Category Archives: Human Rights

HPV: Prevention of Cervical Cancer Through Vaccination

   has been hailed by gynecologists as the most significant breakthrough in Women’s Health of the century. The first HPV Vaccine has been approved by the FDA. HPV is a DNA virus that infects skin and mucosal tissues … Continue reading

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Support our Troops! Provide Healthcare When They Get Home

In case you haven’t been keeping track, ately, the latest Department of Defense figures indicate that the U.S. is quickly approaching 2,500 soldier deaths and 18,000 casualties in Iraq. While anti-war activists have been vigilant about exposing the lies that … Continue reading

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Five Deaths at County Jail

With the death of Quentin Larry on May 28, now five inmates have died in the Champaign County Jail over a three year period. Individuals should not die in police custody – even if they are drug addicts. Citizens must … Continue reading

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Looking for Martha: The Mess Behind Bars

The Alderson Federal Prison Camp i n West Vi rginia looks to have solved the problemthat has beset modern penal policy for hundreds of years: recidivism. Its progressive plan of image rehabilitation has now set free a series of media … Continue reading

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Campaign for Access to Emergency Contraception

Om March 3, 1973, , the U.S. Congress passed the Comstock Act, criminalizing the publication, distribution, and possession of information about contraception. In the intervening century, everyday women fought hard for their birth control rights. They marched and picketed, were … Continue reading

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From Profile to Prison: Criminalization of a Community

While news of police mistreatment in African-American communities is nothing new in the post-Rodney King era, what is new is the nation-wide organizing against it. From Los Angeles to New York, Chicago to Champaign—grass roots organizations have come together to … Continue reading

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The Work Americans Won’t Do: How Latinos Bear the Brunt of Local, National, and Global Policy

“Food harvesters have always been treated he worst and paid the least inAm eri c a ,”Hu gh Phill i p s , the director of E l Cen tro, l oc a ted at 4 Bu ena Vista Co … Continue reading

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Pages to Prisoners

While American politicians repeatedly throw around words like ‘freedom’ and ‘liberation’ as cornerstones of their policies, approximately 1.4 million inmates sit in U.S. prisons. Why is this? Why does America have so many jails? One might be tempted to respond … Continue reading

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Iraq, Black Folks, and the Crisis of the White Left

      . Close to 400 US troops have been killed since President Bush declared major combat operations over on May 1st, 2003. Roadside bombs regularly kill US service personnel. News reports flash gory scenes of … Continue reading

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How the Prison-Industrial Complex Threatens Democracy in America

• The prison-industrial-complex has expanded dramatically over the last generation, becoming one of the fastest growth industries in the United States of America; housing over 2 million prisoners and supervising almost 5 million parolees and probationers, America’s prison systems controls … Continue reading

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Moratorium to Abolition: Living Without Death in Illinois?

  , ,    ended months of delay by signing into law the remaining section of Illinois’ death penalty reform legislation. The final provision set the disciplinary standards for police officers accused of lying in homicide cases, … Continue reading

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Why Do I Care About Convicts?

Why do I care about convicts? Why do I care about our injustice system? “There but for the grace of God go I.” Being a recovering addict and having community with similar others, I know so many people who today … Continue reading

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You Have the Right to Remain Silent

On Nov. 20, I was among thousands of people gathered in Miami, Florida to protest negotiations for the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). Estimates range from 5,000 to 20,000, but it is clear that however many people were … Continue reading

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Enough Dancing Around the Chief Issue

The Public i offers its readers the two articles that follow on the issue of the Chief.Usually the paper does not publish two articles on the same subject in the same issue. Because of the importance of the issue locally … Continue reading

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When Civil Disobedience Becomes Bloody

  Carol Gilbert, Jackie Hudson, and Ardeth Platte are each currently serving time in prison for protesting the buildup to the United States’War on Iraq.Mary Lee Sargent only recently left Champaign-Urbana after a long career of feminist and gay … Continue reading

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(Medical) Debtors Prison Alive and Well in Champaign County

    -  and unplanned, and with the rising cost of health care, many people are quickly plunged into debt, bankruptcy, financial ruin, and poor health as a result of mounting bills and hospitals’ aggressive collection practices. … Continue reading

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The Legacy of GirlZone

 ’      . Dragged to a GirlZone skateboarding workshop by her mother, Chloe had no real intention of learning to skate. A half hour later, though, she was swooshing down the ramps, seated, on her … Continue reading

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VVAW Should Not be Forgotten

As a son of a veteran, I have seen the effects of war on a soldier by witnessing flashbacks and listening to my father’s horror stories from ’Nam. In a sense, I had to live through Vietnam with him as … Continue reading

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Honor the Warrior, Not the War

Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) always organizes under the above slogan, during Memorial Day or Veterans Day events in cities like Chicago, or through participation in national and international demonstrations such as this past February 15 and the veteran-organized … Continue reading

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A Review of Civil Liberties One Year After 9/11

As the failed hunt for Osama Bin Laden gives way to preparations for the invasion of Iraq, and as the passing of a year of mourning gives way to commercial exploitation and political opportunism, many Americans are beginning to realize … Continue reading

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