University of Utah recieves Top 25 GLBT friendly school rating

The University of Utah was recently named as one of the country's top 25 friendly

One student said,"I'm happy about it, I'm proud to be part of the community."

Kai Medina Martinez is the director at the L-G-B-T resource center, and also an alumn from the class of '87 when acceptance was hard to come by.

"It's tremendous, it's great. I never thought we'd be here."

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To learn more about the Annual International Social Uprising Resistance and Grassroots Encouragement (S.U.R.G.E.!) Film Festival please visit: www.WeSurge.org

California Bill shields the undocumented.

California state legislators passed a bill Friday that seeks to protect undocumented immigrants charged with relatively minor crimes from being deported.

The bill, by Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, would prohibit local police from detaining anyone on an immigration hold if the person is not charged with or has not been convicted of a serious or violent crime.

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To learn more about the Annual International Social Uprising Resistance and Grassroots Encouragement (S.U.R.G.E.!) Film Festival please visit: www.WeSurge.org

Feminism's next big step: Finding one's own definition of success

As a freelance writer focusing on social justice movements, my daily wardrobe includes only four items: jeans, underwear and a T-shirt for the days I leave the house, and my pajamas for the days I sequester myself and my coffee maker in the closet to write.

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To learn more about the Annual International Social Uprising Resistance and Grassroots Encouragement (S.U.R.G.E.!) Film Festival please visit: www.WeSurge.org

Teaching Feminism: Bedtime stories

As a kid, I would relish in picking out just the right book for bedtime. My parents would read me a story before I went to bed each night, and it was always something I looked forward to. In retrospect, I probably enjoyed these bedtime stories partially because they put off bedtime for just a litte bit longer, and partially because they allowed me to escape to a different world for a little bit, allowing me to clear my mind before sleep. Even now, though, I find it difficult to fall asleep if I don’t spend some time reading before bed. This absolutely fostered a love of literature and reading in me from a very young age, and had I not had this experience, I might not have become an English major in undergrad and gone on to teach high school English.

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To learn more about the Annual International Social Uprising Resistance and Grassroots Encouragement (S.U.R.G.E.!) Film Festival please visit: www.WeSurge.org

Social Justice Advocate learns to use business for change

Van Jones is being inducted into Social Venture Network’s (SVN) Hall of Fame as an Economic Justice Maverick, but the green economy champion says he owes much to the network for helping him understand the role business plays in creating positive change.

Jones was in his 20s when he first attended a SVN meeting at the invite of the network’s co-founder Josh Mailman. The Yale-trained lawyer and founder of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights remembers at the time thinking only nonprofit and government activities could advance social change.

Attending the SVN meeting, where he recalls sitting at the back and “feeling completely intimidated by the level of genius, passion and accomplishment in the room,” Jones began to shift his perspective on entrepreneurship.

“I had never heard of triple-bottom line businesses,” recalls Jones.

“Being in the conversation with SVN showed me that we had a much bigger toolkit to make change, and that some of our most effective change-makers are actually in the private sector.”

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To learn more about the Annual International Social Uprising Resistance and Grassroots Encouragement (S.U.R.G.E.!) Film Festival please visit: www.WeSurge.org

Social Jutice Campaigner Lin Hatfield Dodds gets new role

The National Director of Australia's largest non-government provider of community services, UnitingCare Australia has been appointed to the position of Chair of the Australian Social Inclusion Board.

Announcing the appointment, Minister for Social Inclusion, Mark Butler, said Ms Lin Hatfield Dodds was one of Australia's leading social justice advocates and a recognised expert on community services and social policy and he looked forward to working with her to improve the lot of the most disadvantaged Australians.

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To learn more about the Annual International Social Uprising Resistance and Grassroots Encouragement (S.U.R.G.E.!) Film Festival please visit: www.WeSurge.org

Rules for Child Labor on farms affected by House Act

WASHINGTON —

The House on Tuesday barred the labor secretary from imposing new safety rules for children working on farms, putting a legal stamp on a Labor Department decision to put off action on the rules.

The Labor Department announced last April that it would not go ahead with the proposed rules, saying the decision was made "in response to thousands of comments" expressing concerns about their effect on small family-owned farms.

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To learn more about the Annual International Social Uprising Resistance and Grassroots Encouragement (S.U.R.G.E.!) Film Festival please visit: www.WeSurge.org

Dwayne Crenshaw: Walking with Pride

As a black gay man and the son of a Baptist minister, I have not always been connected to my own sexual orientation, let alone the LGBT community. While I have always had a strong sense for social justice, I did not live in the gay community during the times when funerals for AIDS victims were nearly a daily occurrence, and, therefore, did not have the deep emotional connection to our community’s struggle with HIV and AIDS.

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To learn more about the Annual International Social Uprising Resistance and Grassroots Encouragement (S.U.R.G.E.!) Film Festival please visit: www.WeSurge.org

UB Society of Feminists: Women Transcending the Trivial

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- If you know when doctors claimed education dangerous to women's health or the name of Harriot Blatch's mom, you're in luck.

Because most pub trivia questions tend to overlook people of color, women and LGBT folks, the University at Buffalo graduate group Society of Feminists (UBSoFem) has partnered with Merge restaurant and bar to present what they call "an affirming night of historical, current and pop-culture trivia that honors on-going struggles for social justice."

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To learn more about the Annual International Social Uprising Resistance and Grassroots Encouragement (S.U.R.G.E.!) Film Festival please visit: www.WeSurge.org

Art is in Coffee focusing on direct trade with a side of social justice

You may not have social justice and creating fairer global economies on the brain as you guzzle down your morning cup of coffee — but Oakland residents Sara Hoda and Lazzuly Mello sure do.

In May, Hoda and Mello co-founded Art Is In Coffee: a (somewhat) mobile coffee cart which uses 100 percent direct trade coffee and aims to reclaim and recreate sidewalks all over Oakland as art and community spaces.

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To learn more about the Annual International Social Uprising Resistance and Grassroots Encouragement (S.U.R.G.E.!) Film Festival please visit: www.WeSurge.org