[RAICES] Fwd: Supreme Court to rule on Affirmative Action; response planned

[thoughtcage .]

hi folks,

  i hope people aren't feeling the need to jump off cliffs right now. i know 
it's super stressful. just to let you know, here's something to organize 
around on this campus for march, 2003. the supreme court right is planning 
to review two very heady cases: 1) an affirmative action case at Michigan 
Law School, Grutter v. Bollinger; and 2) state sodomy laws (visit this link 
for more info: < 
http://www.cnn.com/2002/LAW/12/02/scotus.sodomy/index.html>) within the 
coming months.

the following email is about the affirmative action case, and there is 
planning for a march on washington. this is of national concern, and 
symptomatic of a conservative supreme court. another case-in-point: dr. 
david hager is trying to, with the support of trent lott, get rid of 
mifeprestone through other anti-choice legislation.

i think this would be amazing to organize around, and would be a great 
discussion to have with people on this campus, SOURCe, Cultural Center, QCA, 
QPOC, women's center, you name it. these two supreme court cases could 
become a point of connection for numerous seemingly divergent and 
disconnected movements.

let me know what you think.

i hope everyone is well!

yours sincerely,
sydney

======
My name is Sarah Barnard and I am first year student at the University of
Michigan and with an organization called The Coalition to Defend
Affirmative Action & Integration and Fight for Equality By Any Means
Necessary (BAMN). BAMN is a national student and youth organization that is
dedicated to building a new, youth-led civil rights movement to defend
integration and equality. We are the student co-defendants in the
University of Michigan Law School Affirmative Action Case, Grutter v.
Bollinger.

Between March 24-26 and March 31- April 2, 2003 the United States Supreme
Court will decide to hear our case. This will mean we are at a historic
point to defend Brown v. Board of Education. If not, then our nation will
fall back to resegregation, just like the ruling of Plessy v. Ferguson. If
affirmative action is overturned, positve measures to achieve integration
and to offset racism and sexism will be barred cross the nation.

I am writing for yours and other members of Spectrum's help! We will march
on Washington DC to the US Supreme Court on the day these cases are heard.
We will show the court and the watching nation that our generation will
take this historic stand for equality and will not accept the resegregation
of higher eduaction and American society.

We need your help to build for this historic march! Our plan for achieving
this is to get halpe from the establsihed Civil Rights and Labor
organizations to put all of their weight and resources behind it as they
did with the March on Washington in 1963. So far Rev. Jesse Jackson of the
Rainbow/ PUSH Coalition, Kim Gandy of the National Organization for
Women(NOW), Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, and the Rev. Al Sharpton have pledged
to march on Washington. We also need to get help from John Sweeney, Prez.
Of the AFL-CIO, and Kweisi Mfume, Prez. of the NAACP. This is our time to
shake up the conservative Supreme Court that lies ahead of us.

We have launched a grassroots 'Pledge to March on Washington' to call all
progressive organizations to action. It consists of two parts. People both
pledge to be at the march themselves to march for integration and equality.
In addition, they call on the mainstream Civil Rights and Labor
organizations to join them and to build the march. And then they send the
pledges in to the different organizations to communicate how many people
are marching and want them to build this march at this critical time.

This pledge it is to help us get tens of thousands of college and high
school students, from across the nation, to Washington D.C. Just think of
this Pledge as your bus ticket to the March on Washington! Start the
campaign on your campus.

Attatched is the 'Pledge' in PDF format.
If you have any questions please reply to me at sbarnard at umich.edu or call
me on my cell phone at 734.846.3466.

Thank you for your time,
Sarah A. Barnard
Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action & Integration and Fight for Equality
By Any Means Necessary (BAMN)
734.846.3466
sbarnard at umich.edu

*Come to the January Summit/ Conference of the New Civil Rights Movement.
See www.bamn.com for details.

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