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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.

A caricature of Alice Moore drawn by the Charleston Gazette’s Taylor Jones.

*Credit: The Charleston Gazette*

WVU Students Protest Proposed Program Cuts

Chants of “Stop the cuts” and “Hey Hey. Ho Ho. Gordon Gee has got to go” punctuated the gathering of dozens in front of the student union on West Virginia University’s downtown Morgantown campus Monday.

Students like Claire Graser came out to let the university’s administration know they do not approve of proposed cuts. On Aug. 11 the university proposed cutting more than 30 majors – including the entire World Languages department – to address an estimated $45 million budget shortfall for fiscal year 2024.

“Gordon Gee told me that the students voted with their feet when they made these cuts, which was a lie. And if he wants to see the students vote with their feet, now here they are,” she said.

Graser is pursuing an international studies degree, as well as studying French and Arabic. Originally from Virginia, Graser said she would have never come to WVU if World Languages were not offered.

“I’m furious on my behalf, but also for the fact that again, foundational to having a world class institution and a world class education, you need an understanding of the world and world languages,” she said. “I cannot believe that anybody would be willing to take that away from other people who might not otherwise get it.”

Students downtown were joined by community members and faculty members, and many at the action wore red as a sign of solidarity for faculty members facing termination. A similar protest was simultaneously underway across campus in front of the Student Recreation Center on WVU’s Evansdale Campus.

John Goldwasser teaches mathematics, a department whose Ph.D. program has been targeted for discontinuation. He’s not confident actions like this will stop the proposed cuts but came out regardless.

“It’s better to fight and lose than not to fight. It’s better to make our voices heard. We’re fighting for something very important, which is going to lose this round,” he said. “Who knows what’s going to happen 10 years from now, or 15 years from now.”

A protest against proposed program cuts at WVU moves to Stewart Hall on the university’s downtown Morgantown campus Aug. 21, 2023.

Goldwasser said if the cuts go through, West Virginia will be one of two states with no Ph.D. program in mathematics. Although that may not impact most students, he fears it will promote an exodus of the state’s math and science students.

“Some of those students get inspired, get motivated by being exposed to the ideas that you only find in a classroom taught by a mathematician,” he said. “What’s gonna happen for the next several years is that the best high school STEM students in West Virginia won’t come here to go to school. They’ll go someplace else. They’ll go to Virginia Tech, or to Penn State, or Maryland. And in the long run, that’s going to be damaging to the state because once somebody leaves for school, there’s a very good chance they’re not going to come back to work.”

Several state delegates – both current and former – addressed the crowd in front of the student union. Among them was Del. Anitra Hamilton, D-Monongalia, herself a WVU alumnus.

“I hope this sends a strong message to the administration that our students care for more than just football, that they can chant and stand and believe in something more than the sports of this school, that our students care about our faculty,” she said. “They care about our programming. They care about the future of WVU and the state of West Virginia. So I hope they take this into consideration.”

Hamilton said that during the recent special session of the state legislature, she joined with other representatives from the Morgantown area to propose increased funding to help WVU address its budget shortfall. The proposal was ultimately unsuccessful and was not taken up by either chamber.

“If funding would have stayed with the current trend, then this year, they would have given $38 million, which is not far from $45 million,” she said. “I definitely believe that we should invest in our future, and that is in our students. We want people to come to West Virginia, and to also invest in those that are here and are educated here, and who may have a desire to stay here.”

The Board of Governors will meet on Sept. 15 to vote on the proposed program cuts. Student organizers say they plan to protest at future Board of Governors’ meetings, including one planned for Tuesday.

Trans Activists: New Law Could Block Gender Affirming Care For Inmates

The West Virginia Legislature passed Senate Bill 1009 in a special session earlier this week. The law prohibits the use of state funds for certain medical procedures or benefits that are not medically necessary for inmates.

On Friday, the West Virginia Trans Coalition hosted a rally protesting the law.

According to the protestors, it could give the Commissioner of the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, Billy Marshall, not physicians, final say on what is medically necessary. Trans activists like Deives Collins fear this law could be used to deny gender affirming care to inmates.

“I perceive this as a threat to us specifically, trans activists, saying, ‘Hey, we found a way to legally de-transition you if you find yourself on the wrong side of the law,” Collins said.

A Federal District Court for the Southern District of Illinois deemed trans affirming care as medically necessary and set the precedent that non-exports should not be decision makers when it comes to health care for transgender inmates.

Students Protest Anti-Abortion Display At WVU

Students at West Virginia University (WVU) in Morgantown are protesting an anti-abortion display on campus.

The anti-abortion group Center for Bio-Ethical Reform staged a demonstration Wednesday and Thursday in WVU’s free speech zone in front of the Mountainlair student union.

The organization displayed images that purported to show aborted fetuses alongside victims of lynching and the Holocaust, comparing abortion to genocide.

Jacinta Robin is a media liaison for Center for Bio-Ethical Reform events. She said the organization brought the display — titled the “Genocide Awareness Project” (GAP) — to WVU because the university’s “plethora of students with diverse ideas” made it a good place for public discourse.

“We seek public universities for the reason of there being a public discourse on their campus in some capacity, that we should be allowed to use as a taxpayer in this country,” Robin said. “But we still abide by the university’s protocol every time.”

She said the organization aims to sway public opinion and that their images represent the organization’s beliefs.

“Many people believe that abortion is the process of eliminating blood and tissue,” Robin said. “We’re reversing that narrative that abortion decapitates and dismembers a tiny human child.”

Returning student Adrienne Dering called the information on the signs ”factually incorrect.”

“This is an institution of education, and people deserve to be educated,” Dering said.

“Abortion doesn’t look like D&Cs [dilation and curettage] anymore,” she continued. “Ninety-seven percent of abortions in this country are in the first trimester, and the vast majority of them are medical abortions where women have a safe, medically monitored miscarriage in the comfort of their own home and the blood clot is the size of an olive.”

Dering said she was also protesting because the information being presented, which included comparisons of gender transitioning to genital mutilation, was potentially harmful.

“The information on that hurts people, and we need to protest against anything that is divisive and hurtful to people of all gender assignments and to human beings,” she said.

Counter-protestors started their action as early as 7 a.m. Thursday, which included handing out contraceptives as well as information about safe sex and reproductive health resources.

Students like freshman Leah Coleman blocked the view of the display with oversized signs painted on tarps and bed sheets reading “Protect Trans Folks” and “Abortion is Healthcare.”

“By putting it in front of the Mountainlair, it’s making it look like, ‘Oh, this is WVU’s message. This is what WVU supports,’” Coleman said. “But obviously, this is not what the student body supports, or we wouldn’t be here.”

A similar display and counterprotest took place at Marshall University earlier this week.

Many of the students at the counterprotest said they have written to the university expressing their concern and confusion at the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform’s presence on campus. Some have asked for the group’s removal.

The organization is considering returning Friday. Students plan to continue their protest if they do.