On June 26, 1844, the legislative committee of the territory then known as “Oregon Country” passed the first of a series of “Black exclusion” laws. The law dictated that free African Americans were prohibited from moving into Oregon Country and those who violated the ban could be whipped “not less than twenty nor more than thirty-nine stripes." https://calendar.eji.org/racial-injustice/jun/26?fbclid=IwdGRleASritxleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZAo2NjI4NTY4Mzc5AAEer03-_lUUWgkLlFNXR6rCiFe9ruPUuu29qXHggo7_4YPPifs-7dzEW-2C6EU_aem_HS3CvHKoo19G04sYe5Pl1g

This powerful opportunity to learn from leading scholars, media voices, and justice advocates on Critical Race Theory, historical memory, feminism, education, and voting rights links the assaults on democracy with the weaponization of anti-Blackness. We invite people of all generations, backgrounds, and experiences to learn from our past to safeguard our future. The tradition of intellectual and civic backtalk in schools and universities has long nurtured the critical imagination that democracy requires. For that very reason, education has often been one of the first terrains authoritarian movements seek to control. Across the country, we see this struggle unfolding in battles over book bans, curriculum restrictions, and attacks on teachers, as well as on critical frameworks such as critical race theory and intersectionality. This panel examines how education (and educators) have become central targets in contemporary authoritarian politics. Drawing on current examples, panelists will assess how teachers, scholars, and students are increasingly cast as enemies in campaigns that seek to discipline knowledge itself. They will explore how efforts to sanitize history and undermine public education reshape democratic institutions and narrow the boundaries of public debate. By connecting the dots between the struggle over classrooms and the broader assault on democratic life, the conversation aims to clarify what is at stake, and why defending honest education and those who teach it is inseparable from defending democracy. SPEAKERS: Russell Robinson, Mark Rosenbaum, Janel George MODERATOR: Sumi Cho READINGS: - Janel A. George, Deny, Defund, and Divert: The Law and American Miseducation, Georgetown University Law Center, 509-516; 546-68 (2023). - Devon W. Carbado & Russell K. Robinson, SFFA: Bakke's Chickens Coming Home to Roost, 113 Cal. L. Rev. 1035-1078 (2025). - Mae M. v. Komrosky, No. G064332, 2025 WL [WL Number] (Cal. Ct. App. May 19, 2025).

Thousands of African Americans fought for the British during the Revolution—then fled the United States to avoid a return to enslavement, Andrew Lawler wrote last year. Revisit his story about the journey of the Black Loyalists: https://theatln.tc/JZOeMD4P 🎨: Paul Spella. Source: Paul Popper / Popperfoto / Getty.

CYCLE exposes the systemic cycle of police brutality in America, investigating what happens in the silence between viral cases. Through the lens of Ty’rese West’s killing—one that never made headlines—the film exposes the harrowing reality of seeking justice in a system designed to deny it. Source and definitely follow her in Tiktok https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8svYFep/

Queer folks are always one of the first to receive the harshest form of oppression during the uprising of authoritarianism (Tschantret, 2020). It happened when the colonizers came to Turtle Island (North America) (Robinson, 2020). It happened in Germany in the 1930s (Smith, 2020). And it’s happening again. The narrative they often say is that we’re dangerous. And many people lacking critical thinking and compassion will fall for it. The “leader” will make conditions so terrible that it would be easy to blame groups that have absolutely nothing to do with the economic collapse. There is zero evidence to support this, yet many believe it. Why? The rise of anti-intellectualism (Fassin, 2024). If people are unequipped to sift through reading materials without the skills required to know whether it's valid and trustworthy, they'll fall for every piece of misinformation they can find, because it offers a scapegoat: blame the queer and trans people, blame the immigrants, blame the Natives, blame the academics. Blame absolutely anyone but their leader (Farkhari et al., 2024). Why the need to deny? Authoritarianism frame of thinking doesn’t require the leader to apologize–and this is why evangelicals are the population that falls for this the most (Perry & Whitehead, 2023). If you were to ask them if God (their ultimate leader) should apologize for the suffering he knew would happen, they’d say no, he shouldn't apologize or be held accountable. If their own deity cannot hold accountability, why would they ask that of a political leader? Asking questions is a huge no-no. Asking for accountability is a no-no, so long as they pray the correct way–all is well. I bring this up to offer an explanation as to why so many fall for the same bs the world was met with 100 years ago. It’s an open-book test, yet many are falling for the same regime. Even in many Native communities, queer folks are being targeted, because many of them (particularly Native evangelicals), are perpetuating the same framework as their own oppressors. They cannot see that that frame of thinking is soooooo opposite of our Original Instructions of love. (But many of them will say that residential schools were good because it brought them Jesus, so what else can I expect, tbh?)