Tag: campus life

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Turning Point: A New Threat On Campus

Autonomous Student Media: Gestures Towards the Ungovernable

Two weeks ago, the new chapter of Turning Point USA at UT hosted their first meeting. It was interrupted for a while by a fire alarm, forcing the meeting to move outside–where it was easy to see and overhear their conversation. We’ve gathered intelligence about what exactly happened at this meeting, who is involved in TPUSA, and what TPUSA’s emergence on campus means. We encourage you to share this article with your professors, TAs, classmates, and other networks. This is an extremely relevant issue for anybody that is progressive or left-leaning, who could be at risk of being targeted by this group.

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What Starts Here: YCT Shut Down, Survivors Stand Up, and DSA Blocks A Bridge

Autonomous Student Media: Gestures Towards the Ungovernable

We fell behind on our news cycle since we were busy working on the YCT. Here’s a roundup of the past 2 weeks of news–a lot has happened! In this roundup, we’ve got a report on the events following the YCT demonstration, anti-Kavanaugh protests in Austin, the Stand with Survivors rally, and the inaugural Turning Point USA meeting.

CW: Sexual assault, Kavanaugh, rape apologism

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Who Are the YCT?

Autonomous Student Media: Gestures Towards the Ungovernable

Over the past months, we’ve gathered lots of data connecting various parties within the YCT and telling us more about their activities. So far, we have 4 articles published on this site about the YCT. As we approach one week after their now infamous pro-Kavanaugh demonstration on West Mall, we’re putting out this compilation of all of the information on all of the YCT members we currently know of.

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Erasure Poem About the YCT

An Anonymous Submission

Content warning: Institutional indifference, sexual assault

Send any intel about the YCT to us on facebook, twitter, or at our email!

Got a story you need to tell? Do you have thoughts on the YCT counter-protest, experiences, art, or something else you want to put out into the world? You can publish it with us! We can promise anonymity for any content you submit and offer up our platform. Send us your opinion pieces, art, rants, zines, reviews, news, statements, report-backs, or anything else you wanna see put out in the world. Don’t worry about being “coherent,” “professional,” “civil,” or some other bullshit–just come as you are!

We take all kinds of content, with an eye towards marginalized perspectives and news about movements & revolutionary organizations. Submit content to austinautonomedia [@] autistici [dot] org.

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UT Protects YCT Misogynoir & Rape Apologism

Autonomous Student Media: Gestures Towards the Ungovernable

On Wednesday evening, the YCT hosted an event where Michael Quinn Sullivan & Cary Cheshire of the right-wing advocacy group Empower Texans came and spoke to them. Following on the heels of the mass protest against the YCT’s pro-Kavanaugh demonstration on West Mall, figures like Paul Bettencourt pressured the University in ramping up their already extravagant efforts to protect the group. In anticipation of possible protests, police swarmed the area around Waggener hall. On the outside, 5-7 cops stood on guard and patrolled the area. Hidden away by the GDC and SAC, two patrol cars waited. On the inside, the lobby of the building contained another 4 police officers. Finally, the room for the YCT’s even contained approximately 5 police officers.

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Open the Windows!

A rant by Saoirse Ní Mhaille

UT Austin hates me and doesn’t want me to breathe in that good stormy air. $25 to open a window. Yes, I could just run outside, but what if I want to enjoy the storm from the safety of my room? What if I’m doing homework and can’t get my laptop wet? What if I want to go to sleep to the sound of the rain? What if I just farted and it really stinks? Hmmm??? What then???

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The 5% Project (It Really Be Ya Own People!)

Students at the #TheFourPercent townhall in 2015

By La’Kayla Celeste. Republished with permission of the author.

I don’t make a habit of reading The Daily Texan, one of the nation’s largest college newspapers and source of great pride at the University of Texas at Austin. I don’t pick up the paper because of the residual bad taste in my mouth from several casually racist encounters I’ve had with the Texan over the 4 years of my undergraduate education. Now, as a second-year graduate student at the University completing a Masters Degree in Women’s and Gender Studies, my main concern is meeting my deadlines. This was the business I was minding when I happened across Volume 118, Issue 131 of the publication while on campus one morning a few weeks ago. It was the image that struck me: a close-up of Daniel Nkoola, Black creative and undergraduate student in Radio-Television-Film, the major I earned one of my bachelor’s degrees in. I picked up the paper, excited to read when something else in the top, right hand corner caught my eye. A graphic proclaimed that this story was the 6th installment in ‘The 5% Project,” a collaboration between The Daily Texan and UT’s chapter of the National Association of Black Journalist. I stared at the notation for a few minutes before snapping a picture on my phone, leaving the paper where I found it.

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Scratch a Liberal Arts Rep, a Fascist Bleeds

Autonomous Student Media: Gestures Towards the Ungovernable

Update 10/25/19: As of Fall 2019, Lillian Bonin has acted as Chairman for the Young Conservatives of Texas. In the year since this article was published, we further uncovered her ties to white nationalists and participation in rape-apologia in pro-Kavanaugh demonstrations. 

[CW: transphobia, anti-semitism, racism]

Over the past few days, we have been investigating the political activities and leanings of Lillian Bonin, a UT Liberal Arts Representative. On Friday, we acquired a screenshot of a comment made by Bonin on an AJ+ video. In this comment, Bonin refers to a white man attempting to unlearn his racism by saying “when the left literally won’t accept you until you fully cuckify yourself.”

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Expose Texas State: Racism & Student Resistance in San Marcos

Autonomous Student Media: Gestures Towards the Ungovernable

A long-brewing conflict at Texas State University in San Marcos has burst into a display of student organizing power & collective capacity. Since the afternoon of April 11th, students have been staging a sit-in at the campus LBJ Teaching Theatre. The move came after 19 senators were absent from an impeachment hearing for student body president Connor Clegg, ensuring that he would be able to fill out his term. Clegg was facing impeachment over his inability to represent marginalized students–particularly students of color–on campus. In February, screenshots emerged of Clegg’s instagram account featuring racist and sexist captions. This was the latest incident with Clegg, who earlier in the year had made calls to defund the student newspaper after a columnist published a controversial article criticizing whiteness.

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Crash The Party: Shitty Moments from Roundup

Vandalism on the gates of Fiji from April 2017

Autonomous Student Media: Gestures Towards the Ungovernable

CW: sexual assault, harassment, homophobia, racism

We’ve just made it through another series of hellish weeks, with SXSW and Roundup hitting us back to back. As we come out on the other side of Roundup, we wanted to highlight some of the moments from this weekend that made even clearer why Greek Life is, at its core, a racist, cisheteropatriarchal institution. We’ve captured some of the student discussions and other events of this weekend, including catcalls, insider secrets, and assaults. Remember that this is only a small sampling of the events and experiences of this weekend, and there are likely many more stories that remain untold due to fear, shame, stigma, or the normalization of the horrors of Roundup & Greek Life.

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