Human Rights

In response to Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost’s review of its proposed constitutional amendment to protect voting rights, the coalition supporting the amendment released the following statement:

"We are disappointed to see the Attorney General reject what we think was indeed a fair and accurate summary of our proposed amendment, but we remain undeterred from moving forward with our ultimate commitment to putting an amendment on the ballot that will ensure secure and fair elections for all Ohioans,” Molly Shack, Executive Director of the Ohio Organizing Collaborative, said for the Coalition. “We know Ohioans are ready to put necessary protections in our state constitution that guarantee we all have equal paths to the ballot box and that our democracy is accessible to all of us.”

This amendment is an Ohio Voters Bill of Rights that will expand voter participation by creating automatic and same-day voter registration, protect against discriminatory barriers to the ballot box, and ensure Ohio’s elections remain secure and fair without sacrificing equitable access to the polls for all voters.

Alexander Payne's "The Holdovers" is exactly why we love movies. It takes us on a journey, immersing us in the warm and cozy, unique setting of a 1970 New England prep school, the fictional Barton Academy, and stirs our emotions along the way. This unlikely Christmas movie, starring Paul Giamatti, Dominic Sessa, and Da'Vine Joy Randolph, is the perfect blend of humor, grief, and redemption, far removed from your typical holiday movie.

As a teenager, spending Christmas break with a professor, let alone a prickly one would be haunting. I'd feel trapped, hopeless, and abandoned, as if the world had forgotten me. This is supposed to be a time with family.

Students from Glenville High School, Laurel High School, Solon High School, and Cleveland School of the Arts will travel to Columbus on December 6 to support legislation promoting community solar. 

State legislators are currently considering a bill that could bring the benefits of solar energy to those who can’t, or prefer not to, install panels on their own home. If passed, House Bill 197, sponsored by Rep. James Hoops (R-Napolean) and Rep. Sharon Ray (R-Wadsworth) will create Ohio’s first Community Solar Pilot Program. For the first time, solar power would be available for renters, condos, townhomes, and most small- to medium-sized businesses who cannot install rooftop solar. This comes at a time when the nationwide Solar for All program is poised to help low-income Americans gain access to solar energy at an unprecedented scale. 

Part 1

It’s been decades and decades of hard work, heartbreak, toil, trouble, tears, jeers, and sometimes cheers. On November 7th, Ohio voters passed Issue 2 – the Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol (RMLA) citizen-initiated statute – by a comfortable fourteen-point margin of 57% vs 43%. In sum, 2,183,735 Ohioans voted for marijuana that day.

Ohio’s cannabis community applauded and lauded this general election win. With a 30-day effective date, this statute initiated by voters, not the legislature, becomes law on December 7th. Or does it? Just like Ohio politics, this debate has become the subject of controversy.

Starbucks workers in Columbus, Ohio went on strike this morning (November 16), joining the coast-to-coast “Red Cup Rebellion,” demanding the coffee giant stop illegally refusing to bargain with baristas over staffing, scheduling and other issues. The strike comes on Red Cup Day, when the company hands out tens-of-thousands of free reusable cups, one of its busiest customer traffic days of the year. 

As part of the strike, workers will demand Starbucks turn off mobile ordering on future promotion days, which company executives are scheduling with increasing frequency. 

Quinn Nutter, a shift supervisor at the Westerville Starbucks, had this to say about the strike:

Canada must stop arming Israel, said more than 200 workers who blocked the entrances to a Toronto weapons manufacturer Friday morning.

I grew up in a church-going family. In fact, for my entire life we either lived next door or one street over from Hilltop United Methodist Church. In 1976, I converted to Catholicism. I grew up down the street from St. Aloysius Catholic Church, and it is across the street from the elementary school my siblings and I attended. I always wondered what was going on in there, and after graduating from high school in 1974 started going to services, making sure to sit in the back of the church. I thought the service–the mass–was lovely.

There was a Black priest who during the service admonished the congregation to put a little more oomph in their responses; in fact, he suggested that we answer as heartily as people cheer at OSU football games. Several weeks later, I went by the church to see if I could talk to that priest about converting, and while he wasn’t there, the priest who answered the door offered to give me instruction.

Hundreds of protestors and community activists gathered outside the Ohio Statehouse on October 21 and marched across the Short North to demand an end to the genocide of Palestinians and the illegal Zionist occupation of Palestine. There have been many protests in Columbus since then to show solidarity with the Palestinian people.  

The protest was organized by Students for Justice in Palestine, a student organization at OSU that advocates for the rights of Palestinians. Community organizers gave powerful speeches in support of the Palestinian people.  

Jineen Musa, a local activist with Palestinian roots gave a speech that day, saying “I have yet to see the Palestine we yearn for. I have spent my whole life screaming ‘Free Palestine,’ just like the generations before me. How many more generations will have to scream? ...it is our generation that must free them from the inhumane occupation. We must be the generation to bring about a Free Palestine.”  

Martin Scorsese paints a vast canvas of greed, betrayal, and twisted love in "Killers of the Flower Moon." This sweeping epic, a suspense-filled crime drama, is adapted from David Grann's acclaimed book, revealing a dark chapter in American history. It explores the Osage Nation in 1920s Oklahoma, who, after striking "black gold" (oil), faced mysterious murders. At 80, Scorsese still pushes cinema's boundaries.

After serving as a cook in World War I, Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio) returns to Oklahoma and meets his influential Uncle, William Hale (Robert De Niro), known as the "King," Hale's power in the Osage Indian Reservation comes from cattle ranching and deep community ties. Driven by greed, Hale persuades Ernest to marry Mollie (Lily Gladstone), an Osage woman with a potential oil inheritance. As tragedies strike Mollie's family, FBI Agent Tom White (Jesse Plemons) is sent to investigate the suspicious events.

Reprinted from  The Buckeye Flame

Members of the Ohio House Higher Education Committee met Wednesday to hear public testimony opposing House Bill 183 — which would ban transgender students in Kindergarten through college from using any restroom, changing room, locker room or shower room that is “accessible by multiple students at the same time.”

The bill does not acknowledge the existence of intersex people, and would require students, school administrators, educators, staff and visitors to use the restroom that aligns with the gender assigned to them on the birth certificate “issued at or near the time of [their] birth.”

Maria Bruno — public policy director for Ohio-based LGBTQ+ legal advocacy group Equality Ohio — said the bill’s language mirrors similar anti-transgender legislation: