Category Archives: Section

The Anatomy of Gray: A Reflection on Willie Craft, Sr.’s Case

Posted on 08/21/2014 by Amanda Hwu

Note: On October 9, 2013, Willie Craft, Sr. suffered a diabetic crash while driving and killed Mimi Liu and injured Spandana Matravadi. Both women were students at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. On July 9, 2014, Craft was charged … Continue reading →

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Why Aren’t Nicaragua’s Children Fleeing to the United States?

Posted on 08/21/2014 by Public i

by The Nicaragua Network (In the 1980s, the Peoples Alliance on Central America (PACA), which was affiliated with the Nicaragua Network, was a very active local Central American solidarity group that opposed both the US attempts to overthrow the Sandinista … Continue reading →

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Privatization Comes to the Postal Service, Protest Comes to Champaign-Urbana

Posted on 08/21/2014 by Stephanie Seawell

For the past few years you may have seen headlines about threats to close post offices and reductions in postal service and delivery hours. Now, the Post Office faces another threat—privatization. Over the past several months the US Postal Service … Continue reading →

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Books To Prisoners 10 Years/100,000 Books Party!

Posted on 08/21/2014 by Books to Prisoners
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US Labor Against the War

Posted on 07/24/2014 by Al Kagan

The level of violence in Iraq is rapidly escalating and the country is falling apart. There are calls for sending back US troops. Syria’s catastrophic civil war is being fueled by arms shipments from various directions. There are calls for … Continue reading →

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Central Illinois Jobs With Justice’s Statement on the Termination of James Kilgore by the University of Illinois, Urbana

Posted on 06/24/2014 by Public i

Central Illinois Jobs with Justice (CIJWJ), a coalition of labor, faith-based, and secular civic organizations that advances the interests of the  unemployed and working people in both the public and private sectors, condemns the  termination of  James Kilgore and calls … Continue reading →

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A Faculty Union at UIUC Part 1

Posted on 06/07/2014 by David Prochaska

The UI Chicago faculty union signed its first contract in April 2014. In Urbana the Campus Faculty Association (CFA) submitted in mid-May the necessary number of cards to create a full-time non-tenure track (NTT) faculty union (part-time NTT’s are excluded … Continue reading →

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Ukraine: Is There an Alternative?

Posted on 06/06/2014 by Richard Esbenshade

Surveying both the mainstream and the alternative/Left media on the Ukraine crisis can seem like switching between alternate universes. In one, Ukrainians struggling for democracy, European values and independence, after toppling a corrupt President in thrall to oligarchs and the … Continue reading →

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“A Day at Stateville” Captures Life As It Is On the Inside

Posted on 06/06/2014 by Brian Dolinar

On Friday, May 9, “A Day at Stateville,” a play written by men currently incarcerated in Stateville prison, and performed by those formerly incarcerated there, was staged at the Unitarian Universalist Church in Urbana. I spoke with one of the … Continue reading →

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Pete Seeger’s 1958 Visit to UIUC Amidst the Red Scare

Posted on 06/06/2014 by Brian Dolinar

A series of events took place in May celebrating the life of folk singer, banjo player, and political activist Pete Seeger, who passed away earlier this year. After a flyer for the events was circulated, my friend Barbara Kessel emailed … Continue reading →

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Hungarians Debate their Nuclear Future

Posted on 03/27/2014 by Richard Esbenshade

On the weekend of February 1-2, thousands of Hungarians took to the streets to oppose the government’s plans to double the capacity of the country’s only nuclear power plant, with construction and financing by Vladimir Putin’s Russia. The plant, at … Continue reading →

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April 4-6: Books to Prisoners Book Sale

Posted on 03/27/2014 by Public i

Ten years ago Urbana Champaign Books to Prisoners began its program of sending books through the mail at no cost to inmates in Illinois prisons.  Since then, over 92,000 books have been sent out to more than 14,000 inmates.  The … Continue reading →

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Remembering Manni Brun

Posted on 03/27/2014 by Belden Fields

In January, this community lost a woman to whom it owes a great deal. Marianne (Manni) Brun passed away on January 6th. Manni and her husband Herbert, who was a professor of music composition, came to the university in 1963. … Continue reading →

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Clinton Landfill Plans an Unacceptable Risk to the Mahomet Aquifer

Posted on 03/27/2014 by Public i

By Stacy James Clinton Landfill, Inc. plans to store PCB-laden soil in its landfill above the Mahomet Aquifer, our drinking water supply! Opponents of this economically lucrative but environmentally risky venture are increasing in number as more and more people … Continue reading →

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University of Illinois at Chicago Faculty Union Goes on Strike: What Are the Stakes?

Posted on 03/27/2014 by David Prochaska

On February 18-19, 2014 the University of Illinois at Chicago faculty union staged a strike joined by more than 1000 faculty, students, and other supporters, and that received widespread media attention locally and nationally. With no appreciable progress made on … Continue reading →

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Why Tenured Professors Need Unions

Posted on 03/27/2014 by Janine Drake Giordano

I once got stuck in an airplane sitting next to an off-duty pilot. As we sat on the runway for an hour, only to find that we had to change flight crews and pilots because of the long delay, a … Continue reading →

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Mandela Remembered by Historian Teresa Barnes

Posted on 02/01/2014 by Teresa Barnes

Appeared originally at U of I News Bureau, 12/6/2013 Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s first black president and an icon in the struggle that ended the country’s system of racial apartheid, died Dec. 5. He was 95. Teresa Barnes is a … Continue reading →

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One of The Core Union Values is Solidarity!

Posted on 02/01/2014 by Stephanie Seawell

Recently the Graduate Employees Organization (GEO), the union for graduate student teaching assistants and research assistants at the University of Illinois, made a few changes to the union’s organizational structure. More specifically, the GEO added an elected Solidarity Officer to … Continue reading →

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The Community Saturday School and the Ongoing Campaign for Literacy

Posted on 01/31/2014 by Amira Davis

“History has shown that, up to the present time, revolutionary regimes have been the only ones capable of organizing successful mass literacy campaigns. From the Soviet Union to China, from Vietnam to Cuba, all revolutionary governments have given high priority … Continue reading →

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New MLK Sculpture by Preston Jackson

Posted on 01/31/2014 by Brian Dolinar

A new sculpture by African American artist Preston Jackson has been installed at King Park in Urbana. Inspired by Martin Luther King, Jr., it makes reference to major moments in the Civil Rights struggle, depicting a bus from the Montgomery … Continue reading →

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