Protest Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

WVU Students, Community Members March In Support Of Palestine

Student protests in support of Palestine have emerged on college campuses across the country in the past few weeks Students at West Virginia University joined their voices to the movement.

Student protests in support of Palestine have emerged on college campuses across the country in the past few weeks Students at West Virginia University added their voices to the movement.

Protesters congregated in front of the Mountainlair, WVU’s student union Sunday evening. The group of about 75 people was made up of students as well as community members, many of whom had their young children in tow.

Gabe Jones is a senior at the university, and he hoped the demonstration shows WVU their determination.

“I would hope that just us being here helps to show WVU how many people here support a free Palestine, and how many people would support us divesting from supporting Israel,” he said.

Divestment from Israeli interests has been a consistent demand at protests on college campuses since encampments were established at Columbia University April 17.

Jones and others at Sunday’s action mentioned the sale of Coca-Cola, Starbucks and Sabra hummus as potential targets of divestment for the university.

“There are active ties here between WVU and both universities and companies that do support the current occupation,” Jones said. “There’s a lot of ways that the university is actively supporting and funding, in part this genocide and everyone here supports the idea that that should actively stop.”

South Africa accused Israel of committing a genocide in the United Nations International Court of Justice, claims which are currently being adjudicated.

Nada Mikky is the secretary of the Muslim Student Association at WVU and helped the group organize the protest. She said the demonstrators hope to show solidarity with Palestinians, as well as with students on other campuses. Locally, Mikky says the action hopes to push three goals on campus.

“First is for WVU to divest from any sending money to Israel, or anything that is supporting genocide,” she said. “Second is for the university to hopefully call for a ceasefire. And third is for them to at least be aware of what’s happening and hear our voices.”

Mikky said the turnout was a surprise given the short notice, as well as WVU entering its finals week. She also noted broad-based support from other religious groups.

“We did not expect this turnout, and gladly people, not even only from the MSA but also the Christian community, the Jewish community,” she said. “People that are from other communities, I think from the Jewish, they brought snacks and water for the protesters.”

Omar Ibraheem, president of the Muslim Student Association at WVU, said it is frustrating to know Israeli citizens can go to college for free.

“A lot of universities are actually investing in a foreign country, in a foreign military, and that money could be used to aid students,” he said. “Most students are in debt and all people in Israel get access to free education and free health care, whereas Americans don’t even have that.”

Ibraheem also expressed concern about First Amendment violations stemming from protests on other campuses.

“We’re watching students across campuses getting their First Amendment rights, something that is so embedded in America, we’re watching that getting stripped away,” he said. “Students are being arrested, suspended for their access of free speech on designated areas for free speech and protests.”

The group marched down to the Monongalia County Courthouse in downtown Morgantown and back to campus peacefully. A presence from the Morgantown Police Department served primarily to block intersections and ensure safe crossings for the march.

Students vow to take more action in the coming days.

Senate Steadily Passes House Bills Back To House

House Bill 5091, or the West Virginia Critical Infrastructure Protection Act, increases penalties for trespassing or damaging those areas. There are some drastic increases in fines in the bill like an increase in the maximum fine from $5,000 to $100,000. The bill heads back to the House for consideration.

The Senate passed 12 house bills on Monday, including bills on critical infrastructure, driving in the left lane, and suspended school personnel.

In West Virginia Code, critical infrastructure is considered things like steel and chemical factories, power plants, airports and health care facilities.

Opponents of the bill, like nonprofit law firms that represent protesters, say laws like this are aimed at creating steep consequences for protests of fossil fuel projects, such as pipelines.

“Although legislation that focuses on ‘critical infrastructure’ may sound innocuous and technocratic, these bills can significantly undermine the right to peaceful assembly,” The International Center for Nonprofit Law said in a statement.

Currently there are no laws against driving slowly in the left lane. House Bill 5237 would change that. There are exceptions, like if there is construction or an emergency vehicle on the side of the road. The maximum fine is $25. The bill heads back to the House as well.

Another bill would allow suspended school personnel to enter school functions open to the public. Supporters of the bill said the primary goal of House Bill 5650 is to allow parents, or guardians who are suspended employees of the school, to be able to pick up children or attend events. There are exceptions in the case of an employee who imposes a risk of danger or disruption to students, staff or the learning environment.

Bill That Would Strike Down ‘Rolling Coal’ Sparks Senate Committee Debate

A bill that would restrict “rolling coal” — a form of protest in which drivers release thick clouds of smog from there vehicles — advanced in the West Virginia Senate on Monday, but not without pushback from some lawmakers.

A controversial bill that would prohibit “rolling coal” on roadways advanced in the West Virginia Senate Transportation and Infrastructure Committee on Monday — but not without pushback from some lawmakers.

Rolling coal refers to modifying diesel fuel in a motor vehicle in order to pollute the air with thick, dark smog. For years, rolling coal on highways has served as a display of allegiance to the coal industry in spite of mounting environmentalist pushback.

Elsewhere in the United States, lawmakers have restricted the form of protest in light of environmental, health and safety concerns associated with emitting a pollutant into the air.

Now, West Virginia legislators are considering their own restrictions on the practice. The West Virginia Senate is actively reviewing Senate Bill 436, which would render the contentious form of protest a misdemeanor.

The bill reached the Senate Transportation and Infrastructure Committee on Monday, where discussions focused on the safety risk associated with reduced visibility on West Virginia roads.

Sponsored by Sen. Jack Woodrum, R-Summers, the bill penalizes deliberately selling, making or using diesel additives to produce “visible smoke emissions.” It would apply to all motorized vehicles on public roadways, but not on private land.

The bill passed through the committee Monday but drew pushback from senators who described it as a crackdown on pro-coal West Virginians, or an unnecessary piece of legislation to focus on.

Rolling coal refers to the deliberate emission of thick, black smog from a motor vehicle.
*Credit: toa555/Adobe Stock*

Sen. Robert Karnes, R-Randolph, was an outspoken critic of the bill during Monday’s meeting. Karnes alleged the pending law would suppress some West Virginians’ right to protest.

“People who are doing this rolling coal are simply expressing their support for West Virginia’s coal industry,” Karnes said. “This is an attack on people who support our coal industry.”

“We may not like that particular statement,” he continued. “But they have a right to express their political views.”

Others who voted to advance the bill said that, regardless of their own perceptions of the protests, the law would not mark a clear enough suppression of coal supporters’ rights to preclude it from further consideration.

“I don’t see this as an anti-coal bill,” said Sen. Glen Jeffries, R-Putnam.

Regardless, members of the committee agreed to scale back penalties for those who violate the law.

Under an earlier draft of the bill, repeat rolling coal offenders could face up to six months imprisonment. The committee deemed this excessive, and amended the bill so that violators would only incur fines up to $500.

With the committee’s approval, the amended bill will now return to the Senate where lawmakers will determine whether to send it to the House of Delegates.

Update: WVU Students Show Support For Palestine With Rally

Students on West Virginia University’s Morgantown campus held a rally in support of Palestine Wednesday.

Updated on Friday, Oct. 13, 2023 at 10:35 a.m.

Students on West Virginia University’s Morgantown campus held a rally in support of Palestine Wednesday.

About two dozen people gathered outside WVU’s student union to show their support for Palestine at the event organized by the Muslim Student Association.

Omar Ibraheem, president of the association, said the rally also hoped to raise money for humanitarian aid in Gaza, and push back against misinformation.

“Our main goal is just to educate people passing by and encourage research,” he said. “We want them to get out of the mindset that Palestine is the villain. Don’t believe everything you hear, don’t believe everything you just see, even the stuff I’m preaching right now, I want people to go home and fact check me.”

Ibraheem said they are advocating for human rights, regardless of race or religion.

“This is a human rights issue,” he said. “There are Jewish Palestinians, there are Christian Palestinians, there are Muslim Palestinians, all of them are being persecuted. We are here for the sake of human rights, not for the sake of a religion. As the Muslim Student Association we stand against injustice, and we stand for human rights at all costs.”

Computer science major Nada Mikky lived in Gaza for 13 years before moving to West Virginia with her family. She said she lived through three wars in that time and beyond misinformation she feels there has been a lack of coverage on the psychological impact of the fighting.

“The sound of the bomb, now that I’m hearing it through social media, that’s nothing compared to the sound that you can hear in real life,” Mikky said. “It not only shakes you from the outside, it can shake your lungs, it reaches the very bottom of your heart. Children there are struggling with PTSD.”

She said she hoped the rally helped to fix any misconceptions and possibly push people to look at the other side of the situation.

Jewish student organizations – including Chabad at WVU, Hillel and the AEPi fraternity – have also organized campus events in support of Israel such as a counter-protest Wednesday and a vigil in Woodburn Circle Thursday evening.

*Editor’s note: This story was updated on Friday, Oct. 13. to include the activities of Jewish student organizations.

Prison Workers Protest Staffing Shortage

More than a dozen correctional officers, medical staff and counselors from Hazelton lined Cheat Lake Road outside of Morgantown Friday morning to demand help at Federal Correctional Complex Hazelton.

On Friday, workers from Federal Correctional Complex Hazelton in Preston County protested in Morgantown against what they call dangerously low staffing at the prison.

More than a dozen correctional officers, medical staff and counselors from Hazelton lined Cheat Lake Road outside of Morgantown Friday morning to demand help at their federal correctional complex.

Hazelton houses a correctional institution and women’s facility, as well as a high-security United States penitentiary.

Justin Tarovisky, union president of Local 420 of the American Federation of Government Employees at FCC Hazleton, said the facility has more than 80 correctional officer positions vacant, which leaves other staff like teachers and counselors to fill in the gaps in a practice called augmentation.

“We’re taking teachers away from their jobs to be augmented. We’re taking other programs, the facilities, the workers,” Tarovisky said. “They’re taking other staff that aren’t correctional officers, and they’re putting them in correctional officer spots because we’re vacated.”

Protesters say existing officers are often mandated to work 16 hour shifts several times a week. Tarovisky said the issue is further exacerbated by not having local hiring authority. He said applications to work at Hazelton are sent to a bureau of prisons office in Texas for review, and most are rejected.

“When you have a job fair in the heart of Morgantown, West Virginia with 60 applicants and hardly anyone were hired, we have a problem with our hiring,” Tarovisky said.

The shortage poses safety risks for inmates and staff alike, as well as other problems. Lucretia Row, a nurse at Hazelton, said reduced officer staffing means delays in getting inmates their medication.

“Our job is to provide treatment,” Row said. “We can’t do that, because they have to stay locked in because we don’t have staff to let them out.”

Row said many mornings the facility’s “pill line” is delayed by several hours. If inmates are put on lockdown due to low staffing, medication must be brought to each cell individually, further delaying dosage. Row highlighted the danger this poses for inmates, particularly diabetics, as it pushes morning and evening dosages closer together than is medically advised.

“That’s detrimental to things like insulin. Insulin should not be given that close together,” she said. “Not only that, they’re not getting fed in a timely manner because they’re being held in longer. It’s not just about our officer’s rights, it’s about the rights of these inmates as well. They deserve that just treatment and it’s hard on our officers to keep up with everything, because there’s so few of them.”

Staffing issues are not unique to Hazelton. Joe Rojas works at FCC Coleman in Florida, and drove up to support his fellow union members Friday.

“Working for the bureau for 29 years, this is the worst that I’ve ever seen it when it comes to staffing,” he said.

Rojas said he is concerned that reduced staffing across the country will result in serious consequences, including death. He said he doesn’t want to see anyone get hurt.

“We’re here to make the public aware of the possibilities of an escape or the possibilities of an unfortunate homicide,” he said.

In a document prepared by the American Federation of Government Employees, the union said there are currently 12,731 correctional officers in the Bureau of Prisons, down from 13,808 officers in 2020. This is despite several years of presidential requests that there be 20,466 correctional officers, and allocated funding for those positions.

Last week, Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) joined with Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) in calling on the Department of Justice and Bureau of Prisons to investigate inmate abuse and staffing shortages at FCC Hazelton.

Union members are asking the public to contact their federal representatives about the officer shortage.

Us & Them Host Trey Kay Remembers Alice Moore

The woman who sparked the 1974 Kanawha County Textbook Controversy has died. 82-year-old Alice Whitehurst Moore passed away at her home in Tennessee over the weekend.

Moore was on the Kanawha County Board of Education and sparked a national debate with her objection to a new set of language arts books designed to reflect America’s increasingly multicultural society. Moore helped mobilize a protest that targeted schools and businesses throughout the county.

National attention came when boycotts paralyzed businesses in Kanawha and eight surrounding counties. Moore never advocated violence, however some protesters resorted to such tactics.

The controversy extended well beyond the Kanawha Valley. It provided the newly formed Heritage Foundation with a cause to rally an emerging Christian conservative movement.

Listen to the Us & Them episode “Trey & Alice”
Listen to award-winning audio documentary The Great Textbook War

Us & Them host Trey Kay has this remembrance:

It’s with deep sadness that I report the passing of a dear friend and someone who helped define the Us & Them podcast in its earliest days. Alice Whitehurst Moore passed away on Saturday, Sept. 9, 2023. Her daughter Chrissie Moore-Henthorne says her mother died at her home in Acton, Tennessee surrounded by her family. She was 82 years old.

I first became aware of Alice when she served on the Kanawha County Board of Education in West Virginia in the 1970s. In 1974, when I was in 7th grade in that school district, Alice sparked a national debate and conversation on multiculturalism when she objected to the adoption of a new set of language arts classroom textbooks for the district.

The books were recommended by a group of English teachers to reflect America’s increasingly multicultural society. Alice reviewed many of the proposed books and found a significant number of the passages and themes to be objectionable. She met with concerned parents in church basements and community centers and mobilized a book protest.

The effort drew national attention because it called for boycotts that paralyzed businesses for Kanawha and eight surrounding counties. Although Alice never advocated violence, some protesters resorted to violent tactics. School buildings were hit by dynamite and Molotov cocktails, sniper bullets hit some school buses, journalists were beaten and protesting miners shut down some of the region’s coal mines.

Alice Moore’s campaign flyer.

*Courtesy*

Textbook supporters said new curriculum materials would introduce students to fresh ideas about multiculturalism. Opponents said the books undermined traditional American values. The controversy extended well beyond the Kanawha Valley and became a rallying point for the then newly formed Heritage Foundation and its Christian conservative movement.

As a student, I was aware of how the protests made my hometown of Charleston, West Virginia the spotlight of news. Decades later, I chronicled the story of the Kanawha County Textbook Controversy in an award-winning audio documentary The Great Textbook War.

Shown is a woman at a protest in the 1970s who was inspired by Alice Moore.

*Courtesy*

I met Alice while making that report, and we developed a deep friendship that led to the creation of the Us & Them podcast. Our very first episode was called “Trey & Alice” and it provides some insight into the loving and sometimes contentious relationship that Alice and I had through the years.

Alice left West Virginia in the early 1980s and returned to her hometown of Acton, Tennessee. She lived there until her passing. She was the wife of a Church of Christ preacher and the mother of five, the grandmother of seven and the great-grandmother of four.

I want to share my deepest condolences to Alice’s family and gratitude to her for supporting the work of speaking across the differences that divide us.