Activism

Community Mobilizes to Save Holy Names University for Students and Future Students

Steps are already being taken to mobilize support for HNU. Oakland Councilmember Carroll Fife and Vice Mayor Rebecca Kaplan have introduced a resolution, scheduled to be heard by the City Council at its December 20 meeting, “Recognizing The Enormous Importance of Holy Names University to the Oakland Community and Urging the University’s Administration to Work Collaboratively with Faculty, Staff, Students, Elected Officials, and Community Partners to Resolve the Issues Facing the Institution with the Goal and Intention of Maintaining It as an Independent Institution.”

Published

2 years ago

December 18, 2022

Oakland Post

Many Oaklanders are committed to preserving the Holy Names campus as a diverse center for higher education that grants bachelors’ degrees and trains teachers, health professionals and social workers.

By Ken Epstein

As Holy Names University in Oakland struggles with deep financial difficulties, local elected officials and community leaders are coming forward with offers to help find ways to resolve the problems and save the city’s primary remaining university.

Rumors are swirling around the campus that the university could close at the end of the school year in May 2023, dispersing many of its students to colleges in nearby cities.

Some Oakland leaders are exploring alternatives that would benefit the Oakland community and its students. If HNU actually closes, some are looking at turning the campus into a home for one of the Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), which are known for welcoming white, Latino and Asian-American students, as well as African American students.

Many Oaklanders are committed to preserving the Holy Names campus as a diverse center for higher education that grants bachelors’ degrees and trains teachers, health professionals and social workers. Several people told the Oakland Post they will do whatever they can to prevent the beautiful hill campus from being sold to developers to build exclusive private residences.

The Oakland Post attempted several times to contact Steven Borg, chairperson of the HNU Board of Trustees, but was unable to reach him before the newspaper’s deadline. In addition to his position on the board, Borg is an independent marketing consultant.

Here are the questions the Post texted to Borg:

There are people in the community, including political leaders of the City of Oakland, who want to support HNU to resolve these issues. Have you met with them, or do you plan to meet with them?
I have also heard that the Board dissolved its fundraising committee five years ago. Is that true? Why was that?
Do you have fundraising plans?
Will you talk to city officials who want to help?
What steps do you plan to take to protect HNU and its longstanding role as an institution that is crucial to the education of thousands of local students and educational and medical professionals that serve the community?
There are rumors that some are considering offering the HNU campus to real estate developers. Are you considering that?

At a meeting with the Holy Names community Thursday afternoon, Board President Borg said that HNU would continue offering classes for the Spring semester but cannot say anything else. He also announced that the university’s president, Michael Groener, was on leave of absence, and Sister Carol Sellman, long-time HNU administrator, has taken over as “Senior Administrator.”

Aniya Bankston, head of the HNU Black Student Union (BSU), and a second-year pre-nursing student, said she had some idea of the problems at HNU over the past few months but that there was a lack of transparency that left most students feeling insecure about what is happening at the institution.

“If I weren’t in the BSU and student government, I would feel blindsided,” explaining that many students are fearing that Holy Names was on the verge of moving or shutting down, she said.

She said that she and some other students are willing to do what they can to support the survival of Holy Names during this difficult time, though many are worried about their educational futures and are busy filling out applications and exploring ways to transition to other educational opportunities.

Paul Cobb, publisher of the Oakland Post, who was awarded an honorary Doctorate Degree in Humane Letters from HNU, spoke to Borg and Groener about presenting some financial solutions and a plan to keep the HNU programs in Oakland adjacent to Golden Gate Academy where Cobb graduated.

Cobb said he will meet with the students, the governing group of sisters and the faculty members to present plans to bring investors to the campus. He also said he has received inquiries about possible city, county and national non-profit institutes seeking to support, create a joint venture or bring an Historic Black College Campus to that site.

“I want to reassure the sisters that the university’s spirit and mission of student involvement in Tutwiler, Miss., would be maintained by partnering with a Black university,” he said. “We could also involve the Peter Claver Society and others to seek the sisters’ support for the educational endowment’s continuous commitment to diversity since HNU’s student mix is nearly two-thirds Black and Brown. I am hopeful and look forward to meeting with the students. When I was the commencement speaker, I challenged the students to continue the struggle to keep HNU the most diverse college in America.”

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Activism

Gov. Newsom Approves $170 Million to Fast Track Wildfire Resilience

AB 100 approves major investments in regional conservancies across the state, including over $30 million each for the Sierra Nevada, Santa Monica Mountains, State Coastal, and San Gabriel/Lower LA Rivers and Mountains conservancies. An additional $10 million will support wildfire response and resilience efforts.

Published

52 minutes ago

April 28, 2025

Oakland Post

Courtesy of California Governor Gavin Newsom’s Facebook page.

By Bo Tefu
California Black Media

With wildfire season approaching, last week Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill (AB) 100, unlocking $170 million to fast-track wildfire prevention and forest management projects — many of which directly protect communities of color, who are often hardest hit by climate-driven disasters.

“With this latest round of funding, we’re continuing to increase the speed and size of forest and vegetation management essential to protecting communities,” said Newsom when he announced the funding on April 14.

“We are leaving no stone unturned — including cutting red tape — in our mission to ensure our neighborhoods are protected from destructive wildfires,” he said.

Newsom also signed an executive order suspending certain regulations to allow urgent work to move forward faster.

This funding builds on California’s broader Wildfire and Forest Resilience Action Plan, a $2.7 billion effort to reduce fuel loads, increase prescribed burning, and harden communities. The state has also launched new dashboards to keep the public informed and hold agencies accountable.

California has also committed to continue investing $200 million annually through 2028 to expand this effort, ensuring long-term resilience, particularly in vulnerable communities.

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Activism

California Rideshare Drivers and Supporters Step Up Push to Unionize

Today in California, over 600,000 rideshare drivers want the ability to form or join unions for the sole purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid and protection. It’s a right, and recently at the State Capitol, a large number of people, including some rideshare drivers and others working in the gig economy, reaffirmed that they want to exercise it.

Published

1 hour ago

April 28, 2025

Oakland Post

Shutterstock

By Antonio‌ ‌Ray‌ ‌Harvey‌
California‌ ‌Black‌ ‌Media‌

On July 5, 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed into federal law the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). Also known as the “Wagner Act,” the law paved the way for employees to have “the right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations,” and “to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, according to the legislation’s language.

On April 8, the rideshare drivers held a rally with lawmakers to garner support for Assembly Bill (AB) 1340, the “Transportation Network Company Drivers (TNC) Labor Relations Act.”

Authored by Assemblymembers Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland) and Marc Berman (D-Menlo Park), AB 1340 would allow drivers to create a union and negotiate contracts with industry leaders like Uber and Lyft.

“All work has dignity, and every worker deserves a voice — especially in these uncertain times,” Wicks said at the rally. “AB 1340 empowers drivers with the choice to join a union and negotiate for better wages, benefits, and protections. When workers stand together, they are one of the most powerful forces for justice in California.”

Wicks and Berman were joined by three members of the California Legislative Black Caucus (CLBC): Assemblymembers Tina McKinnor (D-Inglewood), Sade Elhawary (D-Los Angeles), and Isaac Bryan (D-Ladera Heights).

Yvonne Wheeler, president of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor; April Verrett, President of Service Employees International Union (SEIU); Tia Orr, Executive Director of SEIU; and a host of others participated in the demonstration on the grounds of the state capitol.

“This is not a gig. This is your life. This is your job,” Bryan said at the rally. “When we organize and fight for our collective needs, it pulls from the people who have so much that they don’t know what to do with it and puts it in the hands of people who are struggling every single day.”

Existing law, the “Protect App-Based Drivers and Services Act,” created by Proposition (Prop) 22, a ballot initiative, categorizes app-based drivers for companies such as Uber and Lyft as independent contractors.

Prop 22 was approved by voters in the November 2020 statewide general election. Since then, Prop 22 has been in court facing challenges from groups trying to overturn it.

However, last July, Prop 22 was upheld by the California Supreme Court last July.

In a 2024, statement after the ruling, Lyft stated that 80% of the rideshare drivers they surveyed acknowledged that Prop 22 “was good for them” and “median hourly earnings of drivers on the Lyft platform in California were 22% higher in 2023 than in 2019.”

Wicks and Berman crafted AB 1340 to circumvent Prop 22.

“With AB 1340, we are putting power in the hands of hundreds of thousands of workers to raise the bar in their industry and create a model for an equitable and innovative partnership in the tech sector,” Berman said.

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Activism

California Holds the Line on DEI as Trump Administration Threatens School Funding

The conflict began on Feb. 14, when Craig Trainor, acting assistant secretary for civil rights at the U.S. Department of Education (DOE), issued a “Dear Colleague” letter warning that DEI-related programs in public schools could violate federal civil rights law. The letter, which cited Title VI of the Civil Rights Act and the 2023 Supreme Court ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which ended race-conscious admissions, ordered schools to eliminate race-based considerations in areas such as admissions, scholarships, hiring, discipline, and student programming.

Published

2 hours ago

April 28, 2025

Oakland Post

Shutterstock

By Joe W. Bowers Jr
California Black Media

California education leaders are pushing back against the Trump administration’s directive to dismantle diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs in its K-12 public schools — despite threats to take away billions in federal funding.

The conflict began on Feb. 14, when Craig Trainor, acting assistant secretary for civil rights at the U.S. Department of Education (DOE), issued a “Dear Colleague” letter warning that DEI-related programs in public schools could violate federal civil rights law. The letter, which cited Title VI of the Civil Rights Act and the 2023 Supreme Court ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which ended race-conscious admissions, ordered schools to eliminate race-based considerations in areas such as admissions, scholarships, hiring, discipline, and student programming.

According to Trainor, “DEI programs discriminate against one group of Americans to favor another.”

On April 3, the DOE escalated the pressure, sending a follow-up letter to states demanding that every local educational agency (LEA) certify — within 10 business days — that they were not using federal funds to support “illegal DEI.” The certification requirement, tied to continued federal aid, raised the stakes for California, which receives more than $16 billion annually in federal education funding.

So far, California has refused to comply with the DOE order.

“There is nothing in state or federal law that outlaws the broad concepts of ‘diversity,’ ‘equity,’ or ‘inclusion,’” wrote David Schapira, California’s Chief Deputy Superintendent of Public Instruction, in an April 4 letter to superintendents and charter school administrators. Schapira noted that all of California’s more than 1,000 traditional public school districts submit Title VI compliance assurances annually and are subject to regular oversight by the state and the federal government.

In a formal response to the DOE on April 11, the California Department of Education, the State Board of Education, and State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond collectively rejected the certification demand, calling it vague, legally unsupported, and procedurally improper.

“California and its nearly 2,000 LEAs (including traditional public schools and charter schools) have already provided the requisite guarantee that its programs and services are, and will be, in compliance with Title VI and its implementing regulation,” the letter says.

Thurmond added in a statement, “Today, California affirmed existing and continued compliance with federal laws while we stay the course to move the needle for all students. As our responses to the United States Department of Education state and as the plain text of state and federal laws affirm, there is nothing unlawful about broad core values such as diversity, equity and inclusion. I am proud of our students, educators and school communities who continue to focus on teaching and learning, despite federal actions intended to distract and disrupt.”

California officials say that the federal government cannot change existing civil rights enforcement standards without going through formal rule-making procedures, which require public notice and comment.

Other states are taking a similar approach. In a letter to the DOE, Daniel Morton-Bentley, deputy commissioner and counsel for the New York State Education Department, wrote, “We understand that the current administration seeks to censor anything it deems ‘diversity, equity & inclusion.’ But there are no federal or State laws prohibiting the principles of DEI.”