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On Christmas Eve, Elijah suffered a CVT stroke and has since been diagnosed with Stage 4 Glioblastoma. 2.9 to the Finish Line! On your marks! Get set! Let's get Elijah healthy and back home!
On Christmas Eve, Elijah suffered a CVT stroke and has since been diagnosed with Stage 4 Glioblastoma. 2.9 to the Finish Line! On your marks! Get set! Let's get Elijah healthy and back home!
if we don't have an educated citizenry, we know that those people who are seeking to get more power, people that are in that far right maga wing at the republican party, who want to destroy public education, not just by attacking our students freedom to learn but by privatizing it, we know that that is part of their goal to do everything they can do to ensure that they have on fettered power. i want to put front and center, the voices of students, i met with elijah, juliet and victoria when i was in florida a couple of weeks ago, and their parents. they set a piece, we need to have access to african american studies so that not only do we see ourselves, to black students and one white student, but we also need to understand that black history is american history. we need to know about all that history, so that we can
citizenry, we know that those people who are seeking to get more power, people that are in that far right maga wing at the republican party, who want to destroy public education, not just by attacking our students freedom to learn but by privatizing it, we know that that is part of their goal to do everything they can do to ensure that they have on fettered power. i want to put front and center, the voices of students, i met with elijah, juliet and victoria when i was in florida a couple of weeks ago, and their parents. they set a piece, we need to have access to african american studies so that not only do we see ourselves, to black students and one white student, but we also need to understand that black history is american history. we need to know about all that history, so that we can actually use the diversity of the country to be the asset is. that is what we will
get in contact with and work with a lot of people that care about what's happening, but they maybe don't have the brain power to focus on this specific battle. >> kat, perhaps governor desantis is watching right now. what's your message to him? >> my message to him on a personal level is that i hope he realizes that the trans community now has a voice. it's already got one, but there are a lot of people who are not feeling safe to speak up against him and they are willing to help take on that job. we are willing to represent that community. now he has voices actively speaking against him and i hope he can take that into consideration and hear us. >> elijah, your message to governor desantis? >> i mean, as a student, as someone who wants to be an educator in the future, i just hope that ron desantis realizes that what he's doing has the potential to ruin florida's
so there was thousands of students across the state that walked out, which was really awesome to see. the reason we were walking out is because we feel that the government is basically trying to prevent us from learning what we want to learn inside of our classrooms. so we're taking the time to leave our classrooms and talk to people and learn about the history and information that's being prevented from being talked about. >> elijah, you're the director of coordination for stand for freedom and kat, you're the director of communications. tell me about the organization, how it came about and what you feel it's empowered to do. >> this all started whenever the governor desantis administration asked for the trans health records from the 12 major public universities across the state of florida, which would give him access to trans health records without their permission.
we know that people are watching what happens in florida, and some people view it as a good thing. some people believe their state should look the same that ours does. that's a huge concern that we have. >> elijah, what has the response been like to your movement, your participation? just looking at the pictures, the turnout was pretty good. how has this helped galvanize the effort or even helped you win support? >> i'm going to say it's been overwhelmingly positive. like i said, we had thousands of students walk out across the state. we've been working with major organizations like the dream defenders and equality florida. we're talking with ling with le across the state. we don't have the baggage or obligations of these other organizations, so we can focus really immediately on short-term goals, which has enabled us to
a field of study. it would also block courses with a curriculum based on theoretical content. this is the latest effort to align higher education with governor ron desantis's vision to reject what he calls woke ideologies. college students statewide staged a walkout to protest desantis and support the lgbtq plus community. joining me are two students who got involved. elijah and cat are both juniors at the university of south florida. good to see both of you. >> hello. >> hi. >> elijah, you first. tell me about the walkout. what was the goal? did it meet your expectations? >> first of all, it more than exceeded my expectations. we had hundreds of students on each campus and we had more than ten campuses participating.
it is not a violation of hipaa, so it is 100% legal, but not 100% agreed upon by the community. i'm a trans person myself, so i was happy to defend our rights. we need to move up the chain and be fighting for more than trans rights and the bipoc community as well and students' rights across the board. >> so this is the governor's response, saying the legislation will refocus florida's public colleges and universities on preparing students to be contributing members of society and bring more accountability to the higher education system. so elijah, what's your response to that response? >> i think it's in a lot of ways trying to control the narrative of what's going on. all of those words are things that, yeah, sure i think we should have an accountable
public education system. we have three public universities in the top 50 in the country and what he's doing will destroy the public education system that's been built up since the passing of things like bright futures and the florida prepaid plan. i really hope that it doesn't come to that. >> elijah, you want to be an educator. would you be an educator in florida or do you feel compelled to go across state lines? >> in the present state, i don't think that i would feel comfortable being an educator in florida. i think all educators have an obligation to teach their students how to think critically and outside of the box and analyze the world around them. i think in florida at the moment, that's not the paradigm or the status quo. it is the status quo of the educ educators, but the government is trying to change that.