Response to a Wildcat article

The editorial from the Arizona Daily Wildcat featured a discussion on the recent results in the Maine election. An Arizona grad student, and member of Tucson Equality Movement, responds to the editors' critique with one of her own.

I agree with the authors that there is an uphill battle for the LGBTQ community to win equal rights. However, I am not surprised by the election, although it is clearly not the conclusion I wanted. Consider the statistics, as usual the Conservative Right had a decent turn out and voted consistently within the party line. The Democrats and left of centers did not have a sizeable turn out. Why exactly would that happen? Well why wouldn't it when there is no consistent, outright support from the Democrats in favor of state and federal legislation that would grant LGBTQ community members equal access to rights and benefits within the law? Why would the same people who turned out in record numbers mobilize again in any great capacity when President Obama makes a statement that the White House is committed to maintaining Don't Ask Don't Tell during the so called "LGBT Pride Month"? People are tired of the rhetoric, tired of the relentless deceit and it's no wonder fewer people would come out to vote.

Further, a fight to get access to equal rights for the LGBTQ community is going to be 50x harder than a fight to get access to rights at the federal level. Do the math: either 50 governors sign a bill or President Obama does. And even if we do get the states' full support, that does not guarantee the 1,100 rights granted by the Federal government. The organizers and participants of the National Equality March, which saw over 200,000 people walk through the streets of D.C. demanding full and equal protection and rights under the law, know that.

The fight is on the streets, not in the ballot box. But if Democratic, or Republican, congresspeople want to join the fight, then let them in. But we sure should not wait around for them to get their act together. The strategy now is to continue the grassroots movement that is growing across the nation. First we marched to protest, but now we're marching to organize.

It's time to build strategies for a new LGBTQI movement in Tucson. If anyone is interested in working with the Tucson Equality Movement, you should come to our panel discussion this Friday the 13th at 6pm in the Diamondback Room of the PSU.

Angela Stoutenburgh is a graduate student at the University of Arizona and a member of the International Socialist Organization. To read the editorial go to their website.

After the National Equality March

The first week of November marks the "Week of Initiative" called for by the organizers of the National Equality March. Students and grassroots activists around the nation are building their local chapters through organizing, outreach, and action. Questions are being asked, "Where do we go from here? What do we do next?" Answers are found in action and collaboration. Here in Tucson University of Arizona students, who attended the National Equality March, have formed a group. This group, Tucson Equality Movement, is hosting a panel discussion this coming week that addresses precisely these questions. This panel will reflect the different communities fighting for LGBTQI rights: student, community, and national.

The time is now to fight for equal rights, with new faces, new methods, and renewed energies. It is time we get together and build strategies for a LGBTQI movement here in Tucson!

Friday, November 13th
6pm 13th Diamondback Room
Park Student Union
615 N. Park, Tucson, AZ 85721

Univ. of Arizona against the cuts

By Angela Stoutenburgh | September 21, 2009

TUCSON, Ariz.--More than 50 graduate students, faculty and staff met on September 15 at the Old Main Fountain on the University of Arizona (UA) campus to discuss an action planned against ongoing budget cuts.

These cuts include merging the College of Engineering and the College of Architecture at the university.

Also of concern to university employees is House Bill 2013, which was signed into law on September 4 and, according to the Arizona Daily Wildcat, "will prevent state-employed, same-sex domestic partners from claiming state benefits for their partners as well as unmarried heterosexual couples, children of domestic partners, full-time students over the age of 22 who are claimed as dependents and disabled adult dependents."

This rally-turned-organizing meeting, called on by a number of graduate students in the Geography Department, broke into four planning groups--education, publicity, communication and action. Each group is taking on different aspects of organizing for a rally on the main UA quad on September 24. The rally is in solidarity with a walkout scheduled that day at the University of California.

These grassroots collective efforts are precisely the struggle that we need to keep the Arizona state legislature from balancing the budget on backs of workers and students.

"Univ. of Arizona against the cuts" was originally published in Socialist Worker. Angela Stoutenburgh is a graduate student at the University of Arizona and a member of the International Socialist Organization.

Campus Wide Rally Against Budget Cuts

The following is the formal press release from graduate students at the University of Arizona. There will be a rally today at 2pm at the Old Main Fountain in protest of the budget cuts. Considering the 6% tuition increase, the absurd "Economic Recovery Surcharge" that all students have to pay, and the new House Bill 2013 (more information here), it is time that students and workers take action.

UA Job-Loss/Unionizing Campus-wide assembly 9/18, 2pm

BUDGET CUTS AFFECT US ALL!
600 UA JOBS LOST ALREADY!
Join a group of concerned faculty, students and staff to learn about how budget
cuts will affect us and help plan a university-wide day of action to let state
law makers and university administration know we won?t stand by as higher
education is dismantled.

When: Friday, Sept 18 @ 2:00pm
Where: Old Main Fountain
Goals: (1) Establish a unified voice amongst those concerned about budget cuts
to higher education at the UofA. (2) Plan a university-wide day of action in
solidarity with the faculty, staff and students of the UC system, who are
staging a walkout on September 24th.

...

more info:


At the University of Arizona we are facing the most dramatic budget cuts
and restructuring of the University in a generation. These cuts will
affect every aspect of the University system – from the quality of
education available to students, to the conditions of our labor as
researchers, teachers, administrators and staff.

The administration is pursuing a strategy designed to weaken our capacity
for collective action, our ability to protect our interests and
participate in the budget and restructuring process.

In some departments, Graduate Teaching Assistants, already working for
poverty wages, have seen their salaries slashed. In others, course loads
have been expanded overnight, with little explanation and no
accountability. Faculty have been furloughed in a way that minimizes
disruption to teaching, and maximizes the possibility that they will
continue working without pay. Hiring freezes and layoffs are undermining
the integrity and functioning of departments and spreading work around to
already over-burdened faculty and staff. And the decisions about whose
budget is cut, by how much and why have been anything but transparent and
accountable, let alone "participatory". All of this while new fees and
"tuition surcharges" reduce access to and affordability of higher
education, redistributing the burden of budget shortfalls onto the backs
of students.

The UA budget has been cut as much as possible under the current
stimulus
 package. If it is cut any more, we will lose our stimulus
funding. The 2010 state budget will not include any stimulus money, and
state
 revenues are already coming in under projection. We will have
no protection from further dramatic cuts after this fiscal year.

By subjecting the budgetary restructuring to an arbitrary and subjective
process whose impact is felt differentially, we remain divided and pitted
against each other, rather than capable of uniting around our common
interests. As long as we remain divided in our individual colleges and
departments we will have no power or voice as our colleagues lose their
jobs, as the conditions of our labor and the quality of our institution
deteriorates, and as the legislature and administration continue to pull
the rug out from under our feet.

For these reasons, we invite graduate assistants, faculty and staff to a
meeting on Friday September 18 at 2pm on the fountain in front of Old Main
organize an action in solidarity with the faculty, staff and students of
the UC system.