Youth and the Social Crisis
US students and youth speak out against the threat of war with Iran
By Trévon Austin, 17 January 2020
“We know who war benefits. It benefits the rich, and it’s always the poor and the working class who suffer the consequences. My father fought in World War II and the Korean War and it totally destroyed him.”
“It’s just getting harder and harder to live”
Homeless in San Diego, “America’s Finest City”
By Meenakshi Jagadeesan and Ryley Koffing, 27 December 2019
San Diego has the fourth-highest number of homeless residents in the United States.
UC Santa Cruz graduate students wildcat strike enters critical phase
By Meenakshi Jagadeesan, 18 December 2019
The students, whose demand is a “Cost of Living Adjustment” to their wages as Graduate Teaching Assistants, are withholding submitting the final grades for Fall quarter.
Report highlights social crisis confronting Australian youth on welfare
By John Harris, 14 December 2019
Hundreds of thousands of working-class youth and students confront soaring housing and utility costs, and a deepening jobs crisis.
California graduate students on wildcat strike
By Evelyn Rios, 11 December 2019
Graduate students at the University of California, Santa Cruz are demanding raises to meet the cost of living in one of the country's most expensive regions.
New York University charges food-insecure students for "free" meals
By Sam Dalton, 11 December 2019
Last semester 1,933 students, nearly 10 percent of the school’s undergraduates, utilized the Courtesy Meals Program.
Harvard University graduate student union begins strike over pay, conditions
By Kate Randall, 4 December 2019
The HGSU-UAW has made only token appeals to other sections of workers at Harvard to support the grad student workers’ strike and has offered substantial concessions to the university on virtually all issues.
Harvard University grad students set to strike over pay, grievance procedures, healthcare
By Kate Randall, 3 December 2019
Harvard officials’ hard line in relation to collective bargaining on grad students’ pay is in line with a recent NLRB proposal that would curb the establishment of graduate student unions at private universities.
After student sets himself on fire, French youth protest: “Precariousness kills”
By Francis Dubois, 30 November 2019
Anas K.’s desperate action and his scathing denunciation of the Macron government and of capitalism have reverberated powerfully among tens of thousands of students who face the same dire conditions.
Students walk out in support of Nashville teacher victimized for assigning homework on the “N-word”
By Trévon Austin, 27 November 2019
Steven Small was the subject of an anonymous complaint from a parent after he gave students an assignment discussing the 1987 Pulitzer Prize-winning play “Fences” and its use of the racial slur.
Two killed, three injured in Santa Clarita, California school shooting
By Dan Conway, 15 November 2019
The victims were aged 14 to 16 with the suspected shooter also admitted to the hospital with an apparent self-inflicted gunshot to the head.
Australia: Mobilise students, staff and academics against the closure of Macquarie University’s human sciences faculty
By the Committee for Public Education, 7 November 2019
The National Tertiary Education Union’s major concern is not the job cuts themselves, but that they were left out of the “consultation process” required to implement them.
The global youth radicalization and the fight for socialism
By Eric London, 30 October 2019
The political awakening of the most educated, urbanized and technologically interconnected generation in history is of critical strategic significance for the entire working class.
Stop the censorship of socialist views by the University of Leipzig student council
By the IYSSE Leipzig, 30 October 2019
The student council refused IYSSE official club status, effectively imposing censorship on left-wing and socialist views on campus.
Seventy percent of US Millennials say they are likely to vote socialist
By Genevieve Leigh, 29 October 2019
The growing interest in and support for socialism coincides with a significant growth of class struggle and social protest internationally.
Trump proposal denies free school meals to half a million children
By Kate Randall, 25 October 2019
The USDA rule change would throw more than 680,000 households with children off food stamps. About 540,000 children in these families would no longer be eligible for free school meals.
Youth suicide rate skyrockets in the US: A symptom of a rotting social order
By Genevieve Leigh, 24 October 2019
In the United States, suicide is the second leading cause of death for youth aged 12-18.
Suicide rates and suicidal behavior rise sharply among American youth
By Trévon Austin, 18 October 2019
The CDC reports that the suicide rate among those aged 10 to 24 years old increased by 56 percent between 2007 and 2017.
At New York forum in defense of Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning
UN special rapporteur on torture warns: “Assange will not get a fair trial in Virginia”
By Sandy English, 17 October 2019
A panel discussion at Columbia University on Tuesday laid bare the fraudulent character of the charges brought against Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning and put the spotlight on those who committed the war crimes that WikiLeaks exposed.
“PG&E should be nationalized”: Berkeley students and residents denounce forced blackout in California
By Evan Blake, 16 October 2019
Last week’s blackout, which affected over two million people and businesses, lasted up to four days in some places and likely caused many premature deaths.
Mexico: 100,000 university workers strike as López Obrador’s vows deeper austerity
By Andrea Lobo, 10 October 2019
The bankruptcy of universities and the response by López Obrador exposes the anti-working class character of the Morena administration.
New Zealand: Unexplained death at university hall of residence
By John Braddock, 3 October 2019
While stresses on students are escalating, privately-run residential halls maintain profits by cost-cutting and slashing pastoral care.
“The CEOs and Wall Street are trying to take your wages and benefits… Don’t Give in. Stand your ground!”
Detroit college students support striking GM workers
By Genevieve Leigh, 2 October 2019
Students at Detroit’s Wayne State University discussed the fight of General Motors workers and the strategy needed for them to win their historic strike.
A call to action:
Why students and youth should support striking GM workers
By the International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE)–US, 1 October 2019
The IYSSE calls on students and youth throughout the US and the world to actively support the 48,000 striking General Motors workers and to bring them an international and socialist perspective.
Florida teen hangs himself in Broward County maximum-security jail
By Casey Gold, 9 September 2019
Sonny Rugani, 17, had been charged as an adult and was detained at the Broward County main jail. He had told his arresting officers that he planned to hang himself in prison.
As the new US school year begins
The political battle facing teachers
By the WSWS Teacher Newsletter, 28 August 2019
Teachers across the globe are escalating the fight against social inequality, the growing privatization of education and the unrelenting attacks on their standard of living.
US: Homelessness, housing insecurity top list of college student stressors as new year begins
By James Vega and Phyllis Steele, 17 August 2019
A new study on student hunger and homelessness reveals that among US college students, 33 percent reported eating less than they felt necessary because they did not have enough money for food.
UK housing crisis: 630,000 young people face homelessness in retirement
By Alice Summers, 3 August 2019
Hundreds of thousands of UK millennials risk homelessness when they retire due to a lack of social housing and the inability of young people to get onto the property ladder.
Contract for more than 20,000 Chicago teachers expires
By Kristina Betinis, 2 July 2019
Last month, contracts for teachers also expired in Baltimore, Maryland; Newark, New Jersey and Vancouver, British Columbia.
Democrats promote right-wing, racialist politics
Michigan Governor Whitmer ties fate of Benton Harbor High School to test scores
By Joseph Lorenz, 2 July 2019
The new offer ties the fate of the high school and possibly the district to test score performance benchmarks as well as financial obligations.
Honduran military invades university and shoots down students
By Andrea Lobo, 26 June 2019
The most recent military repression recalls nothing so much as the methods employed against radicalized students and workers during the 1980s.
Stop the closure of Benton Harbor schools! Defend public education!
By the World Socialist Web Site Teacher Newsletter, 7 June 2019
The following statement was distributed to teachers, parents and students at a school board meeting Tuesday night in Benton Harbor, Michigan.
Australia: Children detained in adult watch houses in Queensland
By John Harris, 31 May 2019
Children as young as ten have been held in maximum security facilities, where they have been subjected to horrific abuses.
University of Chicago graduate student union authorizes strike action
By George Gallanis, 29 May 2019
The vote is in response to the U of C administration’s anti-democratic attempt to block the recognition of the graduate student union for nearly two years.
“It feels like your whole life is a constant crisis”
US millennials describe life on the brink
By Genevieve Leigh, 27 May 2019
“I have held countless jobs,” Luis said, “and none of them pay enough to live. I couldn’t see myself doing any of them for the rest of my life.”
The millennial generation in the US: Life on the brink
By Genevieve Leigh, 24 May 2019
The conditions facing working class millennials are the same conditions facing the entire working class, of which those in the millennial generation are a particularly vulnerable layer.
An appeal to young people
Defend the right to tell the truth! Defend Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning!
By the International Youth and Students for Social Equality, 24 May 2019
The following statement is being distributed today at climate change protests across the UK.
More migrant deaths as Trump unveils class-based immigration quota
By Eric London, 17 May 2019
Trump announced the new plan as the military agreed to build six new internment camps along the US-Mexico border.
Twenty years since the Columbine High School massacre
By David Walsh, 19 April 2019
The Colorado event, in which two high school seniors shot and killed 12 of their fellow students and one teacher before committing suicide, represented something qualitatively new and disturbing in American social life.
Christoph Vandreier kicks off US speaking tour with well-attended meeting at UC Berkeley
By Gabriel Black, 10 April 2019
Christoph Vandreier spoke to an audience of 70 university students and workers, in the first of six meetings on “The Threat Of Fascism And How To Fight It”
Three suicides in two weeks linked to US mass shootings
By Matthew MacEgan, 28 March 2019
Last week saw the tragic deaths of two students who survived the 2018 Parkland massacre, followed by the suicide of the parent of a girl who was killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook School shooting.
California university workers in one-day strike across the state
By Evelyn Rios, 20 March 2019
Thousands of low-paid workers will strike on Wednesday throughout the University of California’s 10-campus system, the largest public institution of higher learning in the world.
Millions of students and youth march against climate change
By Bryan Dyne, 16 March 2019
The internationally coordinated protests, the largest in sixteen years, were organized in response to the failure of world governments and the ruling class to do anything to halt global warming.
Youth at global climate protests speak out on capitalism, socialism and scientific planning
By our reporters, 16 March 2019
Reporting teams from the World Socialist Web Site interviewed students who protested in countries around the world for action on climate change.
The Youth Climate Strike and the fight against global warming
By Bryan Dyne, 14 March 2019
That the demonstration planned for Friday has evoked a broad response is an indication of both the serious nature of the ecological crisis and the radicalization of youth all over the world.
IYSSE holds rally at University of Michigan to defend Chelsea Manning
By the International Youth and Students for Social Equality at University of Michigan, 14 March 2019
The rally at the University of Michigan advanced an international strategy to mobilize youth, students and the broadest layers of the working class against the imprisonment of Chelsea Manning.
The struggle to stem climate change is the political fight to end capitalism!
Join the International Youth and Students for Social Equality!
By the IYSSE (Australia), 14 March 2019
The IYSSE will distribute the following statement tomorrow at high school student strikes demanding immediate action to resolve climate change and environmental destruction.
New poll shows American youth are increasingly supportive of socialism
By Trévon Austin, 13 March 2019
The leftward shift among youth is a direct consequence of the failure of the capitalist system, which offers only war, austerity, and social disaster.
“The unions are trying to divide the students and teachers”
Oakland students oppose sellout of teachers strike, plan to continue fight to defend public education
By Genevieve Leigh and Kayla Costa, 7 March 2019
There is growing anger among students and teachers in Oakland, California over the shutdown of the seven-day Oakland teachers strike by the Oakland Education Association.
The betrayal of the Oakland teacher strike and the way forward for students
By the International Youth and Students for Social Equality, 7 March 2019
The OEA has declared the strike over, but students, teachers and parents are determined to continue and expand the fight to defend public education.
MIT refuses to cut ties to Saudi regime
By John Marion, 22 February 2019
The MIT president announced the university’s commitment to maintaining relationships with Saudi Arabia in the wake of the murder of the Saudi dissident and journalist Jamal Khashoggi last October.
CIA out of Northern Virginia Community College!
By the International Youth and Students for Social Equality, 19 February 2019
The IYSSE demands that NVCC repudiate all ties to the CIA, including barring it and other agencies of the US military-intelligence apparatus from recruiting students.
“Turning Point UK:” A far-right offensive on British campuses
By Thomas Scripps, 14 February 2019
A check of its leading personnel exposes TPUK as a top-down operation of the Tory right, with the substantial backing of Turning Point’s US-based parent organisation and its fascistic supporters.
New Zealand government expands police training in schools
By Tom Peters, 14 February 2019
The Police Studies course is being increased as part of the Labour-led government’s policy of boosting police recruitment, instilling discipline, and controlling the increasingly restive working class.
One year since the Parkland high school massacre: A political balance sheet
By Genevieve Leigh, 14 February 2019
One year has passed since the mass shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, which killed 17 people and sparked nationwide protests by students and youth against gun violence.
Oakland students walk out as school board prepares major cuts
By Jonathan Burleigh, 11 February 2019
Thousands of Oakland students voiced their support for teachers and hostility to planned budget cuts and school closures.
Students and youth must join the fight to oppose GM job cuts!
By International Youth and Students for Social Equality US, 31 January 2019
The International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE) calls on young people to support autoworkers in their fight against General Motors’ plans to close five plants in the US and Canada.
Indiana school superintendent arrested, charged with fraud for using insurance to help sick student
By Matthew Taylor, 29 January 2019
The arrest of Casey Smitherman has illuminated the wretched living conditions the working class confronts in Indiana and across the US.
Report: 452 child workers died in the US from 2003 to 2016
By Jessica Goldstein, 5 January 2019
The number of children working and killed at work in the US reveals the stark reality that in one of the most advanced capitalist economies in the world, child labor is not eradicated.
Opioid overdose deaths triple among US teens and young children
By Kate Randall, 31 December 2018
The depth of the opioid crisis facing young people points to the woefully inadequate response of the government to this social catastrophe as it spirals out of control.
South Australian university partners with US defense contractor Lockheed Martin
By Eric Ludlow, 31 December 2018
The decision by the University of Adelaide, behind the backs of students and staff, marks the further integration of Australian universities into the US-led war drive against China and Russia.
“I decided that something was wrong with the world and not me”
College loan debt and the life of an adjunct professor
By Nancy Hanover, 27 December 2018
An adjunct community college professor speaks to the WSWS about the impossible situation faced by so many college instructors.
Columbia College faculty union convenes secret tribunal to discipline members
By Alexander Fangmann, 20 December 2018
The leadership of the Columbia College Chicago’s part-time faculty union has convened a special committee to discipline members who question the union’s authority.
The death of Jackeline Caal: A seven-year-old victim of Trump’s war on immigrants
By Patrick Martin, 15 December 2018
While Democrats denounced the death, they supported equally repressive policies under Obama.
Australian prime minister denounces students’ climate-change protests
By Oscar Grenfell, 28 November 2018
Scott Morrison’s comments expressed the acute fear of the ruling establishment that students and young people are beginning to enter into political struggle.
Sheffield Labour Students cancels anti-war meeting, citing police investigation of anti-Semitism allegations
By Laura Tiernan, 12 November 2018
The broader political purpose of the banning of Chris Williamson is aimed at silencing anti-war sentiment among students, young people and the entire working class.
Open letter by students condemns right-wing offensive at Berlin’s Humboldt University
By International Youth and Students for Social Equality (Germany), 11 October 2018
Student organisations from Humboldt University and across Germany published an open letter denouncing the cooperation of the university administration with the far right and its attacks on students’ social and democratic rights.
Australian university students face unprecedented financial pressures
By Martin Scott, 24 September 2018
Students confront a housing affordability crisis, low-paid work and a mountain of tuition debt.
US schools hiring private companies to spy on students’ social media
By Trévon Austin, 17 September 2018
Monitoring students’ social media accounts is a violation of privacy, revealing the partnership of the US government and tech companies in internet surveillance and censorship.
12,800 immigrant children detained in American internment camps
By Eric London, 14 September 2018
While the Trump administration is preparing for a massive expansion of immigrant internment camps, the Democratic Party has abandoned the issue.
A warning to students and the working class
Who are California Governor Jerry Brown’s appointments to the University of California Board of Regents?
By Evelyn Rios, 10 September 2018
Brown appointed his chief fiscal policy advisor, a top union bureaucrat, a former EPA official, and prior vice president of Lockheed Martin, the weapons manufacturer.
As classes begin, Detroit schools shut off drinking water due to high levels of lead and copper
By Eula Holmes and Patrick Martin, 31 August 2018
The pollution of the water supply is particularly devastating for children, whose brains and bodies are especially at risk from toxins.
Immigrant mother sues for $40 million after child dies following ICE detainment
By Kevin Martinez, 31 August 2018
The death of Mariee Juarez is one more casualty in the Trump administration’s brutal war on immigrants.
Join the International Youth and Students for Social Equality and take up the fight for socialism!
By the International Youth and Students for Social Equality (US), 31 August 2018
Join the IYSSE, the only organization fighting against war, authoritarianism and dictatorship, and for the socialist transformation of society.
US media, retired officers tout youth fitness as necessary to boost military recruitment
By Warren Duzak, 10 August 2018
Newspaper columns are proposing the creation of a pool of potential recruits for the US military as an important physical educational goal.
US hospitals fail to prevent unnecessary maternal deaths and injuries
By Brian Dixon, 30 July 2018
Based on recent data, a USA Today article last Thursday concluded that the United States was the most dangerous country in the developed world for women to give birth.
Report exposes rise in alcohol-related deaths among Millennials in US
By Isaac Finn, 20 July 2018
The increase is one part of a rising number of “deaths of despair” caused by suicide and drug and alcohol abuse, which have contributed to declining life expectancy in the US.
Far-right Identitarian movement attempts to disrupt IYSSE meeting in Dresden
By the International Youth and Students for Social Equality, 20 July 2018
On July 12 the far-right Identitarian movement attempted to disrupt a meeting of the IYSSE on the bicentenary of the birth of Karl Marx at the University of Technology in Dresden. The action failed because the meeting was switched to a larger room shortly before it began.
Sponsors of migrant children battle financial costs and bureaucratic red tape
By Meenakshi Jagadeesan, 5 July 2018
The steep financial costs of trying to obtain the release of migrant children held by the government puts a further burden on poor immigrant families.
Unaccompanied immigrant children sent to New York are “disappeared” by ICE
By Steve Light, 29 June 2018
As refugee children were separated from parents at the southern border while seeking asylum in the United States, some were transferred almost 2,000 miles to New York City.
Australian government pushes cuts to student loan scheme
By Oscar Grenfell, 29 June 2018
The Liberal-National government is seeking to force increasingly poverty-stricken young people to repay student debts.
US court documents reveal
Immigrant children tied down, hooded, beaten, stripped and drugged
By Patrick Martin, 22 June 2018
US immigrant detention centers are applying the techniques of Guantanamo Bay and CIA torture prisons on teenagers and even younger children.
Five die fleeing US immigration police as children spend Father’s Day in jail
By Eric London, 18 June 2018
The five immigrants died in a car crash in south Texas, while seven others were wounded in what police called “good police work.”
Youth suicide rate up 56 percent from 2007 to 2016
Government report shows sharp rise in US teen deaths
By Kate Randall, 2 June 2018
The new statistics on deaths among US children and teens expose the social crisis confronting America’s youth in the form of gun violence, suicide, the opioid crisis, poverty and war.
New effort to cover up impact of lead poisoning in Flint
By James Brewer, 30 May 2018
A resolution reportedly passed by doctors at Flint Hurley Medical Center puts forward the false narrative that no one was lead poisoned in Flint, but lead-exposed.
US government admits to losing track of nearly 1,500 immigrant children in sponsor homes
By Kevin Mitchell, 28 May 2018
Officials insisted that they were not “legally responsible” for the missing children.
University of South Florida one of the most militarized in United States
By Alex Johnson, 25 May 2018
The public university in Tampa, Florida is one of the country’s leading schools in military officer training and veteran enrollment.
Puerto Rican students at New York University ask to stay another semester
By Isaac Finn, 24 May 2018
Twenty-seven Puerto Rican students, who are attending NYU through a program to aid survivors of Hurricane Maria, have requested that the NYU administration extend the program.
Police engaged in 25-minute shootout with Texas high school gunman
By Kate Randall, 21 May 2018
According to the Galveston County sheriff, it is unclear whether some of the Santa Fe High School victims were in fact shot by police officers responding to the shooting.
Ten killed in mass shooting at Texas high school
By Trévon Austin, 19 May 2018
The horrific frequency of mass shootings in the US is indicative of a diseased society, combining extreme levels of social alienation with the endless promotion of militarism by the ruling class.
Back to the 19th century
Trump administration preparing green light to child labor
By Patrick Martin, 11 May 2018
The Labor Department wants to lift longstanding restrictions on use of heavy equipment, including chain-saws, by 16- and 17-year-olds.
CIA expands its Signature School program to University of Illinois Chicago
By George Gallanis and Kristina Betinis, 4 May 2018
The program permits the CIA to have a regular recruiting presence on the university’s Chicago campus.
NY Times, Mark Rudd on anniversary of Columbia U sit-in: Socialist revolution is a “fantasy”
By Patrick Martin, 26 April 2018
Mark Rudd, the most prominent leader of the student protests at Columbia University in 1968, has taken to the pages of the leading capitalist newspaper to deny the possibility of revolution.
US students hold national walkout against school violence
By our reporters, 21 April 2018
While Democrats are attempting to direct the anger of youth into the midterm elections and calls for gun control, the demonstrations have revealed broad hostility to the entire political establishment.
French students protest war, support striking rail workers
By Alex Lantier, 16 April 2018
Students at Tolbiac University spoke to the WSWS Friday about their opposition to war in Syria, plans to reinstate the draft, and social austerity in France.
Students oppose Portland State University tuition hikes
By Kayla Costa, 16 April 2018
Despite a student backlash, the Portland State University board of trustees still plans to vote to raise tuition by up to 9 percent for the coming semester.
University of Chicago student with mental illness shot by campus police
By George Marlowe, 6 April 2018
Suffering from a severe mental breakdown, Charles Thomas was shot and wounded by campus police Tuesday night. He now faces criminal charges.
Howard University students occupy campus building in Washington, D.C.
By Nick Barrickman, 2 April 2018
Students have been occupying the university administration building since it was revealed that campus employees had inappropriately received college grants and waivers.
Tens of thousands protest mass shootings in New York, Michigan, Boston and the southern United States
By Tom Hall, 27 March 2018
IYSSE members and supporters spoke to demonstrators at a large number of demonstrations throughout the country.
“This can be turned around by people who want to build a new society”
California: Protesters denounce war and social inequality
By our reporters, 27 March 2018
The large turnout in the most populous US state reflects a political shift, as a new generation of young people are being thrust into politics for the first time.
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