Profiting Across the Autism Spectrum

Posted on 07/18/2023 by Seth Lerner

Demand for ABA practioners, including Board Certified Behavior Analysts, soared after 2014; more than 70 percent work with the autistic. From thetreetop.com/statistics/aba-therapist-demographics

Driving through north Champaign last winter I noticed a new business in a strip mall near Denny’s. At first, I assumed it was some sort of sports store due to the all-caps signage: “TOTAL SPECTRUM.” But this was not a purveyor of football helmets and jockstraps, but one of many licensed providers of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA), the only state-approved “treatment” for those on the autism spectrum. As it turns out, jockstraps may be more strictly regulated than this rapidly expanding industry built upon the needs of vulnerable clients. My brief employment as an ABA “clinician” convinced me that more transparency is needed both on this industry and the therapy it markets.

Autism Speaks and the ABA Endorsement

Parents often hear about ABA through the well-known advocacy organization Autism Speaks. Their website explains ABA almost as a form of positive reinforcement: “when a behavior is followed by something that is valued (a reward), a person is more likely to repeat that behavior.” ABA proponents claim their Pavlovian approach is the only way for an autistic person to make “progress” in socialization, life skills (tying shoes, brushing teeth, etc), or academics. Continue reading →

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Diesel Therapy

Posted on 07/18/2023 by Shamar Betts

US Marshals loading prisoners for transport. From usmarshals.gov/what-we-do/prisoners/transportation

The odyssey of Urbana resident Shamar Betts continues. Betts was arrested for authoring a Facebook post at age 19 in the wake of the George Floyd murder in 2020. He was sentenced to four years in federal prison and charged with repaying nearly two million dollars for damage committed by many in C-U during this emotional time. His accounts of his prison experiences have been slightly edited for space. You can read more here, and find previous Public i articles on the Betts case here. Diesel therapy is slang for a form of punishment in which prisoners are shackled and transported for days or weeks.

I’m not sure what I expected jail to be like, but I know it wasn’t this. My first two months confined were some of the worst days of my life. I spent 21 days in Madison County, Mississippi, where I was placed alone in a unit designed for 14 inmates. The guard who booked me in put my picture on the door with a sign that read “Warning! Accompany inmate with 2 guards and 2 sets.” Continue reading →

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UIUC GEO Wins a Progressive Contract

Posted on 07/18/2023 by Essam A. B. Elkorghli

GEO rally on the quad before the December 1, 2022 bargaining session

Graduate workers across the US have been hard-hit by the skyrocketing inflation induced by federal mismanagement of monetary policy that is being felt by all too many working-class people. The laughable wage increases that were “handed” to many low-paid workers do not adjust to inflation, leading many to have to draw from the little savings they have. All of this is happening as the University of Illinois’s president received a $40,000 bonus and the Executive Director of Labor and Employee Relations was awarded a $5,000 bonus. To add salt to the wound, labor unions since 2018 have been bargaining with the Supreme Court’s anti-labor ruling in Janus v. AFSCME—a decision that has hindered unions from collecting union dues from non-members (called “fair-share dues,” since negotiated contracts cover members and non-members alike). As a result, union membership across the US has dwindled. UIUC Graduate workers bargained for a whole year to win a contract that current and future graduate students will benefit from.

The UIUC Graduate Employees’ Organization (GEO) is a democratically run labor union that represents graduates who work as teaching and graduate assistants. The bargaining team (BT) was elected by GEO members in 2022, and they immediately met for extended hours to draft a new contract, since the extant contract was due to expire that August. Five months prior to that date, the administration and the BT had their first bargaining session, where the GEO offered a comprehensive proposal. To the GEO’s dismay, the next five months saw the administration come unprepared to the bargaining sessions, with no counterproposal and instead only endless unfocused and irrelevant questions. The GEO’s proposal included an increase in wages exceeding inflation; year-round health care (graduate workers are covered for the duration of their employment, and many do not have summer appointments, which means no health insurance in the summer); modifications to understandings of discrimination; extended leaves and holidays; and adjustments to the grievance procedure. Continue reading →

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Carbon Capture, Illinois’ Biggest Coal Fired Power Plant, and the Prairie Research Institute

Posted on 07/18/2023 by Andrew Rehn

How a carbon capture system works—and its dangers

Carbon capture has become the divisive hot topic in Illinois climate policy over the last year. The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) included substantial subsidies for carbon capture that have created an industry gold rush looking to build and operate carbon capture systems (CCSs), carbon pipelines, and carbon sequestration. One such project proposes to put carbon capture on Illinois’s largest coal-fired power plant. It is being led by UIUC’s Prairie Research Institute (PRI), but there are reasons to be skeptical of the project.

Carbon capture and storage is the process of isolating carbon dioxide (CO₂) either at a source (power plant or factory) or directly from the air. Then the captured CO₂ is transported, often through a pipeline, and stored, usually in underground geological formations such as saline reservoirs or depleted oil reservoirs. Continue reading →

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Summer Issue Back Cover

Posted on 07/18/2023 by Public i

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May/June Issue Front Cover

Posted on 05/01/2023 by Public i

US INVADED IRAQ 20 YEARS AGO. WHERE IS THE DEMOCRATIC ACCOUNTABILITY?

Anti-war protest in front of the White House, October, 2002. Over the next few months, millions across the US and around the world demonstrated against the US invasion of Iraq

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Silence and the Continuing Legacy of the US Invasion of Iraq

Posted on 05/01/2023 by Janice Jayes

US Soldiers searching civilians, Baghdad. Photo by Stacy Pearsall, care of US National Archives

The twentieth anniversary of the 2003 US invasion of Iraq slid by with an encore performance of the arrogance that characterized the invasion itself. In 2003 that arrogance disregarded inconvenient international norms as easily as it disregarded the Iraqi victims caught in the path of “shock and awe” bombardments. The arrogance was not only deadly to hundreds of thousands of Iraqis (the majority of them civilians), but a delusional basis for policy. The war turned out to be no walk in the park showcasing American technology; the US created chaos that raged for decades, destroying lives and the social fabric of the region while reshaping the rules of conflict around the world.

Twenty years later Americans are still mired in self-absorption. Those who think of the invasion at all (and few of my university students can even find Iraq on a map) regret only the disappointing outcome. Most now admit “mistakes were made” (bad decisions from the White House, poor intelligence, a mismanaged occupation . . .), but only to distance themselves from accountability. American introspection on Iraq is limited to weighing the war in US lives and dollars lost and judging it pricey for the booby prize of Iraqi ingratitude. This is not progress, it is petulance, and it bodes ill for a declining America’s interactions with a complex world. Continue reading →

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Should Ukrainians Surrender for World Peace?

Posted on 05/01/2023 by Richard Esbenshade

Illustration by Kamshat Nurlanova, care of LeftEast.org

The February 24 one-year anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine saw no respite for either the volunteer and professional Ukrainian troops or the civilian population. The Russian-occupied territories in eastern and southern Ukraine and the areas along the military front have become a veritable wasteland; basic infrastructure, the economy, and everyday life have been hobbled by with those civilians unable or unwilling to flee surviving in the most primitive conditions, if at all. They and civilians across the country are subject to the random terror of air and artillery attacks on apartment blocks, schools, hospitals, and markets; Russian targeting of civilian infrastructure, especially energy, has made life tenuous and nerve-racking even far from the front. The steady and horrendous toll of Ukrainian military casualties has been surpassed by those on the Russian side, many of them forced recruits or prisoners thrown into suicide missions as human decoys. And there remain some eight million Ukrainian refugees, mostly women and children, outside the country, and six million internally displaced—together, almost one-third of the country’s pre-war population.

I wrote about the dilemmas inherent in the Western Left’s initial response to the invasion and war in the May 2022 Public i. One year on, the divisions over the issue among US progressives are as big and as heated as ever. The pages of publications like The Nation, Jacobin, and Counterpunch feature dueling opinions and analyses, with diametrically opposed positions appearing in close proximity within each. While this shows a welcome diversity of views—not always a characteristic of Left discourse—it also indicates the complete lack of a united position, that could lead to an active and effective politics. The Guardian’s Jonathan Steele writes that the Left has been “uncharacteristically subdued” on the issue, and fallen into “silence.” Continue reading →

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The Lavenders: Past and Present Queer Journalism in Champaign-Urbana

Posted on 05/01/2023 by Public i

When the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) went down to defeat, ERA activists showed their disapproval by writing the names of their opponents in pigs’ blood outside the governor’s office on June 25, 1982. Left to right are Ann Casey Elder, Sue Yarber, and Mary Lee Sargent. From the Mary Lee Sargent photos at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum site

On February 23, UCIMC Executive Director Miriam Larson hosted a virtual conversation with representatives of two generations of activists in Champaign-Urbana. Mary Lee Sargent, former director of Parkland College’s Women’s Studies Program (now residing in New Hampshire), was one of the early writers for the CU Lavender Prairie News. Current Urbana resident Jada Fulcher has revived the publication as The Lavender for today’s Queer community.

ML: I’m excited for this intergenerational conversation and meeting of the Lavenders! Mary Lee, you said you weren’t involved in starting the Lavender Prairie News?

MLS: No, but I was involved in the women’s community, which was really 99 percent lesbian, and I was intimately involved in all the activities it reported on. I wrote for it a lot. Continue reading →

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Faculty and Staff Strike at Eastern Illinois University

Posted on 05/01/2023 by Public i

Members of EIU UPI at Morton Park, Charleston, Ill., Wednesday, April 12, 2023. Photo provided by EIU UPI

Eastern Illinois University University Professionals of Illinois (EIU UPI, IFT Local 4100) members went on strike on April 6, after more than a year of fruitless bargaining, which forced faculty and staff to work without a contract since September, 2022. Key issues were compensation and workload, with the university’s last pre-strike offer constituting an effective pay cut for all members of the union. The strike was suspended after a tentative agreement was reached on April 13.

Faculty and staff also went on strike at Chicago State University on April 3, and at Governors State University on April 11. Northeastern Illinois University held a strike vote and authorized a strike if no progress is made with a mediator soon.

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Slaves—Our Ancestors

Posted on 05/01/2023 by Mrs. Marilynn Dean Cleveland

An example of the author’s artwork

We give praise to those who came before us, fighting for the right to be free. Who were they? They are our ancestors, who suffered unendurable pain. Pain, from the snake-like whip that mutilated their flesh as it bit into their body and soul. Branded with hate, leaving a scar of ominous fear that breaks down the spirit of men who no longer have free will. They were people with their own customs of the spirit. Warrior ancestors, believers in the power of the earth and spiritualism. They were people of strength, bonded by family unity, nature, and their ancient beliefs—until the Europeans invaded them and broke their customs and chained them with unjust, inhumane punishment and torture. Beaten down to nothing by the hearts of barbarous men. Continue reading →

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Growing Up “Unlucky”: Putting a Human Face on Bureau of Labor Statistics

Posted on 05/01/2023 by C. Owen

Three quarters of a century after this demonstration against workplace racism, African American youth joblessness is still twice that of other races. Photo by Joe Schwartz, Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture

Numerous options for employment abound in our small metropolitan area nestled amid the farmland of eastern central Illinois. From warehouses to food establishments to car repair shops, job seekers have many a choice for offering their time and effort. Yet, even for those of us with much to provide prospective bosses, it can seem that seeking the perfect candidate renders some of us simply “unlucky.”

Economists in the Bureau of Labor Statistics claim that unemployment has dropped drastically since the worst moments of the pandemic, settling at 3.4 percent in January. However, for a nation with an official population of more than 334 million, that percentage still translates into more than 11 million of our neighbors as jobless—only about one million less than the entire population of our state of Illinois. While we can feel good about shrinking unemployment numbers from the over 14 percent in April, 2020, we should not lose sight of the implications these numbers still have upon our society. Continue reading →

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Rescuing the Embarras River

Posted on 05/01/2023 by Brenda A. Koenig

Walking through the wooded bottomlands of the Embarras River near Charleston, IL

Tucked into the southwest corner of the University of Illinois’s Urbana-Champaign campus, just beyond student housing and mostly hidden by roadside grasses, a ditch runs along a solar farm and through research farmland. This is the humble beginning of the 125-mile-long Embarras (pronounced “AM-bra”) River, which drains over a million and a half Illinois acres into waterways that flow into the Gulf of Mexico.

The Embarras river is home to colonies of the endangered Indiana brown bat and the northernmost, and only, population of harlequin darters (a small, colorful, ray-finned fish). A band of the Miami Tribe, the Piankashaw, built a major settlement at the mouth of the Embarras on the Wabash River in the 1600s. And In the 1700s, George Rogers Clark and his army followed the Embarras to the Wabash to Vincennes, securing the territory for the American side in the Revolutionary War.

But today this river is in trouble. Continue reading →

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Illinois Correctional System: What Is It Really?

Posted on 05/01/2023 by Kevin Stirnichuk

The Public i is partnering with the Education Justice Project (EJP) to share writing completed by incarcerated students at the Danville Correctional Center. The EJP is a comprehensive college-in-prison program based at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Through its educational programming EJP enriches the lives of its students, their families, and the communities to which they return.

Before entering the penal system in Illinois, it was my understanding that the correctional system was to provide assistance for a person to become a productive member of society after they completed their sentence. The penal system is designed to protect society from lawbreakers while attempting to change their behavior that goes against the norms of society. I was convicted in 2013 and sentenced to 45 years. This showed me firsthand just how wrong my initial assumption was. The limitations put in place by the Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC) can be prohibitive to creating behavioral change. I started my sentence at Menard Correctional Center, a maximum-security facility built in the late 19th century, with updates to add more housing units in the 1980s. Other modifications included taking a cell designed for one person and adding a second bunk to put two people in it. Continue reading →

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Local Mental Health Directory

Posted on 05/01/2023 by Public i

Compiled by Danielle Chynoweth, Cunningham Township Supervisor

Local mental health help is available! If you are struggling with issues relating to your mental health, the resources below may help you find what you need. Continue reading →

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Urbana-Champaign Reproductive Justice Week: Educate, Elevate, Act!

Posted on 04/23/2023 by Julie Laut

 

SisterSong: The National Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective defines reproductive justice as the “the human right to maintain personal bodily autonomy, have children, not have children, and parent the children we have in safe and sustainable communities.” Many organizations and individuals in our community already are working to address the variety of issues at stake in this framework, addressing food security, Black maternal health, abortion access, workers’ rights, gender-affirming care, affordable housing, and more. The inaugural Urbana-Champaign Reproductive Justice (UCRJ) Week, April 23–30, 2023, will bring these many strands of action together to educate our community about these issues, elevate the work being done locally, and offer a variety of ways each of us can act to ensure reproductive justice for all. Continue reading →

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February/March Issue Front Cover

Posted on 02/10/2023 by Public i

CAMPUS LABOR ON THE MARCH!

University of Illinois Chicago faculty on strike on the first day of spring semester classes, January 17

 

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Graduate Employees Go Wild—For Unionization

Posted on 02/10/2023 by Pat Simpson

Workers are on the move across America. Strikes rose by an astounding 50 percent between 2021 and 2022, and the pace of organization was equally impressive, with new fields of organizing opening in the service sector, the art world, and high tech. Of special interest in a local economy dominated by the University of Illinois and the labor markets associated with the school is the escalating upsurge in graduate employee militancy. Although graduate employees at UIUC have been unionized since 2000, the extension of graduate employee unionization to other higher education institutions strengthens the bargaining power of all such collective efforts. A higher wage and benefits floor becomes generalized, and each unionization victory inspires organizing efforts elsewhere.

Graduate employee unionization also provides institutional vehicles to counter sources of the ongoing crisis in higher education, such as public disinvestment, the student debt crisis and inequities in access, as well as right-wing attempts to restrict teaching about systemic oppression, racism, and discrimination against all forms of gender non-conformity. As the wages and working conditions (e.g., office space and sufficient supplies) of graduate employees improve, moreover, it is of the uppermost importance that the quality of the educational experience they can offer their students goes up. Continue reading →

Posted in Education, Education, labor, Labor militancy, Labor/Economics, Public Universities, Section, union soldarity | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Graduate Employees Go Wild—For Unionization

Woman – Life – Freedom: Interview on Resistance in Iran, Part 2

Posted on 02/10/2023 by Public i

UIUC campus protest on October 8 against the repression in Iran. Photo by Janice Jayes

Part 1 of this interview was published in the December 2022 issue. The text has been substantially shortened and edited.

Public i: I want to shift the discussion to the US now, and ask what can or should the US government be doing in this situation? In the context, of course, of a very conflictual historical relationship, and especially with the on-again, off-again negotiations about the nuclear program and the sanctions.

Faranak Miraftab: I don’t have the expectation of the American government doing anything. I never thought that they are the ones that I would go to for help. Because if anything they and other Western allies are the ones who have brought these Islamic States to the region, first with the 1953 coup in Iran and then with Afghanistan, Mujahideen, and the rest of it in the 1980s. The US state is not the one that I would trust or think has the interest of people, neither the people here, nor there. But I don’t think there’s any point in negotiation because the Iranian leaders don’t respect it. Continue reading →

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Academic Freedom Cases at the U of I, Part 2

Posted on 02/10/2023 by Belden Fields

In the October/November issue of the Public i, I discussed two cases in which the University faced pressure to dismiss professors because of their speech or extramural writing. These cases go back to the 1960s but have recently been resurrected to public view by the book Dangerous Ideas on Campus by U of I Professor Emeritus Matthew Ehrlich.

In one of the cases, that of Leo Koch, the professor was fired. I graduated in January, 1960 and had become involved in the attempt to save Koch’s contractual final year. While the U of I succeeded in firing Koch, it was put on the list of violators of academic freedom list by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP). Being on the list tarnishes the professional reputation of universities. Continue reading →

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