UEAlliance

From Progressive Miami:  Save the Date- THURSDAY, Nov. 30th, 7 p.m. Our November meeting will focus on gun laws. Our guest speakers will be Maria and Fred Wright. They are the parents of Jerry Wright who was killed, along with 48 others, at Orlando's Pulse nightclub fifteen months ago. Their story is powerful. 7 p.m. Coral Gables Congregational Church

We are holding an informal gathering at Titanic Brewery from 3:30pm to 6pm to meet and chat with one another. We'll have flyers about all our organization's wonderful activities and even some buttons to take home. There will be no formal meeting, and you are welcome to drop by at any point during that time. This is a chance to grab a drink and just chat with other people at the University of Miami and in the community who share your values. Please join us and bring a friend or two or three! It's important we sustain and grow our community. So many of you, whether you've organized an event for the UEA or not, have done a lot to better our community. This is a rare chance for us to take a short break and get to know one another better!

A group of is going to Ros-Lehtinen's office tomorrow at 2:00pm to talk about what the Republican tax bill would do to our graduate students by making their tuition waivers count as taxable income. We're also trying to get local press to join us. It would be great if we could fill up their waiting room again—all are welcome.

The ACLU of Florida is gathering signatures for a petition asking to have a state-wide vote on changing the constitution of Florida to enable people who have served time in prison to be able to vote. They need a million signatures gathered by January 1, 2018. This is something we would like UEA members to take on; the College Democrats are targeting students to sign the petition , and we think we should focus on our colleagues. Our goal is to get at least as many petitions signed as we have members: 200. This change would be a positive one in so many ways. Florida is one of only three states (along with Virginia and Iowa) in which felons and ex-felons permanently lose the right to vote. The ACLU is emphasizing how this would give people a second chance, and a form of redemption. Data shows that recidivism drops when people are enfranchized. It is also the case that this form of disenfranchisement, rooted in the Jim and Jane Crow era, disproportionately affects African-Americans,...