Black Lives Matter.
Racial justice is a public interest issue.
Public interest issues impact marginalized and Black, Indigenous, and communities of color disproportionately and that’s what makes addressing them even more urgent.
After this summer’s calls for racial justice we started the ongoing process of more completely integrating racial justice into our campaigns. We released a public statement and began reforming the structure of our campaigns and educational programs to include racial justice issues such as environmental racism. In our campaigns we are working to include the intersectional perspectives of all people who are impacted by public interest issues.
Internally, we are working on educating our volunteers during our weekly intern class and informing students we reach out to about how BIPOC are disproportionately affected by environmental injustice, food and housing insecurity, the high costs of college, and the resource inequalities exacerbated by the pandemic.
OSPIRG students is committed to learning from students, organizers, and advocates with experience working through a framework of social justice and is committed to more intentionally using our power as an organization to align with those shared goals.
Stop AAPI Hate
Everyone should feel safe. In response to the rise in anti-AAPI hate crimes we ran a fundraiser for Stop AAPI Hate to help support activism against Asian and Pacific Islander hate crimes.
Local Food Justice: Huerto De La Familia
With COVID-19 affecting our community we fundraised $3,000 for Huerto De La Familia and Food for Lane County to help our neighbors struggling to make ends meet.
BIPOC students are systematically disenfranchised from voting, so for our New Voters Project this fall to help register students to vote, our MCC coordinator worked on outreach to identity-based clubs, particularly those serving Black, Indigenous, and students of color.
We partnered with UO Athletics and the Black Culture Center’s “Keep It 100” campaign to conduct a competition to see which UO athletics teams could recruit the most registered voters. The genesis for “Keep It 100” stemmed from Coaches 4 Change, a national organization founded in the wake of the murder of George Floyd.
A Ducks Vote event of 21 different student groups on campus starring the Oregon Dance Team with an original gameday routine, UO acapella groups Divisi and Mind The Gap, and student performances! Also featured guest speaker ASUO Executive VP Semeredin Kundin, who discussed the importance of youth voting and engagement!