#boycott texas

[makingdonalddrumpfagain]

[belongstolove]

" proudly serving the 14th district of Texas "

[ustalav]

i know some people live in places where its the only coffee shop but the posts about boycotting starbucks that are like “you can make coffee at home c:”

like or i can go to one of several other coffee shops lmao you don’t even have to give up ur fancy coffee 😭

[beechersnope]

are we not forgetting that half these races take place in legalized hate crime zones

[ctraceywrites]

In Texas (I'm not sure if it's in other states as well) there is a bill: Texas House Bill 89. This bill, if I'm understanding it correctly, makes it impossible for any business that sells to government agencies (like schools) to boycott Israel.

Here's info on the bill here.

I'm not sure how to go about it, but if people in Texas can reach out to their reps and try to get this overturned it would likely mean less money going to Israel and for more businesses to be able to openly support Palestine without risk of losing their business.

[blackmansuburb]

[nimx]

i’m in target and for the first time the starbucks is empty… yes 👍

[angelx1992]

[makingdonalddrumpfagain]

[belongstolove]

University of Texas

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Ian Millhiser at Vox:

The Supreme Court announced on Monday that it will not hear Mckesson v. Doe. The decision not to hear Mckesson leaves in place a lower court decision that effectively eliminated the right to organize a mass protest in the states of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas. Under that lower court decision, a protest organizer faces potentially ruinous financial consequences if a single attendee at a mass protest commits an illegal act.

It is possible that this outcome will be temporary. The Court did not embrace the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit’s decision attacking the First Amendment right to protest, but it did not reverse it either. That means that, at least for now, the Fifth Circuit’s decision is the law in much of the American South. For the past several years, the Fifth Circuit has engaged in a crusade against DeRay Mckesson, a prominent figure within the Black Lives Matter movement who organized a protest near a Baton Rouge police station in 2016. The facts of the Mckesson case are, unfortunately, quite tragic. Mckesson helped organize the Baton Rouge protest following the fatal police shooting of Alton Sterling. During that protest, an unknown individual threw a rock or similar object at a police officer, the plaintiff in the Mckesson case who is identified only as “Officer John Doe.” Sadly, the officer was struck in the face and, according to one court, suffered “injuries to his teeth, jaw, brain, and head.”

Everyone agrees that this rock was not thrown by Mckesson, however. And the Supreme Court held in NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware (1982) that protest leaders cannot be held liable for the violent actions of a protest participant, absent unusual circumstances that are not present in the Mckesson case — such as if Mckesson had “authorized, directed, or ratified” the decision to throw the rock. Indeed, as Justice Sonia Sotomayor points out in a brief opinion accompanying the Court’s decision not to hear Mckesson, the Court recently reaffirmed the strong First Amendment protections enjoyed by people like Mckesson in Counterman v. Colorado (2023). That decision held that the First Amendment “precludes punishment” for inciting violent action “unless the speaker’s words were ‘intended’ (not just likely) to produce imminent disorder.”

The reason Claiborne protects protest organizers should be obvious. No one who organizes a mass event attended by thousands of people can possibly control the actions of all those attendees, regardless of whether the event is a political protest, a music concert, or the Super Bowl. So, if protest organizers can be sanctioned for the illegal action of any protest attendee, no one in their right mind would ever organize a political protest again. Indeed, as Fifth Circuit Judge Don Willett, who dissented from his court’s Mckesson decision, warned in one of his dissents, his court’s decision would make protest organizers liable for “the unlawful acts of counter-protesters and agitators.” So, under the Fifth Circuit’s rule, a Ku Klux Klansman could sabotage the Black Lives Matter movement simply by showing up at its protests and throwing stones.

The Fifth Circuit’s Mckesson decision is obviously wrong

Like Mckesson, Claiborne involved a racial justice protest that included some violent participants. In the mid-1960s, the NAACP launched a boycott of white merchants in Claiborne County, Mississippi. At least according to the state supreme court, some participants in this boycott “engaged in acts of physical force and violence against the persons and property of certain customers and prospective customers” of these white businesses. Indeed, one of the organizers of this boycott did far more to encourage violence than Mckesson is accused of in his case. Charles Evers, a local NAACP leader, allegedly said in a speech to boycott supporters that “if we catch any of you going in any of them racist stores, we’re gonna break your damn neck.”

With SCOTUS refusing to take up McKesson v. Doe, the 5th Circuit's insane anti-1st Amendment ruling that effectively bans mass protests remains in force for the 3 states covered in the 5th: Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi.

[gryficowa]

Boycott!

Now that I have your attention:

[eretzyisrael]

by Richard Goldberg

Anti-Semitism is spreading in K–12 school districts. Even in primary and secondary education, Jews are often viewed as privileged whites and oppressors, with Israel branded as an egregious example of “settler colonialism” and oppression of “indigenous people.” “Liberated ethnic studies” curricula, like the one mandated by California, have created a distinct variant of critical theory aimed at Jews for being Zionist colonial oppressors.

Teachers’ unions are the leading purveyors of this approach. Two years ago, the United Educators of San Francisco adopted a resolution calling for a boycott of Israel. The Chicago Teachers Union instigated pro-Hamas demonstrations in the Windy City after October 7. The union persuaded Chicago mayor Brandon Johnson (a former CTU lobbyist) to condemn Israel in the city council, and it organized a student and faculty “walkout” to show solidarity with Hamas—a city-authorized event that left Jewish students and teachers feeling intimidated. In suburban Seattle, kids as young as seven were recently encouraged to condemn Israel and join in anti-Semitic chants. Oakland Unified School District faces a federal investigation after 30 Jewish families removed their kids from school due to rampant anti-Semitism. And at a high school in New York City, hundreds of students hunted down a female teacher they saw on social media holding a sign supporting Israel.

Marxist ideology is the primary culprit influencing this mind-set, but not the only one. Qatar, a tiny Persian Gulf country that supports Hamas, is funding anti-Semitic “scholarship” not only in American universities but also in K–12 schools. Qatar Foundation International gave $1 million to the New York City Department of Education between 2019 and 2022 for a program featuring a map of the Middle East that erases the Jewish state. The same story played out at a public charter school in Irving, Texas. What other districts in the country might be taking money directly or indirectly from a chief Hamas sponsor? Brown University’s Choices Program, used by more than 1 million high school students nationwide, exhibits a clear anti-Israel bias. According to Brown, the Qataris “purchased and distributed a selection of existing Choices curriculum units to 75 teachers whose districts didn’t have funding to buy them.”

Tools to fight back, however, are available. Governors and state legislatures can begin by blocking “ethnic studies” from the K–12 curriculum and by imposing new teacher-certification requirements. To curb foreign meddling, states should ban school funding or in-kind donations from entities connected with countries that harbor U.S.-designated terrorist organizations. School districts and state boards of education should use the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of anti-Semitism to root out conduct meeting its standard. Several groups sued the Santa Ana, California, school district in state court for failing to notify parents before approving ethnic studies courses that contain anti-Jewish bias and for harassing Jewish parents at school board meetings.

At the federal level, parents could file formal complaints with the Department of Education for discrimination under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. Such complaints are increasingly common against colleges and universities, but any school that receives federal funding must comply with Title VI. The House Committee on Education and the Workforce should consider holding a hearing on anti-Semitism in K–12 schools, putting the national spotlight on anti-Jewish administrators and school board leaders.

Local, state, and federal officials have played meaningful roles in fighting back against critical race theory in the classroom. They need to fight equally hard to stop anti-Semitism masquerading as Middle East or ethnic studies.

[huriya]

College Shitlist (boycott these colleges)

This is the updating list of colleges where pro-palestine protests are present that have brutalized/arrested/punished their students for protesting the ongoing palestinian genocide.

REMEMBER: DO NOT GIVE YOUR MONEY TO THESE COLLEGES. PROTESTS ON THESE CAMPUSES ARE IMPORTANT, BUT KEEPING YOUR INTELLIGENCE AND MONEY AWAY FROM THESE ABHORRENT INSTITUTIONS DIMINISHES THEIR POWER. THEIR ONLY POWER COMES FROM THEIR STUDENTS AND THEIR MONEY. YOU HAVE THE POWER TO TAKE THEIR PRESTIGE AWAY.

In No Particular Order:

Princeton University

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

University of California - Berkeley

Stanford University

Virginia Tech

University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

University of Washington

University of Minnesota - Twin Cities

University of Wisconsin - Madison

Harvard University

Yale University

University of California - Los Angeles

Cornell University

University of Pittsburgh

University of Chicago

University of Southern California

University of California - San Diego

Tufts University

Northeastern University

Stony Brook University

University of Connecticut

University of California - Merced

University of Massachusetts - Amherst

University of Iowa

University of Arizona

Arizona State University

University of California - Irvine

George Washington University

DePaul University

University of Pennsylvania

Pomona College

University of Texas - Dallas

The New School

University of Houston

University of Rochester

University of New Mexico

Duke University

New York University

University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill

Barnards College

University of Vanderbilt

Rutgers University - New Brunswick

Columbia University

Portland State University

University of Oregon

California Polytechnic Institute Humboldt

California Polytechnic University - San Luis Obispo

Northern Arizona University

University of Utah

University of Kansas

University of Illinois - Urbana Champaign

Washington University

New Mexico State University

University of Texas - Austin

Tulane University

University of South Florida

University of North Florida

University of Florida

Emory University

University of Georgia

Mercer University

Notre Dame University

Case Western Reserve University

The Ohio State University

Virginian Commonwealth University

University of Virginia

University of Buffalo

State University of New York - Purchase

State University of New York - New Paltz

Brown University

Brandeis University

Dartmouth College

University of New Hampshire

Emerson College

CUNY City College of New York

International List:

University of Amsterdam

University of Alberta

University of Queensland

University of Sydney

University of Melbourne

Australian National University

University of New South Wales

University of Calgary

University of Oxford

Feel free to share this list, send me additional colleges to add (WITH SOURCES), and/or request more information on a particular college

[rjzimmerman]

Business Group Sues Texas Officials Over Law That Shields Oil Industry. (New York Times)

Excerpt from this New York Times story:

A liberal business group sued Texas officials this week in a major challenge to a 2021 law that bars state entities from doing business with investment firms that the state comptroller says are boycotting energy companies.

The suit, filed by the American Sustainable Business Council in United States District Court in Austin, argues that the law violates the First Amendment because it prohibits doing business with firms on the basis of their “actual or perceived” political views on fossil fuels.

The law prohibits state entities like retirement funds from placing investments with firms it says have enacted boycotts by including environmental principles in their investment strategies. Twenty states have passed such laws in recent years, according to a tally by Pleiades Strategy, a policy research group.

The laws were part of a backlash in some states against a surge of interest over the past decade in what’s known as E.S.G. investing, or making investment decisions that take into account environmental, social and governance issues like pollution and climate change, among others. A similar anti-E.S.G. law in Oklahoma was successfully challenged in court this year and has been temporarily blocked by a judge.

The Texas suit names the state attorney general, Ken Paxton, and the state comptroller, Glenn Hegar, as the defendants. In a statement, Mr. Hegar assailed the suit, calling it an attempt “to force companies to follow a radical environmental agenda that is often contrary to the interests of their shareholders.”

He added that the group had “ignored the critical role” that the oil and gas industry plays in Texas as projections about future demand continue to rise. A June report by Goldman Sachs concluded that worldwide demand for oil would grow for the next decade, an assessment it attributed to slow sales of electric vehicles and rising consumption.

[follow-up-news]

Elon Musk’s social media platform X has sued a group of advertisers, alleging that a “massive advertiser boycott” deprived the company of billions of dollars in revenue and violated antitrust laws. The company formerly known as Twitter filed the lawsuit Tuesday in a federal court in Texas against the World Federation of Advertisers and member companies Unilever, Mars, CVS Health and Orsted. It accused the advertising group’s brand safety initiative, called the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, of helping to coordinate a pause in advertising after Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion in late 2022 and overhauled its staff and policies.