Human Rights Working Group at Johns Hopkins University

04/30/2015

Meanwhile..... professional academic body colluded w/US government to justify torture.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/01/us/report-says-american-psychological-association-collaborated-on-torture-justification.html

The involvement of health professionals enabled the Justice Department to argue in secret opinions that the Bush-era interrogation program was legal.

04/28/2015

— But of the entire scene, the most salient thing wasn’t the destruction wrought by protestors — the cop car demolished, the payday loan store smashed up — but by capital: the decrepit, boarded-up row houses, hovels, and vacants in a city full of them.

These are the streets in which Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan has now declared a state of emergency, the same streets that would suffer from his austerity. They are the streets that have endured astronomic unemployment rates for decades, even as Democrats have run the city unrivaled. And they are the streets where police folded up Freddie Gray’s body “like origami,” then restrained him with leg irons in the back of a police van and delayed calling for an ambulance. —

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/04/baltimore-freddie-gray-unrest-protests/

Why Baltimore Rebelled The most salient thing in Baltimore isn’t the damage caused by protestors, but the grinding poverty and neglect wrought by capital. by Shawn Gude A protester on a bicycle in front of a burning CVS drug store, during clashes in Baltimore yesterday. Jim Bourg / Reuters Days befo…

04/28/2015

— When nonviolence is preached as an attempt to evade the repercussions of political brutality, it betrays itself. When nonviolence begins halfway through the war with the aggressor calling time out, it exposes itself as a ruse. When nonviolence is preached by the representatives of the state, while the state doles out heaps of violence to its citizens, it reveals itself to be a con. And none of this can mean that rioting or violence is "correct" or "wise," any more than a forest fire can be "correct" or "wise." Wisdom isn't the point tonight. Disrespect is. In this case, disrespect for the hollow law and failed order that so regularly disrespects the rioters themselves. —

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/04/nonviolence-as-compliance/391640/

"When nonviolence begins halfway through the war with the aggressor calling time-out, it exposes itself as a ruse."

04/20/2015

Ta-Nehisi Coates is speaking at the “First JHU Forum on Race in America,” Tue 4/28 at 6:30pm, Shriver Hall. RSVP: http://web.jhu.edu/administration/provost/initiatives/forums-on-race-series

The national turmoil over racial inequality and community policing in recent months has not gone unnoticed in the Johns Hopkins community.

04/04/2015

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-city/bs-md-ci-water-bills-20150326-story.html

Baltimore officials are sending turn-off notices to 25,000 delinquent water customers, giving them 10 days to pay long overdue bills or face the loss of water service.

03/31/2015

“Especially troubling was the senators’ concern that the drive would not directly benefit the student body. They argued that SGA is elected by the student body to serve its interests, and that they could not in good conscience fund an event that was not specifically intended for students. This argument, I believe, represents an air of entitlement and privilege that is detrimental to both our student body and the Baltimore community within which we are situated. Johns Hopkins has a sordid history with the greater Baltimore area, from gentrification efforts that have displaced families (consider the University’s ongoing partnership with East Baltimore Development Inc.) to paying unionized Hospital workers, most of whom are black Baltimoreans, so little as to qualify them for food stamps. The University has a responsibility to make amends with the community it has for so long abused.”

http://www.jhupolitik.org/2015/03/29/in-defense-of-the-womens-dignity-drive/

Last month, I attended a Student Government Association meeting to advocate for a finance bill to fund the Women’s Dignity Drive. My involvement with a network of local homeless shelters led me to propose the drive in response to residents’ need for feminine hygiene...

03/10/2015

JHU's Applied Physics Laboratory has been helping the CIA attempt to crack iPhone security: https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/03/10/ispy-cia-campaign-steal-apples-secrets/

Researchers working with the Central Intelligence Agency have conducted a multi-year, sustained effort to break the security of Apple’s iPhones and iPads.

10/22/2014

http://www.chicagotribune.com/bs-ed-hopkins-academic-freedom-letter-20141021-story.html

On Sept. 26, an interdisciplinary cohort of students, faculty and staff at Johns Hopkins University answered President Ronald Daniel's call to join the conversation on academic freedom, which he wrote, "deserves dialogue and debate" ( "Hopkins welcomes debate on academic freedom," Feb. 26). After mo…

10/01/2014

Brilliant. The true orientation guide for JHU, a university at the heart of the academic-military industrial complex, and the largest employer in Maryland with a complicated history with race and class struggles in Baltimore, particularly about labor and property. https://docs.google.com/file/d/0By07MTHE1KHyX0FMdDAxS1U4bjg/edit

04/30/2014

BREAKING NEWS! MICA adjuncts now unionized. From HRWG member and MICA adjunct Adam Culver: "The NLRB has counted the votes, and the Yeses have it! MICA adjuncts have voted overwhelmingly in favor (163-75) of forming a union and joining SEIU Local 500."

By a vote of 163-75 part-time instructors at MICA won the right to be represented by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) yesterday after a sometimes tense organizing drive. “I thought it would be closer to 50-50,” Joshua Smith, one of the organizers, says of the vote count, which was he…

04/30/2014

So much respect and support for Johns Hopkins Black Student Union's powerful and necessary project. Please share!

http://www.buzzfeed.com/chantelf/itooamhopkins-p1w7

Inspired by the I, Too, Am Harvard photo campaign, members of the Johns Hopkins University Black Student Union decided to embark on one of their own. Titled, “I, Too, Am Hopkins,” the c...