Even those of us who have long emphasized the importance of the Palestinian people’s voice, experience, and collective action in Palestinian history must have been shocked by the cultural revolution resulting from the Israeli war on Gaza.

 By cultural revolution, I mean the defiant and rebellious narrative evolving in Gaza, where people see themselves as active participants in the popular resistance, not just mere victims of the Israeli war machine.

Yesterday, January 29, Community Shelter Board (CSB) upper management has ignited outrage after contacting volunteers announcing immediate eviction for hundreds of vulnerable individuals and families out of emergency hotel shelters. Residents received even less information, with notices posted on doors and no contact information provided for follow-up questions.

When volunteers and residents asked social workers if they had more information, they were unaware of the “eviction by email.” The poorly communicated directive, delivered without clarity or empathy, has left volunteers and social workers scrambling to address panicked questions from displaced residents. This latest failure underscores a pattern of cruel mismanagement and highlights how city leadership prioritizes austerity over human dignity.  

Leadership Failure: “Fundraise Tents” Instead of Solutions

After Wednesday night’s devastating airplane crash, President Trump opened his White House Press Briefing by turning straight to DEI as the cause of the collision and directing each of his secretaries to come up and also blame programs focused on increasing diversity in the workplace. Trump’s instinct to instantly turn the biggest aviation disaster in two decades into a political rally is the new standard and a clear example of how his second administration will continue to pursue these kinds of disasters. 

Trump’s quick jump to blame DEI efforts was not just bad because he has turned a national incident into a political talking point, but also because he uses DEI as a disguise to attack minority groups in an official role as president. In the White House press conference, he singled out Pete Buttigieg, the nation’s first gay department head, and his “diversity” as the reason that this crash happened. Following his criticism of Buttigieg, Trump then listed out groups of people who he believed had been hired under previous programs that corrupted the intellectual integrity of the department, including “dwarves” and “people with severe mental disabilities.”

On January 29, the Ohio Student Association protested at Senate Bill 1’s first and only proponent testimony hearing, sitting silently for the hearing’s two hour duration carefully reading copies of Senate Bill 1 before marching out with a chant of “Higher ed will be dead.” Student protesters present in the hearing room far outnumbered the proponents.

Nica Delgado, a senior at Kent State, sat front row at the hearing. “We heard a lot of misguided testimony from people who will not be directly affected by this bill, who haven’t been in classrooms since before we were born— and even before my parents were born. These people don’t know what our campuses are actually like. We’re the experts on that, but Cirino won’t listen to us.”