UH Students for Fair Trade

Daily Cougar censorship continues

timjo62 — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 17:11:02 +0000

As we noted in our last post the Daily Cougar (DC) editor Caitlin Cuppernull and the opinion editor are actively involved in censoring Student for Fair Trade members who submitted editorials. More than 10 days have passed since we asked for a copy of a policy Cuppernull and the opinion editor swear exists. They claim there is a DC policy stating that they are not allowed to print editorials critical of the Daily Cougar!!! Sounds like something out of a dictatorship doesn’t it? Not from a country built on FREE SPEECH. When we recently emailed the opinion editor to follow up on our request for a copy of this policy we were met with a resounding sound of silence. It appears that the Daily Cougar is a mere propoganda tool for the crooked adminstration. Stay tuned because we’ve got a few more moves to expose these students who bow to every whim of the adminstration.

Daily Cougar censors editorials, runs preview story of our Fair Trade month actions

timjo62 — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 13:27:23 +0000

The Daily Cougar has been suppressing our editorials for several months now. Member Markos Mendoza wrote an editorial about our campaign back in July that they refused to print and a couple of weeks ago Tiffany Le sent in an editorial that Caitlin Cuppernull, the editor claimed was a letter not an editorial. The editor claimed Le would have to cut it from 800 words to 250 to get it published. When we went to discuss this injustice, Cuppernull made some unrelated references to Houston Chronicle editorial policies and insisted that she would not run Le’s editorial.

A chat with the opinion editor had the same results. He also referred to a policy that he couldn’t produced an insisted that his publication did not suppress student views and even claimed that ” he didn’t want to students to be automotons when we get out in the real world.” The news is that we are in the real world and the Daily Cougar and its student staff continues the oppression on our campus by censoring our editorials. This is done to delegitimize our cause and prop up the crooked administration who thinks the university soley exists for corporate profit. Lost in that corporate robot mentality is the fact that our school was founded to give working class people the opportunity to get a college education.

Read the story about our fair trade month actions here: Fair trade month story

Tiffany’s letter in the Daily Cougar

timjo62 — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 04:40:19 +0000

TIffany had a letter published by our campus newspaper. She called out the sell out student government president Sam Dike. Check it out. Tiff’s letter

AP wire picks up activism story featuring Tiffany Le

timjo62 — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 05:06:59 +0000

The Fair Trade Resource Network (see their awesome website: FTRN homepage) posted the story they picked up from the Associated Press wire service. The story was originally published in the Houston Chronicle on August 10, 2008. It features comments from our nationally known member Tiffany Le. Enjoy some truth.

Check it out here: AP wire story on activism

SFT hosts radio show

timjo62 — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 22:20:00 +0000

Title: SFT hosts radio show
Location: KPFT 90.1 FM
Description: We’re hosting Open Journal. Listen for the blow by blow about our campus campaign and a to be announce awesome guest! It’s the show UH President Renu Khator is afraid to listen to!
Date: 2008-09-24
Start Time: 12:00
End Time: 13:00

Admin threatens group member with arrest

admin — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 00:27:12 +0000

The university president Renu Khator really really doesn’t like students. She doesn’t like seeing them, talking to them or answering their letters or addressing their concerns.

A few months ago she brought in one of her cronies from U of South Florida as the VP of Finance and Administration. He is a typical fourth tier administrator who thinks the university should be run as a dictatorship where the only thing that matters is profits for the corporations. Even though he said it’s business decisions that rule, when the faculty, staff and students decided through the shared governance process that they wanted an all fair trade vendor in the library, Carluccci said “NO.”

When we asked for a meeting to find out why, he sent us the the following email threatening one of our members with arrest. Check out his ignorance in the following videos also.

Part One

Part Two

Tiffany’s letter to the Houston Chronicle editor

admin — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 00:26:34 +0000

Tiffany set the record straight with this letter that was published August 14. Le letter

Houston Chronicle story of activism

admin — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 00:25:30 +0000

Tiffany Le is quoted in this piece of corporate propaganda. Chron story page

SFT visits Khator’s office for follow up

admin — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 00:24:55 +0000

On Monday August 11 we visited president Khator’s office to ask why she has ignored the letter we hand delivered her several weeks ago. Check out the video:

SFT rolls to VP of finance office

admin — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 00:21:59 +0000

Dan Gardner, the head cook and bottle washer for UH President Khator got a little testy today when we stopped to leave a message with Carl Carlucci about the status of the all fair trade coffee kiosk they’re supposed to put in the library. You can hear him tell Brendan that they can step out in the hall. Gardner also took the poster board he was holding and covered Aaron Alexander’s face and camera. Next thing you know he’ll want to mud wrestle us.