On Jan. 23, 2018 in Kentucky, America had its 11th school shooting of the year. Among the 20 casualties were two 15-year-old students who died. The day before that, a pickup truck pulled up to a school in New Orleans and fired into a crowd of students; thankfully, only one had minor injuries. On the same day at a school in Texas, a 16-year-old shot a 15-year-old with a semi-automatic handgun. On Jan. 13, a man shot three people, killing one of them, at a party in a Springfield apartment complex with a semi-automatic weapon.

A common suggested solution to all of this violence is stricter gun control laws, but we need to look closer at other factors that contribute to gun violence. Three possible solutions to the problem of gun violence come to light: increasing access to mental health services, working to dismantle the patriarchy and passing legislation that bans people with a history of domestic violence from owning weapons.

Strictly from a numbers perspective, suicide and domestic abuse are a much larger problem than mass shootings. Access to mental health services is a problem in this country — 56.5 percent of US adults with a mental health condition didn’t receive mental health services in 2017 — and easy access to firearms increases the severity of the issue. In 2014, suicide was the tenth leading cause of death in the United States; for people aged 10-34, it was the second. Firearms increase the likelihood of suicide because they’re easy to use; suicides account for two-thirds of all gun deaths. Studies suggest that suicides are not usually planned out over a long period of time but rather occur when people are most vulnerable. A study in Houston of people aged 13-34 who attempted suicide found that 24 percent of them spent less than five minutes between deciding to attempt suicide and making the attempt. Easy access to guns and quick decision-making are a bad combination. Evidence shows that people with mental illnesses are not likely to be violent toward other people, but since suicide rates are high, increasing access to mental health services is an important way to reduce the overall amount of gun violence in America.

The majority of mass shooters are white men. Psychiatrist James Gilligan, who researches and has direct experience with violent perpetrators explains that “masculinity. … is literally defined as involving the expectation, even the requirement, of violence” in instances such as wartime, all-male combat sports or in response to personal insult. This toxic masculinity that permeates society is dangerous when mixed with easy access to guns. If the patriarchy is dismantled, toxic masculinity will eventually die out. Three ways to put an end to the patriarchy are to hold the media accountable for victim blaming and male-dominated journalism/movies; teach men and boys that it’s okay to express their feelings and emotions and get rid of the “strong and silent” expectation that prevents men from showing vulnerability.

Another important part of examining gun violence is occurences of domestic abuse. If one party owns a firearm in a situation of domestic violence, the risk of homicide increases by 500 percent. Perpetrators of over 54 percent of mass shootings had previously shot a relative or partner. For example, in November 2017, Devin Kelley shot 25 people and an unborn child with a semi-automatic rifle. Not only did he have a history of domestic violence, he had been accused of sexual assault, animal cruelty and threats via text message. He had even escaped from a mental health facility. After he hit his infant step-son, threatened his wife with a firearm and beat and choked her, he was court-martialed on multiple domestic assault charges; but none of this prevented him from purchasing guns. The current gun system failed to protect her, her son and every single person wounded or killed by Kelley. If there were laws preventing people with a history of domestic violence from owning weapons, this tragic incident would never have happened.

While gun control laws such as universal background checks or a ban on bump stocks are a good idea, these laws should be combined with an intense, further examination of social circumstances that create an atmosphere of violence. Providing more access to mental health services and dismantling the patriarchy will help reduce the amount of gun violence in America.

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The second annual Women’s March took place around the country on January 20; over 300,000 people marched in Chicago alone. The first Women’s March came under fire for excluding women of color and other marginalized groups due to lack of focus on issues affecting women of color, and while organizers said they would try to make the 2018 march more inclusive, they fell short. Some women of color boycotted the march again this year, which led white feminists to blame them for “dividing” the Women’s March.

The first Women’s March on Washington was originally called the Million Woman March, but the name was quickly changed after the head organizers were made aware that there was a protest in 1997 called the Million Woman March. That march centered around black women’s right to self-determination, and raising awareness of the issues facing black women. The 2017 march was then renamed the Women’s March on Washington.

The national Women’s March organizers also brought in several veteran activists, non-white women, to help increase intersectionality in the event and released a statement voicing support for expanding intersectionality within the march as a whole. Predictably, some white women were not pleased. One woman commented “Every woman in our culture is a 2nd class citizen period, whatever your race. You’re no better than Trump voters with that statement.” The inability of white women to recognize their privilege over women of color poses a huge problem to the Women’s March, since its mission statement aims to “harness the political power of diverse women and their communities to create transformative social change.”

Women of color continue to voice the exclusion they feel. Columnist Jamilah Lemieux says, “I don’t know that I serve my own mental health needs by putting my body on the line to feign solidarity with women who by and large didn’t have my back prior to November.” The Black Lives Matter group in Cincinnati put out a statement titled “The Women’s March is Not Feminism: Why BLMC will not go to the 2018 Cincinnati Women’s March.” It reads, “Black Lives Matter: Cincinnati would like to be part of a march for women’s liberation, but we know the 2018 Cincinnati Women’s March is not it…Once the current theme was proposed, our organization as well as several other local leaders who are women of color raised our concerns… with organizers of the Cincinnati Women’s March. Our concerns were pushed aside. Our only request was to change the theme from ‘Vote’ to ‘Voice.’”

White feminists blatantly disregarding women of color is not a new thing. Women’s suffrage icon Susan B. Anthony said, “The old anti-slavery school says women must stand back and wait until the negroes shall be recognized. But we say, if you will not give the whole loaf of suffrage to the entire people, give it to the most intelligent first.” In the words of Jazmine Walker, a woman who specializes in reproductive justice and solidarity economy movements, “The war on women does not resonate with communities of color because we’ve never stopping being under attack.” 53 percent of white women voted for Trump; 95 percent of black women voted for Clinton. For women of color to be excluded from one of the biggest protests in American history by white women, the majority of whom voted for Trump, is reprehensible.

Coalitions have to be formed to fight, and they won’t be if women of color are ignored. Remember: it isn’t feminism if it isn’t intersectional.

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“I thought those guys [the Ku Klux Klan] were OK until I learned they smoked pot.” Meet Jeff Sessions, the Trump Administration’s Attorney General. He later said he was kidding, but the basics of his message are true: he sympathizes with white supremacists and is extremely anti-marijuana. He recently made a decision to withdraw the Cole Memo, a famous Obama-era policy which gave states the space to legalize marijuana without fear of federal interference. This announcement has had economic, social and political impacts in Oregon and across the country.

Economic Impacts:

When Sessions announced the withdrawal, a fund of marijuana-based stocks dropped more than nine percent and even affected the stock price of the company that makes Miracle-Gro, which dropped five percent. North American marijuana sales in 2016 totaled 6.7 billion dollars; it’s set to reach $20.2 billion by 2021. For fiscal years 2016 and 2017, Oregon brought in a combined total of over $90 million in marijuana tax revenue; 60 percent of that revenue goes toward mental health and alcoholism support services, cities, counties and law enforcement — the other 40 percent of revenue goes toward education. If Sessions begins to crack down on states in which marijuana is legal, Oregon will lose some of its current education funding, an important expenditure considering Oregon is ranked 38 in the nation for education.

Social Impacts:

Medical marijuana is now an important part of the healthcare industry. Although Sessions has not explicitly stated that he will target medical marijuana businesses, his intense anti-cannabis stance suggests that such an attack is not out of the question. In 2016, there were over a million people who used medical marijuana. The American Legion, the largest wartime veterans service organization, has been a leading advocate for the removal of cannabis from Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act. By rescinding this memo, Sessions has taken on a large coalition of medical marijuana users: veterans, senior citizens, cancer survivors and parents of children with epilepsy, to name a few.

Political Impacts:

There are also considerable political impacts that come along with rescinding this memo. Not just from Democrats, but also Republicans. Senator Cory Gardner of Colorado said that he would be putting a hold on every single nomination from the DOJ until Sessions held up his promise of honoring states’ rights. Jeanne Shaheen, the lead Democrat on the DOJ funding subcommittee, tweeted that she would “work to ensure that resources are devoted to opioid response NOT foolish policy of interfering with legal marijuana production.” Cannabis has lost a lot of the stigma that it used to carry: nearly 70 percent of Americans believe in some form of legalized marijuana. Senator Pat Leahy of Vermont wants to include an amendment in the 2018 omnibus appropriations bill that would maintain protections for medical marijuana. Attorney General Sessions has created a lot of adversaries on both sides of the aisle by withdrawing this memo.

Sessions made this decision to please a relatively small amount of Americans who still believe marijuana should not be used in any capacity, and the full economic, social and political fallout has yet to be determined. All that is known for sure is that the withdrawal of this memo has serious consequences for both the country and Oregon.

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We all know how important sports are to our university. The athletic department brings in hundreds of millions of dollars every year. Our basketball team made it to the Final Four last year, which is a huge accomplishment considering the UO hasn’t made it to the Final Four in 78 years. However, just because sports are a great source of revenue and student pride, doesn’t mean players should get a free pass when it comes to student conduct.

During the 2016-2017 men’s basketball season, the university allowed a player accused of sexual assault to play all 37 games of the season, even though they found out about his assault allegation two days after the fall term had started. Kavell Bigby-Williams, a 6’11” forward from London, was accused of sexual assault at an apartment near Gillette College in Wyoming, but the police at the college eventually dropped the charges and closed the case. Bigby-Williams has since transferred to LSU, with no repercussions. If the UO had followed its own Standard Operating Procedures for Sexual Misconduct, Bigby-Williams could have been suspended without being expelled had UO determined he posed a threat to the community. But they didn’t, most likely because he was an athlete who would help the Ducks make it to the Final Four.

The UO has a history of avoiding allegations of rape and sexual assault when it comes to athletes. In 2014, three men’s basketball players were accused of rape. One was a transfer student who came to Oregon after being suspended due to an allegation of sexual assault at Providence College. The university learned about the rape allegation on March 9; the first game of the Pac-12 tournament was on March 12. Head coach Dana Altman knew about the allegation and let the players to play in the game anyway, after getting approval from the university. The UO didn’t even dismiss the players until May, two months after they were made aware of the gang rape allegation.

In an email sent on September 23, President Schill said, “The new federal Title IX guidelines continue to require schools to address sexual misconduct cases with fair, impartial and timely investigations that are free from conflict of interest or bias.” Getting the men’s basketball team to the Final Four is a pretty big conflict of interest. This is about the value of sports over serious student conduct violations.

Schill has even participated in outright victim blaming. In another email he said, “As a community of scholars, we must look out for each other. This starts with having zero tolerance for sexual harassment and violence. It means respecting yourself and not abusing drugs or alcohol.” A common form of victim blaming is arguing that since the person was under the influence of drugs or alcohol, he or she is at fault instead of the perpetrator. This shows his disregard for the needs of survivors and further invalidates his alleged dedication to solving the sexual assault problem on this campus.

Meanwhile, students that protested Schill’s State of the University address are being targeted with student conduct violations. The right of the people to peaceably assemble is included in the First Amendment. The protesters did just this; there was no violence and nothing was broken. They simply took the stage to protest President Schill’s lack of support of marginalized students, the increasing financial burdens being put on students, the lack of support for staff and student workers, as well as his decision to allow white supremacists and their hate speech on campus.

ASUO President Amy Schenk wrote an opinion piece for the Register Guard, mentioning that The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education has said that the UO has an “ambiguous policy that too easily encourages administrative abuse and arbitrary application.” She goes on to say that the actions taken against the recent protest demonstrate the university’s attempts to censor student viewpoints when those viewpoints are inconvenient for the administration. All the protestors wanted was to draw attention to the issues that matter to students on campus, and address administrative inaction and outright apathy.

Clearly as long as you play for the men’s basketball team, student conduct violations don’t apply to you. If you criticize President Schill and his administration however, you’ll be prosecuted for having the courage to speak about how this university can be improved.

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Only four in ten Americans currently believe the Democratic Party stands for something; over a quarter of all Democrats say their party primarily stands in opposition to Trump rather than for its own agenda. Last week’s elections appear to show a movement growing behind the Democrats, but in reality, it is solely opposition to President Trump.

Voters still must choose between the lesser of two evils, but Trump’s attacks on people of color, members of the LGTBQ community, Muslims and others make him appear worse than the Democrats to voters. Voters want to send a message to the Trump administration: they are not pleased with his party, his policies or his actions. The best way to do this is to vote for the opposite party.

Millennials are now the largest voting bloc in America; they tend to be more liberal and diverse than baby boomers, the former largest voting bloc. Baby boomers and older voters lean conservative both economically and socially, while millennials and younger voters lean left. In order to win an election, a candidate or party must cater more towards the largest voting bloc to increase turnout of that bloc.

When baby boomers were the largest bloc, the Democrats catered to their views with policies like neoliberalism and capitalism. Now that millennials are the largest voting bloc, the Democratic Party must shift its policies to encompass millennials’ views in order to continue winning elections.

This was clearly shown in Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. She couldn’t get the same turnout from millennials as President Obama did, and it cost her. Millennials want to know what their representatives are doing to combat income inequality, climate change and the rising cost of college tuition. She should have looked at the writing on the wall, seen that 51 percent of millennials do not support capitalism, and chosen policy positions that more closely aligned with millennial views. The famous moment between Trevor Hill and Nancy Pelosi at a CNN town hall where she stated, “I have to say, we’re capitalist. That’s just the way it is,” shows that the Democratic Party is out of touch with the beliefs of its largest bloc of potential voters.

In order to win over millennials, the Democratic Party must stop accepting corporate funding. When Democratic representatives are funded with money from the fossil fuel industry, how can we expect them to create legislation to fiercely combat climate change? If the military-industrial complex influences budgets, how can we expect them to allocate money to universal healthcare or college tuition? President Obama, in his 2016 federal budget, laid the foundation for a trillion-dollar overhaul of the nuclear weapons program. The current low estimate is closer to $1.2 trillion. It would only cost $47 billion a year to abolish tuition and fees at public four-year colleges for students coming from households making less that $125,000 a year and make community college tuition-free for students at all income levels.

The reason that 15 Democratic Socialists of America members and DSA-backed candidates won elections last Tuesday is that neither party is discussing the issues that matter to voters the most. In order to win elections — especially at the national level — you must appeal to millennials, and the issues that are the most important to them are issues that neither party is focusing on.

If the Democrats want to win elections post-Trump, they must begin shifting their policies to reflect the views of millennials. Given the political climate we’re in now, however, moving our country even a slight amount to the left is nothing to sneeze at.

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“Nothing about us without us.” That’s what 80+ students and I chanted as we took the stage on Oct. 6. President Schill has ignored student concerns for a long time, so we decided to protest in a way that he simply could not overlook.

Students have sought to work with the administration using sanctioned means. For example, the LGBTQA3 put on a protest in Johnson Hall last April. President Schill came to meet with them and he brought Vice President for Student Life Kevin Marbury with him. Members of the QA3 were listing demands and sharing concerns; Mr. Marbury said the UO would work on meeting the demands. Charlie Landeros, one of the protesters, asked how they could be sure that anything would be done, since in the past the UO has simply ignored students’ concerns. Landeros said that Schill told him, “He is the president and only he gets to decide what happens at this school, not [us].” After he said that, he “walked out of the meeting. He walked out as students were talking to him. He said that he had a ‘diversity’ training that he was late for,” according to Landeros. He claims that students should arrange meetings with either him or someone from his administration instead of protesting, but when students did arrange a meeting, he walked out as they were talking to him.

After the demonstration, President Schill framed himself as a victim of “disruptive” protestors who don’t understand the “value of free speech.” He ignores, however, the fact that students do not have the same abilities that he does. Students cannot email every student, faculty member, staff member and alum detailing their grievances. He sent an email condemning students for “shutting down another person’s right to speak.” This is ironic, considering he was able to send a recording of his speech to every person with a UO email address as well as publish an Op Ed in the New York Times.

He claims to support free speech, yet he has condemned and neglected the voices of marginalized students on campus while ensuring our campus is a safe space for local Nazis such as Jimmy Marr and hate groups such as the Genocide Awareness Project. It’s clear he only values some free speech, and it’s not that of his own students. In the email, he announced a lecture and panel series for teaching students about “the value of free speech,” which is condescending and paternalistic. Last year, President Schill proposed a policy to the Senate that would restrict the time, place and manner of student protest. He revoked it after press coverage and objections from students and faculty, but the fact that he even proposed it in the first place shows how much he cares about free speech.

The UO Student Collective — a coalition of student activists that “are taking back power for the students” — released a list of 22 demands, which have four common themes: increasing services to marginalized students, easing the financial burden of students, increasing support of staff and student workers and publicly condemning the increasing amounts of hate speech, white supremacist propaganda and alt-right organizing on and near campus.

Other demands include: beginning to cut carbon emissions immediately, increasing access to counseling and mental health services, repealing the decision to require freshmen to live on campus and having a graduate employee on the Board of Trustees.

He criticized us for protesting, but he should be thanking us for taking action and having the courage to speak with passion about how the University of Oregon can be improved. After all, it is our university.

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