If I hired a tutor for my daughter, I’d be covering up the school’s and the teachers’ negligence. If I allowed my daughter to fail, however, I would be forcing her school and her teachers to face the consequences of their malpractice.

When I wrote about my position, it enraged many readers, with :

It’s always great to use your children as sacrificial lambs to make a political point than to do your best for them!

This woman is nuts, you work to give your kids what they need to succeed — period. Nothing will change with the school system whether the kid succeeds or fails.

You want to teach the Board of Education a lesson by letting your daughter failed (sic) her Spanish Regents Exam? You need your head examined.

And to that effect.

Except, now that the academic year is over, I can report that my approach worked. And that the outcome benefited not just my daughter, but her classmates and future students of the school.

In math class, my daughter and a group of friends first went to their guidance counselor with complaints about their teacher, and then to the principal, who sat in on one of their classes and promptly brought in a new instructor. Now that they had a teacher who, as my daughter said, “actually makes sense when he talks,” she went from getting 48%, 23% and 14% on tests to a final grade of 94. (And it wasn’t just her grades, which can be subjective. After all the drama, my daughter received an 85 on her math Regents exam. She actually learned.)

For Spanish 3, after five weeks of having no teacher at all in a class that would be culminating with another Regents exam, my daughter and her classmates complained to the Advanced Placement Spanish teacher, who invited them to attend her office hours for intense tutoring.

“She gave us a list of [vocabulary] words to memorize,” my daughter reported. “In the last five weeks of school, she taught us five different conjugations we didn’t know we needed. She made us try. It was horrible.”

My daughter finished 11th grade with a final grade of 80 in Spanish. And, much to our mutual shock, with an 83 on the Regents.

First and foremost, I must thank those teachers who went out of their way to help, even when it, technically, wasn’t their responsibility. As I have written about the inadequacies of some teachers, I feel compelled to shout it from the rooftops with gratitude for the ones who go above and beyond on a daily basis.

Secondly, kudos to the students at my daughter’s school who took their education into their own hands and demanded better instruction than what they were getting. They are an inspiration to those of us who sometimes lose faith that schools ever will, or ever could, improve.

And, finally, a plea to my fellow parents and guardians: Yes, I know it’s hard to watch your kids struggle. Yes, I know we all want to do what’s best for our children, give them a leg up, “give your kids what they need to succeed — period,” as one of my critics insisted.

But that’s a short-term solution for a much larger, institutional problem.

No school, whether in NYC or elsewhere in the nation, will ever fix its failures unless it is forced to confront them. And no school will ever be forced to confront them if families, desperate to protect their children’s grade-point average, continue picking up the slack, making the school appear to be doing an adequate job when it is, in fact, outsourcing its instruction to parents and private tutors while taking credit for positive results.

My daughter and her friends demanded that their school properly educate them and chalked up a victory not only for themselves, not only for their peers, but for all American students who now have a blueprint for taking similar action: In order to succeed, you first have to demonstrate where you’ve failed.

COLUMBIA — In the tampon aisle of a CVS in rural Clarendon County, a sign read “This item is in high demand” and limited purchases to two boxes per customer.

It was this encounter with “period poverty,” defined as a lack of access to menstrual products and education, that led four University of South Carolina students to turn their ideas from a student contest into reality.

Four students pursuing medical and science degrees — Aastha Arora, Jiya Desai, Anusha Ghosh, and Thrisha Mote — were winners of the 2023 sponsored by South Carolina’s electric cooperatives, which asks teams of college students to come up with solutions to issues plaguing rural communities in the state.

“All of us have kind of grown up with this stigma around menstruation,” said Mote, a rising senior from Chattanooga, Tennessee, studying psychology, recently told the SC Daily Gazette. “But we also wanted to explore how that stigma can disproportionately affect rural residents.”

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In the U.S., two of every five women struggle to purchase menstrual supplies due to lack of income. In the Palmetto State, one in five females ages 12 to 44 fall beneath the poverty line, according to South Carolina’s . And federal grocery benefits, what used to be known as food stamps, can’t be used to purchase pads and tampons.

Also, until Monday, South Carolina was one of 21 states taxing period products. The average box of 32 tampons in South Carolina sells for $10.99. Add the state’s 6% sales tax and up to 3% in local sales taxes, and the price goes up by nearly $1.

In rural areas, such as Clarendon County, residents often must travel longer distances to the nearest store to buy what they need.

The four Honors College students, who met in the medical-related fraternity Phi Delta Epsilon, are also members of USC’s Rural Interest Group, consisting of students interested in working in rural communities. Their research found the issue particularly impacted school-age girls.

Speaking to other female students about their experiences, they heard from one woman about how students would ask the school nurse for toilet paper to use while on their period because they didn’t have access to pads.

“This kind of opened our eyes to kind of the cycle of poverty that happens in areas like these where they learn these from their parents,” said Desai, of Fort Mill, who starts medical school in the fall.

Their research into the issue and a proposal to form a non-profit to donate menstrual products to school districts in the state earned each of the women a $5,000 cash prize last year from the electric cooperatives.

It could have ended there, but the group decided to push their idea further.

“We kind of felt unfulfilled to just stop there,” said Arora, a rising junior from Charlotte studying biology. “We put in so much work and we felt like it wasn’t something that was unattainable.”

They formed a student group at USC called No Period Left Behind. About 175 students signed up to participate.

“We didn’t just want to research this issue. We wanted to actively try to combat it,” added Ghosh of Greenville, who also starts medical school in the fall.

The four women took part of their prize money from the contest and started buying pads and tampons. A bake sale on USC’s campus earned them an additional $400. And a pair of charitable sororities donated $150 and 3,000 pads.

The group then hosted events to pack the supplies given out at women’s shelters and middle and high schools, as well as a food pantry for USC students and in women’s restrooms in the library, student center and other high-traffic buildings on the college campus.

At Saluda Middle School, they held a seminar to teach the girls about periods.

No Period Left Behind joins the ranks of several such organizations around the state seeking to combat period poverty: Revolution Red in Columbia, Period Pixies in the Lowcountry and The Period Project headquartered in Greenville.

Making connections with these groups also led No Period Left Behind to join legislative efforts on the issue.

Legislators, mostly female, have tried for five years to paid on menstrual products. These items generate an estimate $7 million in state and local sales taxes annually, according to state fiscal experts.

The got unanimous approval in the House last year. But it wasn’t until two weeks ago that senators gave final approval, also unanimously, to eliminate the so-called tampon tax. It took a from Sen. Margie Bright Matthews, D-Walterboro, who held up tax breaks on golf club memberships, to get that vote on the Senate floor.

Gov. Henry McMaster signed the legislation into law Monday. While the law’s supposed to take effect with his signature, it remained unclear Tuesday when stores will actually stop taxing menstrual products bought in South Carolina.

A spokesperson for the state Department of Revenue said the agency is working on a plan and will notify retailers of the necessary adjustments “as soon as possible.”

No Period Left Behind was among several groups that wrote letters and spoke at legislative hearings in favor of the proposal. Next year, they hope to push lawmakers to put funding in the budget for schools to purchase menstrual products and have them available free to students.

“We can continue to donate to different schools and women’s shelters,” Desai said. “We’re trying to do just the best with what we can, but that would really be hitting like the root issue.”

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. SC Daily Gazette maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Seanna Adcox for questions: info@scdailygazette.com. Follow SC Daily Gazette on and .

On the morning of Aug. 21, 1939, five young Black men entered Alexandria’s only public library and sat down at tables to read books they had selected from the shelves. The head librarian, following the library’s “whites only” policy, called the city manager. He had the five men arrested. They were charged with disorderly conduct, even though they did nothing other than read quietly. The charges were not dismissed until 2019, long after the men had passed away.

The event was, in fact, an organized sit-in, the first of its kind in a public library. It is now the subject of a new book, Public in Name Only, written by former librarian Brenda Mitchell-Powell and published last fall by the University of Massachusetts Press. For decades, the story of these five men — one as young as 18 — was barely known. Most residents of Virginia, let alone the United States, have never heard of it. Today — as educational spaces like libraries are under attack, and as questions about race and education access become central to the debate over what kind of country the United States should be — the story of the Alexandria library sit-in needs to be heard.

Obviously, there are key differences between current injustices and the Jim Crow policies that denied students access to libraries and schools based on their skin color — policies the Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional more than 50 years ago. Today, debates rage about what books can be stocked on library shelves or introduced to students in public school classrooms. This situation feels more subtle, not to mention complicated by issues such as at what age it is appropriate for a child to have access to certain materials.

But the story of these five young men in Alexandria in 1939 is a reminder of the unfairness and infringement of rights that come when one group of people dictates what other people are allowed to see, read, absorb and learn.

With the benefit of Mitchell-Powell’s scholarship, as well as decades of work by the Alexandria Black History Museum, the Alexandria Library and other researchers, new details about the sit-in are now coming to light. The story starts with a 26-year-old Black lawyer named Samuel Tucker, who grew up in Alexandria in the 1920s and early 1930s. At that time, if Black students in the city wanted to attend high school, they had to cross the state line to attend school in Washington, D.C. Tucker, educated at Howard University, passed the Virginia bar exam without even attending law school and was determined, along with his younger brother, Otto, to get a library card and check out books at the newly opened public library down the street from their house.

The Tuckers organized a peaceful sit-in to show how the whites-only policies of the day were restricting their rights — an early example of the way young people today are challenging systems that limit how and what they are allowed to learn. On that hot day in August, they executed their plan, resulting in Otto and four other young men being escorted out by two police officers and exposing the ugliness of the library’s policy. More than half a dozen newspapers covered the event.

The eventual outcome of this sit-in was, as Mitchell-Powell writes, “a partial victory and a defeat.” Delaying tactics by judges in the city, along with the distractions of the start of World War II just a few weeks later, ruined any chance of a clear ruling on the constitutional rights of these young men to use the public library. City officials, apparently wishing that the issue would just go away, rushed the construction of what was labeled the “colored library.” That library Mitchell-Powell calls “a civil rights loss.” It was a one-room building with one-fifth the number of books, very few of which related to the interests and lives of those in the city’s African American community, and which were in generally rough condition. It was not until 1962, 23 years later, that Alexandria’s library system was opened to all.

Similar instances of closed doors and exclusion were happening across the South, and less blatant versions dotted the North, according to Not Free, Not for All: Public Libraries in the Age of Jim Crow, a book recently published by University of Arizona professor Cheryl Knott. This denial of educational opportunity affected generations of residents, and as part of a constellation of other discriminatory acts, reduced Black residents’ chances for building knowledge and skills for themselves, as well as their children and grandchildren.

Today, some conservative groups are pushing libraries and schools to remove books related to race, gender and sexual orientation. Some libraries fear cuts in funding if they don’t capitulate. In this, we see the outlines of a contemporary version of denying certain people — those who look and think differently, those on the margins or those who cannot afford to buy books — access to knowledge and ideas. Naturally, institutions like libraries also need to respect parents’ rights and ensure that young children do not stumble onto inappropriate material designed for teens and adults; libraries and schools, and the professionals within them, know they have a responsibility to set restrictions and guardrails. But when one group following a particular viewpoint is setting the terms for an entire community, dictating who is allowed to read what and which reading materials should be available, we hear echoes from the days of more blatant racial and gender discrimination in the education system.

Today, the battle over who gets to make decisions about access to books and media persists. Just as Samuel Tucker and his friends protested for educational freedom in 1939, today’s youth are raising their voices for the right to read. Power struggles over how and whether teachers should address topics deemed divisive close off opportunities for learning when, instead, libraries and schools should be opening them up. Without learning lessons from the past, American society risks reverting to the days when whole populations of students and families were shut out. The story of the Alexandria library sit-in could not come at a better time.

“I think the school experience is gone. People aren’t even showing up.”

“I avoid the cafeteria now.”

NYC students explain why they walked out of class.

Thousands of students from more than 29 New York City public schools abandoned their classes Tuesday walking out into frigid weather, demanding a remote learning option as Omicron surges and they feel unsafe at school.

As COVID cases rise and attendance remains unpredictable, New York City parents, students and teachers uncomfortable with in-person learning took to social media.

From coast to coast, Oakland and Boston students will soon stage their own walkouts.

One student’s reddit post last week described being in school as “beyond control,” detailing a day of absent teachers and “functionally no learning.” Study halls became “superspreader events.” Bathrooms were full of students taking COVID tests. 

Teachers abandoned their classes when notified they had tested positive. Skipping class became “ridiculously easy,” the student wrote.

An anonymous student that their parents are forcing her to go to school despite testing positive for COVID.

Despite last week’s low attendance and 2022 first major snowstorm, Mayor Eric Adams has consistently opposed closing schools or offering a remote learning option.

“We don’t have any more days to waste and the long-term impact of leaving our children home is going to impact us for years to come,” Adams said, stressing schools are “sanctuaries.” 

Students left the conditions they called unsafe in hopes of garnering attention from “policy-makers that can help close down schools temporarily,” organizers said in .

Cruz Warshaw, a Stuyvesant High School Junior behind the walkout, charged it was “ignorant and inconsiderate to put people’s lives at risk for without reason.” 

Three more juniors and seniors from Brooklyn Technical and Stuyvesant High Schools created social media accounts to share walkout plans and information on what they’re asking for — and why: 

Before long, students from more than two dozen of the city’s schools said they would join in. The plan: Leave school at 11:52 a.m. — right before sixth period, around lunchtime for many — and head straight home. 

Right on time and one after the other, Brooklyn Technical High School students did just that.

By lunchtime, the cafeteria in New York’s largest school — by enrollment — looked like this:

Their exit was met with backlash, accusations they simply wanted the day off — and that they were probably all going to hang out. 

This Brooklyn student insisted that wasn’t the case:

However, some participants faced more than online anger. A redacted email from a Brooklyn school official threatened students with mandatory detentions upon their return.

“There are so many people sick and our mayor is not doing enough to protect us … We want the choice to keep our bodies safe,” Felicia, a junior at Bronx High School of Science told The Riverdale Press reporter Sarah Belle Lin during Tuesday’s walkout.

Some of the city’s youngest learners, alongside parents, also joined the .

Many students and parents disagree with offering a remote option and point to its shortcomings, including that . 

While attendance is , it is up 9 percent . 

A few hours after the walkout, New York Schools Chancellor David Banks responded to the protests, asking student leaders to meet with him to work together for safe and open schools.

Viral videos of the incident show disturbing interactions between police and students, one of whom appeared to be a Black male teen who was and as he lay unresponsive on the ground. Some students as the pepper spray filled a school hallway. Another video appeared to show an officer pulling a girl across the hallway by her hair.

The incident at Little Elm High School unfolded during a Friday morning protest after a student claimed on Snapchat that she was sexually harassed by another student on a bus and disciplined for coming forward. On social media, teens at the 8,300-student district accused administrators of mishandling sexual misconduct complaints. A city spokesperson that police mobilized after students acted “aggressively” toward an administrator. 

School resource officers and how they interact with students, particularly students of color, have been under fierce scrutiny since George Floyd was murdered by a Minneapolis police officer in 2020. Amid national Black Lives Matter protests, dozens of districts ended longstanding ties with school-based officers, although several districts have recently reversed course, citing student safety concerns. 

Andrew Hairston, director of the Education Justice Project at Texas Appleseed, an advocacy group, called the viral videos “such a harrowing thing to witness,” and accused police of preventing students from checking to see if their classmate was OK as he laid on the floor after getting tasered. 

“The police officers are the violence,” Hairston said. “They are the threat in that video.” 

Two students were arrested for assaulting police officers, Little Elm Mayor Curtis Cornelious . 

“When a third student attempted to interfere with the arrest, the officer was forced to use pepper spray, and then a taser when the student would not stop advancing toward the officer,” he said. “A fourth student spit on an officer, which Texas law deems as an assault.”

In an initial statement on Facebook that was deleted but later reposted, the school district said a student demonstration caused “some students to behave in a way that caused a major disruption.” 

“The demonstration was a result of a social media post the day before that contained inaccurate information regarding an incident that happened a month ago,” the district said in the statement. 

Superintendent Daniel Gallagher said Monday the events leading to Friday’s student demonstration “hits us at the core of who we are and we have to find a way to restore the trust you need in order for all of us to move forward.” In a statement, Gallagher said the district “immediately launched an investigation” after a student made an allegation against a classmate. 

Though no students faced discipline for reporting sexual misconduct, misinformation that claimed otherwise proliferated on social media, he said. 

School and police officials were prepared “to accommodate a peaceful walkout,” but the protest “was not peaceful and caused a major disruption,” Gallagher said. “In one incident — not currently being shown on social media — a large group of students attempted to break into an administrator’s office in pursuit of targeted individuals who were in genuine fear for their safety.” 

Gallagher said school officials will hold a “listening session” on Nov. 30 to allow parents “an opportunity to voice their concerns, thoughts and provide suggestions to the district administration.” He also announced plans to create a committee to review the district’s sexual harassment reporting and investigation process, an “after-action review” of Friday’s clash between students and police and “an independent investigation” into the sexual harassment allegation that led to the student protest. 

Cornelious said the city will review the incident to ensure the officers followed proper police department procedures, but maintained that social media videos often lack necessary content to understand the full situation. 

“Whenever an officer arrests someone who’s acting aggressively or resisting, it’s hard to watch,” Cornelious said. “But Texas law gives police the right to take steps necessary to make an arrest. Those steps include the use of tasers and pepper spray as safe, non-lethal methods of subduing someone who is being aggressive and refusing to respond to requests.” 

Meanwhile, Hairston said the incident should reenergize national efforts to remove police from schools and encouraged Little Elm administrators to display “political courage.” 

“Dozens of districts have taken significant steps toward police divestment but so much more work needs to be done to get police out of schools,” he said. “More and more people are understanding that it’s an irredeemable institution. School policing can’t be reformed.” 

The sit-in began after returning students reported and maintenance issues this fall. Howard confirmed 34 instances of “suspected fungal growth.” University officials noted the affected under 1 percent of on-campus dorm rooms.

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Howard also instituted a $2,000 tuition hike this school year, to $28,000.�� 

Compounded with the removal of student trustee representatives and , frustration turned into mass action earlier this month when students occupied the Blackburn Student Center, hanging painted banners reading “enough is enough.”

Tensions further heightened between students and the university administration last weekend; as thousands attended the , campus police closed entry to the Blackburn student center, which had been occupied in protest for 11 days.��

in the rush to secure the building.��

In a , University President Wayne Frederick called for an end to the protests, citing his ongoing conversations with key activists regarding demands and referencing the University’s existing, multi-year .��

“There is a distinct difference between peaceful protest and freedom of expression and the occupation of a University building that impedes operations and access to essential services and creates health and safety risks,” Frederick’s statement read. “The .” 

students have no intention of ending the sit-in at this time.

Protests continued throughout the campus’s highly anticipated in-person — a celebrated multi-day welcome event featuring musicians, performers and alumni. with rapper Gucci Mane’s label refused to perform, standing in solidarity with protesters.��

“This whole week we’re supposed to be coming together and being energetic and it’s like, it doesn’t feel right to be a part of that when there are still students without housing, and still students suffering in the housing that they do have,” an anonymous , Howard’s student newspaper.

Mold remediation teams have been dispatched to student rooms, yet social media accounts suggested the issue may be more pervasive: Hallways, showers, carpets and air ducts appear lined with mold, according to student Twitter accounts where they also at night.

An associate professor tweeted that one of his students was diagnosed with “.”

At least four of Howard’s main residence facilities are , a company that partners with public institutions, including the University System of Georgia and U.S. military bases, to renovate and manage infrastructure.��

Student reports of black mold and unsafe living conditions parallel the experience of military families living in Corvias-run housing; several in Fort Bragg, North Carolina are in a class-action suit.��

In 2020, to Corvias CEO John Picerne requesting information on how they may have “put profits above public health” and influenced universities’ return plans during the pandemic.��

Student activists demand an in-person town hall with President Frederick before November; the reinstatement of student, faculty and alumni affiliate positions on the board of trustees; legal and academic immunity for protesters; and a meeting between student leaders, Frederick and chair of the board to hear their housing plans for incoming classes “because .”

Howard’s Board of Trustees removed affiliate representatives in June. Since protests began earlier this month, the faculty senate has voted to collaborate with students and alumni to reinstate these positions, which they describe as a “.” 

Frederick agreed to students’ final demand, meeting student leaders to discuss housing policy, . He rejected their request for a town hall, saying  multiple times he felt uncomfortable with the idea, suggesting instead biweekly meetings with student representatives.��

https://twitter.com/Chan_the_world/status/1451303276432044045

“I am a Black girl at a Black college. I came here to this HBCU to escape the oppression of the world, and here I am being physically hurt at a peaceful protest. The chaos has been created by the administration,” , reflecting on the altercation during a student-led press conference on Oct. 24. “Our demands are not demanding,” she added.��

Over a week has passed without further action since Board president and alumnus Larry Morse on the ongoing sit-in, where he pledged a commitment to hearing student voices but did not offer a timeline or specific action regarding future living accommodations.��

“We know we have a gap to bridge in order to meet your expectations and ours. While we may have closed the gap in several areas, challenges remain,” the statement reads.

The board did commit to including student representatives for one-year positions, but did not specify any long-term representation or whether faculty positions would be reinstated.

As temperatures dip to 48 degrees in Washington, D.C., students continue to sleep in tents surrounding Blackburn on “The Yard” in central campus. Many have dubbed the area “”, to remain until needs are met.��

����Ӱ�� has compiled student, alumni and community accounts of living conditions and the #BlackburnTakeover:

This is Howard

Reply to @babyace2002 they publicly said they support protesting but email their students saying they would be EXPELLED.

https://twitter.com/dereckapurnell/status/1450899700643553292?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1450899700643553292%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.npr.org%2F2021%2F10%2F22%2F1048517681%2Fstudents-at-howard-university-are-protesting-poor-housing-conditions-on-campus

https://twitter.com/revwendy3/status/1452365649435627528

Since Sept. 1, the country’s most restrictive ban on abortion has prevented Texans from accessing care if their pregnancy is beyond six weeks. 

Two weeks after the law’s signing, then-high school senior Paxton Smith went viral for swapping her pre-approved valedictorian address to speak out against the legislation in her home state. 

Since giving the speech, Smith says her life has taken a “massive shift.” Now a freshman at the University of Texas at Austin, she balances full-time school with beginning a music career and expanding her activism. 

Smith is leading A War on My Body; A War on My Rights, a featuring contributors across generations, from medical professionals to reproductive rights activists and prominent women’s rights attorneys and . The book’s title references of her valedictory address.   

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Her activist work, it seems, is just beginning. Smith also serves on advisory boards for two nonprofits: , which uses art and storytelling to end abortion stigmas and shame, and the , which helps individuals access safe abortions and contraceptives across the country. And on Sept. 30, she delivered another speech at Power of Women event, ending with a call to action: 

“And if you can’t do it for me, and if you can’t do it for yourself, then do it for every girl who comes after us, every young person who comes after us. Because they are counting on you. So what will you do?”

It’s unclear when Smith and others Texans will regain access to legal abortions. Though a to the conservative Fifth Circuit. The Supreme Court did not delay or prevent the law from taking effect, refusing to act on an emergency appeal made by abortion providers in early September. will likely not pass the Senate. 

President Biden has openly the Texas ban, issuing a statement that it “will significantly impair women’s access to the health care they need, particularly for communities of color and individuals with low incomes.”

Health care providers, lawyers and activists await December 1, when the Supreme Court will hear a Mississippi case challenging the state’s ban on most abortions after 15 weeks. Their decision may upend or solidify Roe v. Wade’s protection of the right to choose prior to “viability,” typically around 24 weeks.

����Ӱ�� spoke with Paxton Smith to get a pulse on how she feels given federal moves and why she’s decided to continue her activism through the collaborative book. 

This conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity. 

What spurred your personal activism — was it in any way connected to or motivated by your education experiences? 

My personal activism really sparked with the speech. In giving the speech, really what I wanted was for people to understand how it felt, what it really meant for a piece of legislation like this to go into effect and understand that having a pregnancy can have life-changing effects. Nobody else should have the right to make that life-changing decision than me. I am the person that’s going to live that future and I should be the one making those decisions. I wanted people to understand … what it felt like for the decision to be taken out of my hands and put into the hands of a stranger.

I know you’ve mentioned before that your family has often had open conversations on politics and other controversial issues at home even though you sometimes disagree — did you have that openness to talk and explore these issues during the school day as well? 

Sometimes. I think in high school, a lot of times you find a niche group, where they carry a lot of the same perspectives, the same ideas. I didn’t necessarily have the exact same opportunity at school, where people might have had very different opinions than I do. But we definitely did have conversations about politics and things surrounding general human rights.  

Why did you decide to continue your activism through a bigger project? How did you choose a collaborative book, and what impact do you hope that model of storytelling might have? 

One of the things that this book is going to do is try and highlight the different perspectives around abortion that people don’t talk about. It’s going to highlight the racial disparities in being able to access health care. It’s going to address what it’s like being gender queer and being in a situation where you can get pregnant. It’s going to address the LGBTQ+ experience, the experience of being a minor. 

The reason it’s a collaborative book is really to better accomplish that goal, of telling those stories and different perspectives. If I wrote this book alone it would come from an 18- year-old, white, upper middle-class cisgendered girl. It would continue the problem of people’s voices not being listened to, and that’s not what I wanted.

What stories or issues stuck with you after submitting the first draft of the book? 

I can’t really speak to the stories in the book as of right now. But I receive hundreds of messages from people, and a lot of times people share their stories surrounding abortion. Some of the biggest things that stuck with me are the stories of what took place before Roe v. Wade, when abortion was still illegal, and people had to take medical care into their own hands. 

They were getting these back-alley, unsafe abortions and . Thousands of people ended up in emergency rooms. And thousands ended up with severe, life-long injuries. Just hearing these stories — firsthand accounts of people in emergency rooms and doctors saying they are not willing to help because they’re scared of the legal implications, or hearing the stories of people who lost their mothers to unsafe abortions — those really stick with me and motivate what I can try to do.

How did you learn about the and choose it as the place to direct proceeds? 

I actually heard about the Afiya Center at a that was organized by a . Ultimately we chose them because they address the racial disparities in accessing reproductive health care. It’s incredibly important to be able to open up access to more than just white people, because everyone deserves reproductive rights and access to care.

Do you see a future for yourself in education or politics? If not those fields in particular, what are you hoping to do in the future?

I’m actually hoping to become a musical performing artist. I make pop and pop-alternative music. I mostly do it alone. I played trumpet for about eight years and am pretty novice at piano and guitar. My main thing is music production.

Right now, I’m working on putting together a first album. I’m sending out some music to people to see what they think. It’s very much in the early stages but I’m excited to pursue music as a career. That has been my dream since I was a child and I have been so involved with music my entire life. 

Why did you choose to stay in Texas and attend UT Austin?

I chose UT Austin mostly because of the music scene. There’s a lot of music downtown so I’m hoping to do some live gigs once or twice a week. My life has taken a massive shift with the speech and the activism takes up a lot of time. 

What are your songs about? Do you imagine incorporating your activism into your lyrics and songwriting?

I think there’s definitely room to incorporate activism in songwriting. Generally, I write music about what I’m experiencing, thinking and feeling. My life is what runs through the core of all my music, so naturally some of it will be charged with my activism.

I wonder if we could reflect briefly about what’s happening at the federal level. SCOTUS refused to block Texas’s law and the House passed the Women’s Health Protection Act, an attempt to codify the rights established with Roe, though it’s unlikely to pass the Senate. The Department of Justice is also your home state, but that hasn’t reopened access. How are you feeling in light of these moves? How do you hope your peers might push for reproductive rights at this moment?

I’m feeling very hopeful. Really right now there’s a lot of things up in the air and it’s kind of hard to tell where things will land. I’m hoping that my peers continue to do what they’re doing now, which is putting pressure on legislators, bringing attention to the topic and all in all, making it extremely clear that they believe that abortion is a human right. 

A War on My Body; A War on My Rights will be released Jan. 22, 2022, the 49th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision, by Di Angelo Publications, a small press in Houston. All proceeds will be donated to , a reproductive justice organization run by and for Black women and girls to transform relationships to sexual and reproductive health. The center educates and provides resources to break down racial inequities, decreasing maternal death and HIV rates.