“The movement that keeps growing”
By Josh Waugh

In 2010, the road ahead for pot activism wasn’t as clear-cut as it is today. That year, the big push was for state legalization — or at least some sort of decriminalization.

This year, the Seattle Police Department (SPD) handed out free bags of Doritos to Hempfest-goers.

The bags were adorned with stickers elucidating current laws on marijuana and its consumption, with tips such as, “Don’t drive while high … Do listen to Dark Side of the Moon at a reasonable volume.”

What we’ve seen in that three-year span of time is rapid progress. But this progress isn’t limited to Seattle, nor Washington alone; across the whole nation, the tide of marijuana liberalization is finally coming in.

The Daily
University of Washington

Full Article here.

“UC should undergo Title IX audit to examine handling of sexual assault cases”
By Alexandra Tashman

Last November, Aryle Butler, a third-year student at UC Berkeley, was told by campus administrators that filing a complaint against the person who sexually assaulted her would be “invasive and unnecessary.”

These stories clearly demonstrate a lack of administrative oversight and outright failure on behalf of UC Berkeley to protect and support students who survived sexual assault and went through university channels in order to seek recourse with their assailants.

“This behavior has got to stop before another generation of students has to deal with this,” said state Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson (D-Santa Barbara).

Daily Bruin
University of California, Los Angeles

Full article here.

“The other Big Brother”
By Zak Whittington

If the FBI were to bust down your front door right now, seize your computer and rifle through all your files, the absolute worst they would find is maybe your diary, or some pirated music, or—heaven forbid—your porn stash.

Contrast that with much of the rest of the world, and the story changes dramatically.

In China, thousands of citizens have been fined or harassed and scores have been arrested and forced to serve lengthy sentences for digital “crimes.” People beyond our borders aren’t all protected by a well-established rule of law or legal due process like we are.

The Stanford Daily
Stanford University

Full article here.

“Making college affordable”
By Senior Editorial Board

President Barack Obama laid out a plan last week that aims to create a system of affordability ratings for colleges nationwide.

The heart of the initiative is to tether the billions of dollars in federal student aid to colleges’ ratings, incentivizing administrative reforms that make higher education affordable to more students.

As positive as all this may be, it remains a Band-Aid on American higher education’s broken leg.

The fundamentals of the problem have not changed. Wouldn’t a simpler and far more effective approach be to advocate for a public education system in which students don’t have to take on unmanageable loads of debt in order to get a degree?

The Daily Californian
University of California, Berkeley

Full article here.