Student Union
- By Charles Fern
Pride Events Encourage Acceptance of LGBTQ Community
Watching men in exaggerated makeup parade down a busy Washington street in high heels and big-hair wigs, Thuien Nguyen commented that this was not likely to happen in his native Vietnam.
Nguyen, who moved to the United States as a child, said LGBTQ+ persons — lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and others whose lifestyles do not fall in the heterosexual mainstream — do not enjoy the cultural acceptance in Vietnam that they do in parts of the U.S.
"I know the LGBTQ community in Vietnam is frowned upon," Nguyen said. "It's very viewed as taboo. A lot of countries are becoming progressive [in Asia], but a lot of them are very discriminatory."
In many U.S. capitals, including Des Moines, Olympia and Albany, LGBTQ+ events are being held throughout June to raise awareness about sexuality and gender.
It's "about celebrating being who you are and being open and honest and feeling appreciated and feeling loved," said Ryan Bos, executive director of Washington's Capital Pride events.
Some LGBTQ+ people may not follow their birth gender or mainstream sexuality. Some, like drag queens, may dress or behave as a gender or lifestyle that is out of the mainstream. Drag queens are typically men who dress in women's clothes and perform onstage.
Famous American drag queen RuPaul explained why to The Guardian.
"We are wearing clothes that are hyper-feminine, that represent our culture's synthetic idea of femininity," she said.
In the U.S., alternative lifestyles are often celebrated but not always tolerated.
Last year, 52 individuals identifying as LGBTQ+ members in the U.S. were slain in hate crimes, according to a report by the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs in New York. This was an 86 percent increase from 2016. Sixty-seven percent of those crimes were committed on LGBTQ+ people who were 35 or younger. Almost half of the cases involved people meeting each other online or through personal ads.
In many parts of the world, homosexuality is acceptable. But in others, it is feared, disparaged and sometimes punishable by death.
Same-sex activity is illegal in 23 Asian countries, according to a 2016 index by the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA) in Geneva, including Singapore, India and Malaysia.
While Vietnam does not criminalize same-sex sexual activity, it is not culturally embraced, according to the Institute for Studies of Society, Economy and Environment (iSee) in Hanoi. Pride parades have been held in recent years, but many people who identify as gay, lesbian or transgender say they've faced discrimination or punishment. Some LGBTQ+ children and teenagers have left home and taken to the streets, according to a 2014 study by iSee.
Same-sex activity is illegal in 34 of 55 African nations, including Kenya, Gambia, Cameroon and Ghana, according to ILGA. In Angola, homosexuality is illegal, and parents have the legal right to physically punish their children.
In Sudan, Somalia and Nigeria, same-sex relations may be punishable by death.
"We will fight these vermins called homosexuals or gays the same way we are fighting malaria-causing mosquitoes, if not more aggressively," said former Gambian President Yahya Jammeh in a 2014 speech on state television to mark the 49th anniversary of Gambia's independence from Britain.
Homosexuality is punishable by death in the Mideast nations of Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Yemen and Iran, and in the South Asian country of Afghanistan.
In the Chechnya region of Russia, there has been a "purge" of gay men, according to the newspaper Novaya Gazeta. At least 100 men the government said were gay have been detained.
One in three transgender youths has considered suicide, research published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry shows. This was nearly two times higher than the figure among youth who did not identify as transgender. Transgender youths were also more likely to engage in substance abuse.
Transgender youths who used a name they chose to correspond with their gender identity — rather than their birth name — were significantly less likely to have suicidal thoughts, according to research published in the Journal of Adolescent Health.
Pride organizers say statistics like those are the reason public displays of acceptance are necessary for society to manage its conflicts in lifestyles.
"Income inequality is worsening, and many states still lack LGBTQ employment protections, making it increasingly important to highlight the contributions of queer workers," wrote Jessie DeStefano and Michael A. Fowler in the 2018 Boston Pride Guide. "Queer immigrants are facing increasingly outrageous attacks from the current administration. While we have won many battles, our continued Rainbow Resistance remains as imperative as ever."
Pride events are widely attended in many parts of the world. The 2017 Worldpride festival held in Madrid attracted 2.3 million people.
"It's amazing how people come and be united," Angola native Volkeria Zamgo said of the parade in Washington.
See all News Updates of the Day
Survey: Social integration, career prep are important to international students
A recent survey of international students in the United States found that before starting school, they were concerned about personal safety, making friends and feeling homesick.
Inside Higher Ed reports that international students want specialized orientations, peer connections, career preparation and job placement to help make their college experiences successful. (July 2024)
US advisory council ends Nigeria visit, signs student exchange deal
Members of a U.S. presidential advisory council have approved a student exchange deal between an American college and a Nigerian university as part of the council's effort to strengthen collaboration on education, health, entrepreneurship and development between Africa and Africans living abroad.
The council also visited a health facility supported by the United States Agency for International Development in the capital.
Nigerian authorities and visitors chatted with members of the U.S President's Advisory Council on African Diaspora Engagement as they toured a healthcare facility in Karu, a suburb of Abuja, on the last day of the council's three-day visit to Abuja and Lagos.
The facility is one of many supported by the United States Agency for International Development, or USAID, to improve the management of childhood illnesses, family planning, immunization and delivery.
The tour was part of the council's effort to promote African diaspora-led investments in technology entrepreneurship, education and healthcare delivery.
"They're doing a phenomenal job there, it really gave us a sense of what the healthcare system is in Nigeria," said Deniece Laurent-Mantey, executive director of the advisory council. "This is our first trip as a council to the continent and we chose Nigeria for a reason — the diaspora in Nigeria is very active, very influential, and they're really a source of strength when it comes to our U.S.-Africa policy. And so for us coming to Nigeria was very intentional."
The council was created by President Joe Biden in September to improve collaboration between Africa and its diaspora in terms of economic and social development.
Akila Udoji, manager of the Primary Healthcare Centre of Karu, said officials in Nigeria were pleased that the council members were able to visit.
"We're happy that they have seen what the money they have given to us to work with has been used to do, because they have been able to assist us in capacity-building, trainings, equipment supply and the makeover of the facility," Udoji said.
Earlier, the council signed a deal for a student exchange program between Spelman College in the southern U.S. city of Atlanta and Nigeria's University of Lagos.
Laurent-Mantey said education exchanges are one of the council's top priorities.
"In Lagos, we had the president of Spelman College — she's also a member of our council — she signed an agreement with the University of Lagos to further education exchange programs in STEM and creative industries between those two universities," Laurent-Mantey said. "And I think for us it's very important, because Spelman College is a historically Black university, and so here we are promoting the importance of collaboration between African Americans and Africans."
In March, the advisory council adopted its first set of recommendations for the U.S. president, including the student exchange initiative, advocating for more U.S. government support for Africa, climate-focused initiatives, and improving U.S. visa access for Africans.
The council met with Nigerian health and foreign affairs officials during the visit before leaving the country on Wednesday.
American Academy of the Arts College announces closure
The American Academy of Art College in Chicago announced it would be closing after 101 years of preparing students for careers in art and illustration.
WTTW news reported that like other art colleges, the academy saw enrollment drop after the pandemic, and officials made the decision to close the college last month. (July 2024)
5 killed, dozens injured in clashes over Bangladesh jobs quota system
At least 5 people were killed and dozens injured in two separate incidents in Bangladesh as violence continued Tuesday on university campuses in the nation's capital and elsewhere over a government jobs quota system, local media reports said quoting officials.
At least three of the dead were students and one was a pedestrian, the media reports said. Another man who died in Dhaka remained unidentified.
The deaths were reported Tuesday after overnight violence at a public university near Bangladesh's capital, Dhaka. The violence involved members of a pro-government student body and other students, when police fired tear gas and charged the protesters with batons during the clashes, which spread at Jahangir Nagar University in Savar, outside Dhaka, according to students and authorities.
Protesters have been demanding an end to a quota reserved for family members of veterans who fought in Bangladesh's war of independence in 1971, which allows them to take up 30% of governmental jobs.
They argue that quota appointments are discriminatory and should be merit-based. Some said the current system benefits groups supporting Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. Some Cabinet ministers criticized the protesters, saying they played on students' emotions.
The Bengali-language Prothom Alo daily newspaper reported that one person died in Dhaka and three others, including a pedestrian, were killed after they suffered injuries during violence in Chattogram, a southeastern district, on Tuesday.
Prothom Alo and other media reports also said that a 22-year-old protester died in the northern district of Rangpur.
Details of the casualties could not be confirmed immediately.
While job opportunities have expanded in Bangladesh's private sector, many find government jobs stable and lucrative. Each year, some 3,000 such jobs open up to nearly 400,000 graduates.
Hasina said Tuesday that war veterans — commonly known as "freedom fighters" — should receive the highest respect for their sacrifice in 1971 regardless of their current political ideologies.
"Abandoning the dream of their own life, leaving behind their families, parents and everything, they joined the war with whatever they had," she said during an event at her office in Dhaka.
Protesters gathered in front of the university's official residence of the vice chancellor early Tuesday when violence broke out. Demonstrators accused the Bangladesh Chhatra League, a student wing of Hasina's ruling Awami League party, of attacking their "peaceful protests." According to local media reports, police and the ruling party-backed student wing attacked the protesters.
But Abdullahil Kafi, a senior police official, told the country's leading English-language newspaper Daily Star that they fired tear gas and "blank rounds" as protesters attacked the police. He said up to 15 police officers were injured.
More than 50 people were treated at Enam Medical College Hospital near Jahangir Nagar University as the violence continued for hours, said Ali Bin Solaiman, a medical officer of the hospital. He said at least 30 of them suffered pellet wounds.
On Monday, violence also spread at Dhaka University, the country's leading public university, as clashes gripped the campus in the capital. More than 100 students were injured in the clashes, police said.
On Tuesday, protesters blocked railways and some highways across the country, and in Dhaka, they halted traffic in many areas as they vowed to continue demonstrating until the demands were met.
Local media said police forces were spread across the capital to safeguard the peace.
Swapon, a protester and student at Dhaka University who gave only his first name, said they want the "rational reformation of the quota scheme." He said that after studying for six years, if he can't find a job, "it will cause me and my family to suffer."
Protesters say they are apolitical, but leaders of the ruling parties accused the opposition of using the demonstrations for political gains.
A ruling party-backed student activist, who refused to give his name, told The Associated Press that the protesters with the help of "goons" of the opposition's Bangladesh Nationalist Party and Jamaat-e-Islami party vandalized their rooms at the student dormitories near the Curzon Hall of Dhaka University.
The family-of-the-veterans quota system was halted following a court order after mass student protests in 2018. But last month, Bangladesh's High Court nulled the decision to reinstate the system once more, angering scores of students and triggering protests.
Last week, the Supreme Court suspended the High Court's order for four weeks and the chief justice asked protesting students to return to their classes, saying the court would issue a decision in four weeks.
However, the protests have continued daily, halting traffic in Dhaka.
The quota system also reserves government jobs for women, disabled people and ethnic minority groups, but students have protested against only the veterans system.
Hasina maintained power in an election in January that was again boycotted by the country's main opposition party and its allies due to Hasina's refusal to step down and hand over power to a caretaker government to oversee the election.
Her party favors keeping the quota for the families of the 1971 war heroes after her Awami League party, under the leadership of her father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, led the independence war with the help of India. Rahman was assassinated along with most of his family members in a military coup in 1975.
Police open hazing investigation after Dartmouth student found dead
Police have opened a hazing investigation after a Dartmouth College student was found dead in a river in early July.
Police received a tip that hazing was involved, and there was evidence that alcohol might have been involved in the death, USA Today reported. (July 2024)
