needed NOW! Please sign my petition and share it with your networks. But don't stop there. Call, tweet at, fax, and email PA state legislators to tell them to vote NO to HB732. Here's the background. Are you angry when you read the stories about corporations getting all the stimulus cash while the people struggle to put food on their tables and avoid eviction? A version of it is about to happen here in PA, but you can stop it. On Monday morning, the Senate will amend HB732 to include the provisions of a bill Wolf vetoed, HB1100. The provisions give HUGE subsidies to companies planning projects like the Shell Cracker plant. If you get any email blasts from environmental organizations, you read about HB1100 when it was making its way through the legislature. You probably also read about how the environmental community thanked Wolf for his veto. It was all theater. Wolf used his veto as a bargaining chip to get some changes added to the legislation. At the time, he said, PA needed “to promote job creation and to enact financial stimulus packages for the benefit of Pennsylvanians who are hurting as they struggle with the substantial economic fallout of COVID-19.” He said the bill was not “responsible use of the Commonwealth’s limited resources." Here's what was really happening. Even as Wolf was threatening to veto the bill, Dennis Davin at the Department of Community and Economic Development was signalling that Wolf was willing to negotiate. "DCED Secretary Dennis Davin said at a February budget hearing that he didn’t think the bill needed to be dumped entirely, just that 'it could be developed a little differently.'” All of the terrible provisions of HB1100 are in the amendment to HB732 that will be introduced, voted on, and sent to the House for a concurrence vote on Monday morning without putting any of those provisions through the legislative process. Funny how fast the legislature can move when they're shafting you. Wouldn't it be great if they could work that fast to help you through this economic crisis? You tell your legislators that you're watching them and will have this vote front of mind when you're in the voting booth.

On campuses across the country—Maryland, Ohio State, Clemson, LSU, Kansas State, and more—dozens of student-athletes are testing positive for coronavirus as they begin training for Fall sports. It's becoming clear that in order to protect students and staff, Fall sports must be postponed. More and more college conferences and schools are postponing all Fall sports, and the NCAA needs to provide leadership to protect their students during this pandemic, instead of letting money drive their decision. The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) generated $867 million in 2019, but it can't put profits ahead of the safety of their student-athletes. The major conferences that make up the NCAA are making plans to get football players and other student-athletes back on the field to make sure money from its lucrative television and marketing deals isn't lost. This is dangerous to the players who will have to come in close contact with their teammates and opponents at a time when American professional sports are struggling to start-up. Two teams from Major League Soccer had to drop out due to COVID outbreaks among players and paid professional players are deciding to opt-out of NBA and MLB seasons because of concern for catching the coronavirus. The National Junior College Athletic Association is expected to move its Fall sports to the Spring this week, and last week, The Ivy League canceled Fall sports. Colleges like Morehouse have done the same, canceling Fall sports to protect their students. It's clear that postponing Fall sports is the only responsible decision to make. As the U.S. continues to grapple with a pandemic that doesn't respect city or state borders, the NCAA needs to do what's right and make sure college athletes aren't put at risk so that NCAA and their partners can make millions. SOURCES: "National Junior College Athletic Association expected to move football season to spring," July 12, 2020, ESPN espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/29452386/national-junior-college-athletic-association-expected-move-football-season-spring "Ivy League Places All Sports on Hold Until January," July 8, 2020, The New York Times nytimes.com/2020/07/08/sports/ncaafootball/ivy-league-fall-sports-football-coronavirus.html

Facebook has repeatedly refused to hold Donald Trump to any sort of standard on its platform. And as a result -- the company has given him a green light to sow discord with advertisements that contain deceptive, false, or misleading information. Trump is once again taking advantage of Facebook’s leniency. This time, he’s spreading harmful disinformation about voting. Trump’s re-election campaign has purchased over 500 Facebook ads that spread disproven claims about voter fraud. Facebook exempts politicians' ads, including Trump's, from any fact-checking. Even though Facebook claims it bans political ads that discourage people from voting, the platform has done nothing to stop the Trump campaign from publishing its harmful ads. Facebook profits off of these deliberately misleading ads, and we need to leverage the federal government to change their business model and protect our democracy. We must demand real accountability. Add your name to urge key oversight bodies to investigate Facebook -- and stop the company from profiting off of vote-suppressing ads.

Days after the WNBA announced it would take extraordinary steps to amplify the movement for Black Lives, U.S. Senator and co-owner of the WNBA's Atlanta Dream Kelly Loeffler, declared, "I adamantly oppose the Black Lives Matter political movement" and that we should "remove politics from sports." The WNBA announced that it would spotlight Breonna Taylor's name on jersey's, "Say Her Name" on warm-ups, and "Black Lives Matter" on its basketball courts. Sen. Loeffler, a major supporter of President Trump, criticized the league for taking a stand and said they should put an "American flag on every jersey" as a "common-sense" solution. Former and current WNBA stars Sheryl Swoopes, Skylar Diggins-Smith, Natasha Cloud, Alysha Clark, and Sue Bird have all called for Sen. Loeffler's removal as an owner from the league. Basketball icon Sheryl Swoopes tweeted, "WNBA MUST do better." She's absolutely right. We need to stand with the WNBA in their bold support of the Black Lives Matter movement, especially when a U.S. Senator is trying to intimidate the women's basketball league to fall in line with President Trump's racist view of BLM. SOURCE: "Dream co-owner Kelly Loeffler critical of WNBA's Black Lives Matter initiative," ESPN, July 7, 2020 https://www.espn.com/wnba/story/_/id/29424379/dream-co-owner-kelly-loeffler-critical-wnba-black-lives-matter-initiative

I am a young ballet dancer who has been dancing for about ten years. On stage and in competitions, I have seen a lot of people wearing pink tights even though it doesn't match their skin color and "breaks the line" of the dancer. Having a variety of skin tones in a large ballet wear company is very important, especially to increase diversity and make an inclusive ballet world. Tell Wear Moi to publicly support having more colors for flesh-toned tights and add more in their store and their website online.

As San Francisco residents, San Francisco General Hospital patients and staff, and other concerned citizens, we urge the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, SF City Attorney Dennis Herrera, and the San Francisco General Hospital Foundation to remove Mark Zuckerberg’s name from our city’s prestigious public hospital. Mark Zuckerberg’s failure to stop hate, lies, racism, and disinformation from running rampant on Facebook is counter to the values San Franciscans hold dear. He is being pressured to change Facebook’s policies by companies throughout the country that have stopped advertising on Facebook to #StopHateForProfit. San Francisco should support these efforts and remove any mention of Mark Zuckerberg’s name from San Francisco General Hospital until he takes real action to protect the public from lies, hate, and disinformation on the platform he founded.

The name of the Washington team is defined as racial slur going back to at least 1898 printing of Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. But the possibility of a name change is finally within view. American Indian people and tribes have repeatedly called on the team to change the name for decades. Despite a claim that the team name “honors” indigenous people, the name itself is derogatory and comes to front the practice of collecting a bounty for “red skins” or scalps of Native men, women, and children murdered as part of this country’s history of genocide. The traditions of the team and its fans also reveal the racist nature of the name. The team’s logo is a racist caricature and the team fight song calls the players “Braves on the Warpath!” all calling up stereotypes of Indian “savages.” And some of the fans of the Washington team take the continuation of the name as permission to dress in costumes mocking and imitating Native people. The team name, its logo, all of these traditions are dehumanizing and perpetuate racism. According to a new UC Berkeley study, • 65% of Native Youth 18-24 year-olds found the Washington team name offensive. • 57% of people who feel highly connected to being Native American are offended by the Washington NFL team name. • Native American mascots cause higher rates of depression, suicide ideation, self-harm, and substance abuse in Native youth, and increased discrimination in schools against Native students. It’s clear. It is time for the Washington NFL team to #ChangeTheName and end its racist images and practices.

Target has been positioning itself as a champion of its employees--getting public praise for supporting diversity and inclusion and increasing wages and benefits in response to the pandemic. But the truth is that those benefits leave out a shadow workforce of tens of thousands of people, many of whom are Black and Brown women, --who power Target's growing and profitable grocery delivery service, Shipt. Shipt has seen demand increase so much that the company has hired 100,000 people in the last few months to keep up, as the COVID-19 pandemic has fundamentally changed how people shop for groceries. Increasingly, consumers are relying on home delivery services, and home delivery service is a major reason that Target's revenue is up during the pandemic. But shoppers working for Shipt do not get the paid family and medical leave they need to care for a sick family member or recover from extended illness. Even for shoppers who get sick, Shipt only offers 50% sick pay for two weeks if they have a positive COVID-19 test or a mandatory quarantine order. Now, Shipt announced that they’re also cutting pay--in the middle of a pandemic. That’s why Shipt shoppers announced that on Wednesday, July 15, they’re going on strike. UltraViolet and PL+US (Paid Leave for the United States) are working together to demand that Target do better. If enough people speak up, we can pressure Target to ensure that Shipt shoppers get the same paid family and medical leave benefits that Target employees receive. Will you sign the petition?

It's not. In fact, it's one of the most frivolous ideas I've ever had. But it's 2020, and nothing has meaning anymore, so you might as well tip your hat to the late Bobby "Boris" Pickett and sell us Monster Mash cereal. You know we'll buy it.

The DAS extends police power to surveil nearly all New Yorkers 24/7. The system uses cameras, license plate readers, MTA trip data, and radiological sensors to create a real-time surveillance map of New York City. It also taps into private data feeds ranging from Wall Street banks’ security systems to private data brokers. Once the data is funneled into the DAS, it can be stored indefinitely. Even worse, NYC gets a sweet kickback commission from Microsoft any time another city or town buys the DAS technology. The DAS heightens the NYPD’s racist policing practice against BIPOC and immigrants. Not only can the DAS technology allow unconstitutional warrantless location tracking, it can also provide information for ICE to help deport people, too. We shouldn’t have to wait years for the Supreme Court to strike down the DAS. Microsoft should ditch it today. We’re calling on Microsoft to immediately end its partnership with the NYPD on the Domain Awareness System.