VOLUME 75 • ISSUE 30 • MARCH 16, 2021
A YEAR OF THE
PANDEMIC NEWS PSU considers academic program reductions P. 4
ARTS & CULTURE The best music of 2021 so far P. 13
OPINION Portland’s labor history P. 14–15
CONTENTS
COVER BY SHANNON STEED
NEWS COVID-19 UPDATE
P. 3
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY ELON MUSK’S STARLINK THREATENS THE NIGHT SKY
P. 11
DUE TO BUDGETARY CHALLENGES, PSU CONSIDERS ACADEMIC PROGRAM REDUCTIONS
P. 4
ARTS & CULTURE WANDAVISION WORKED UNTIL IT DIDN’T
P. 12
MYANMAR PROTESTS IN PORTLAND
P. 5
THE BEST MUSIC OF 2021 SO FAR
P. 13
INTERNATIONAL THIS WEEK AROUND THE WORLD
P. 6–7
OPINION VANGUARD HISTORY CORNER
P. 14
COVER A YEAR OF THE PANDEMIC
P. 8–9
BACK COVER VIRTUAL EVENTS CALENDAR
P. 16
INTERNATIONAL INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY AROUND THE WORLD
P. 10
STAFF
EDIT ORI A L EDITOR IN CHIEF Justin Grinnell MANAGING EDITOR Nick Townsend NEWS EDITORS Hanna Anderson Dylan Jefferies INTERNATIONAL EDITOR Karisa Yuasa SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY EDITOR Béla Kurzenhauser ARTS & CULTURE EDITOR Morgan Troper
OPINION EDITOR Nick Gatlin
MULTIMEDIA EDITOR Olivia Lee
STUDENT MEDIA ACCOUNTANT Sheri Pitcher
ONLINE EDITOR Lily Hennings
PRODUC TION & DE SIGN CREATIVE DIRECTOR Sam Person
TECHNOLOGY ADVISOR Corrine Nightingale
COPY CHIEF Sophie Concannon CONTRIBUTORS Eric Brady Aineias Engstrom Analisa Landeros Sierra Still Mackenzie Streissguth PHO T O & MULTIMEDI A PHOTO EDITOR Annie Schutz
DESIGNERS Farah Alkayed Sam Garcia Shannon Steed T ECHNOL OGY & W EB SIT E TECHNOLOGY ASSISTANTS Juliana Bigelow Kahela Fickle George Olson A DV ISING & ACCOUN TING COORDINATOR OF STUDENT MEDIA Reaz Mahmood
To contact Portland State Vanguard, email editor@psuvanguard.com MIS SION S TAT EMEN T Vanguard ’s mission is to serve the Portland State community with timely, accurate, comprehensive and critical content while
upholding high journalistic standards. In the process, we aim to enrich our staff with quality, hands-on journalism education and a number of skills highly valued in today’s job market. A BOU T Vanguard, established in 1946, is published weekly as an independent student newspaper governed by the PSU Student Media Board. Views and editorial content expressed herein are those of the staff, contributors and readers and do not necessarily represent the PSU student body, faculty, staff or administration. Find us in print Tuesdays and online 24/7 at psuvanguard.com.
Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram @psuvanguard for multimedia content and breaking news.
COVID-19 UPDATE HANNA ANDERSON
TOTAL AT PSU AS OF MARCH 8: 43 CASES
Two February cases, 0 March cases No new COVID-19 cases have been reported at Portland State since the beginning of March, holding PSU at 43 cases over the course of the pandemic. PSU relies heavily on a self-reporting system for people who have tested positive or inconclusive and have been on campus within two weeks of a positive test. The self-reporting form can be found on PSU’s Coronavirus Response website.
TOTAL IN OREGON AS OF MARCH 15: 159,617 CASES; 2,322 DEATHS
Total Vaccinations as of March 15: 372,360 vaccines in progress, 493,440 fully vaccinated Multnomah County, Oregon’s most populous county, officially moved to a moderate risk level for COVID-19, down from its previous high risk level and joining neighboring Washington and Clackamas counties at the moderate level. 13 counties total moved to lower levels and three moved higher, Governor Kate Brown announced March 9. Two counties, Coos and Douglas, remain at the extreme risk level; nine are at the high risk level, 12 are at moderate risk, and 13 are at lower risk. The current levels are effective from March 12–25. Moving to the moderate risk level further eases restrictions on many indoor services, such as restaurants and shops, largely by increasing their capacity, according to The Oregonian. However, curbside pick up is still encouraged. Brown also announced during a Friday press conference that Oregon’s vaccine eligibility timeline would not change to match President Joe Biden’s pledge to make vaccines available to all adults by May 1—until vaccine shipments from the federal government increase, according to AP News. In Oregon, vaccine eligibility isn’t slated to be available for all adults until sometime on or before July 1. According to Brown, Oregon’s timeline has always been based on the amount of supplies received from the federal government, and if the resources are there, then the timeline will be reassessed to match the president’s goal.
TOTAL IN U.S. AS OF MARCH 15: 29.2 MILLION CASES; 532,355 DEATHS
Total vaccinations: 71 million received at least one dose; 38.3 million fully vaccinated Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief legislation cleared Congress after a final, nearly party line vote in the House of Representatives, 220-211, according to AP News. Biden officially signed the bill into law Thursday, and the IRS announced Friday that processing for this round of stimulus checks has begun. The highlight of the legislation is its stimulus checks. For individuals, the legislation will dole out $1,400 for single taxpayers and $2,800 for married taxpayers who file jointly, with an additional $1,400 per dependent, according to AP News. Individuals with an income of up to $70,000 and married couples earning up to $150,000 will receive the full amount, while those who earn more will see smaller checks. The hard cutoff for stimulus checks is an $80,000 income for individuals or $160,000 for married couples. The legislation also provides additional money for schools—$130 billion to K-12 schools and $40 billion to colleges and universities. As part of the bill, at least half of the money allocated to higher education must be used on emergency grants for students, according to Inside Higher Ed.
PSU Vanguard • MARCH 16, 2021 • psuvanguard.com
NEWS
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DUE TO BUDGETARY CHALLENGES, PSU CONSIDERS ACADEMIC PROGRAM REDUCTIONS DYLAN JEFFERIES Portland State might be reducing, or even eliminating, some of its academic programs in the near future. The Office of Academic Affairs held a virtual town hall on March 11, where Provost Susan Jeffords and other panelists discussed potential academic program reductions, and what that process might look like over the next three years. Like many other universities at this time, PSU is experiencing a budget shortfall due to low enrollment. According to Jeffords, in order to close a $12 million gap in the budget, the university is beginning to consider how best to increase revenues and reallocate resources, which may include academic program reduction and even elimination. “These conversations we are having now are intended to help us think through how we are going to address that budget shortfall. What we like to call ‘closing the gap,’” Jeffords said at the event. “I know many people want to emphasize the first two words: program reduction. But I want to emphasize today the third word: process. This conversation today is the beginning of a multi-year conversation. We do not have definitive answers today, nor should we, about programs to reduce. What we are beginning today is an exploration of the process that we will undertake in order to have those conversations.” Jeffords also stressed the importance of collaboration between campus groups in the process, including the Faculty Senate, the PSU American Association of University Professors and students. Jeffords laid out a potential timeline for how the academic reduction process might go, but stressed that it is an “iterative process” that will “continue to be informed by changes in the institution’s budget position.” Two committees have been tasked with beginning the process of potential academic program reduction: the Academic Program Reductions and Curricular Adjustments Committee (APRCA) and the Program Reduction Working Group (PRWG). APRCA was put together by the Faculty Senate and PRWG by the Provost’s office. APRCA is responsible for providing “faculty input into potential program reductions and eliminations due to a persistent decline in enrollment,” according to the Faculty Senate website, while PRWG is responsible for “identifying units to consider for possible reduction, reorganization, or elimination.” According to Wayne Wakeland, an assistant science faculty member who sits on APRCA, “[APRCA] has the charge from
the Faculty Senate to develop, to the best of our abilities, the principles and priorities to guide this process for making difficult decisions regarding programs, which could be a reduction of a program, or perhaps worse in some cases, and also to look at curricular adjustments and organizational opportunities that we might discover as we work together on this problem.” Wakeland also stressed the importance of including a “broad range of faculty participation,” as well as the opinions of students and communities “who have not typically been given a voice in these difficult conversations.” According to Rositza Wooster, dean of the Graduate School and PRWG co-chair, PRWG is responsible for establishing a set of metrics that “can be used to inform a holistic evaluation process in this program reduction effort.” At the town hall, Jeffords announced that her office will be launching a “Reimagine PSU” initiative this summer, which will provide small grants to faculty for their work evaluating academic programs. “I recognize that the task we are asking many of you to undertake—which is to look closely at your programs to think about where there might be possibilities for reducing expenditures—that is a difficult task, and it requires work,” Jeffords said. “And so what I am sharing with all of you today and that I will send more concrete information about next week, is announcing that we’re going to have, as part of this broad budget discussion, a Reimagine PSU initiative.” According to Jeffords, small grants will be provided to units who “think differently” about how program resources can be utilized. After presentations, the panelists answered questions from the audience. (The Q&A portion of the event, along with all future Q&As related to the academic program reduction process, will be posted in their entirety on the OAA website). One audience member asked about job stability among faculty and staff. In response, Jeffords said that no decisions will be made concerning academic program reduction for the remainder of the academic year. But next year? “It’s possible,” she said. Another audience member asked how faculty and staff should deal with low morale due to the possibility of budget cuts.
“I think that’s a critical question for all of us, because these are difficult conversations, there is no question about it—these are some of the most difficult conversations that any university ever undertakes,” Jeffords said. “I don’t want to be glib that this is an opportunity, that every challenge is an opportunity, but I do think that having these conversations, gathering this data, coming together around these difficult scenarios—it is an opportunity for us to potentially open up and have some conversations that many of us have wanted to have for some time.” “Lets lean into those conversations,” Jeffords continued, “and make sure that we are building a university that, when this process is done, will meet our expectations about the kind of institution to which we have committed our careers.” “These are tough decisions we don’t take lightly,” said President Stephen Percy at a press conference with PSU student media on March 12. “We want to do the best we can to be judicious with our resources. We care about our employees very much. There may be possibilities where people are retrained to move from one job to another. But this process is meant to be a transparent and open way to have lots of dialogue about how we might reduce or eliminate [academic programs].” More information can be found about the academic program reduction process on the OAA’s and the Faculty Senate’s websites. Future public events are planned to inform the community about the process, including a special Faculty Senate meeting on March 15 on Article 22, a portion of PSU’s bargaining agreement with the union which will need to be invoked in the event of any major budgetary reductions.
SAM GARCIA
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NEWS
PSU Vanguard • MARCH 16, 2021 • psuvanguard.com
MYANMAR PROTESTS IN PORTLAND
ERIC SHELBY Protesters showed up at Pioneer Square on March 6 to stand with the people of Myanmar who are fighting for democracy against its military coup that took control in February in Burma. With a large turnout, people from every background came to show solidarity. There were several speakers, including one who shared their parents are currently living in Myanmar. After a moment of silence for Angel, also known as Kyal Sin, a Burmese protester who was recently killed at just 19, fellow protesters sang songs and raised their hands in the air showing a three-finger salute. Protesters had flags of the National League for Democracy (NLD), a political party for Myanmar that represented democracy but folded last month when the military coup took over. Photos were taken by Eric Shelby.
PSU Vanguard • MARCH 16, 2021 • psuvanguard.com
NEWS
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THIS WEEK
around the
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Mar. 8–12
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March 8
BRASÍLIA, BRAZIL
A corruption conviction against former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, widely known as “Lula,” was annulled by a Brazilian Supreme Court justice. The ruling determined that the conviction was invalid because the court that had handed it down lacked jurisdiction over the case. “The decision is in line with everything we have been saying for more than five years,” Lula’s lawyer said according to Bloomberg. Although he could face an appeal or even a retrial, the annulment is expected to allow Lula, who led Brazil from 2003–10, to run for office again in 2022. In the previous election, the former leader of the Workers’ Party had been banned from the presidential ballot due to his conviction, even as he was leading in public opinion polls. 2
March 8
DHAKA, BANGLADESH
Tashnuva Anan Shishir became Bangladesh’s first transgender news anchor when she read a three-minute segment on the private TV station Boishakhi TV. The “historic step,” as a spokesperson for the station called it, was cheered by Shishir’s colleagues as well as LGBTQ+ rights activists. During her upbringing, the anchor had to overcome severe discrimination that induced a rift with her father, forced her to flee her hometown, which caused four suicide attempts. Despite facing hatred for her gender identity, Shishir persisted in her pursuit of education: “I continued my studies despite enduring hun-
dreds of insults day after day. All I had in mind is that I should continue my study,” she said in an interview with BBC Bengali. Shishir also credited her employer for being the only TV station “brave enough” to hire her in a country where homosexuality is still illegal. 3
March 9
BRUSSELS, BELGIUM
Three leaders of the Catalan independence movement and current members of the European Parliament saw their immunity revoked by the EU legislature after a corresponding petition by Spanish authorities. The trio, including former regional President Carles Puigdemont, could now face extradition to Spain, where they are wanted on charges of sedition. They had been elected to the European Parliament in 2019 while in exile. According to Euronews, Puigdemont said he and his colleagues were experiencing “political persecution” and questioned the democratic character of the European Parliament, asking “What kind of democracy is it [where] political minorities or dissidents are persecuted for their ideas?” Spain’s foreign minister Arancha González Laya said the decision showed “respect for the work of the judiciary in our country.” After losing his immunity, the Belgian judiciary has the final say as to whether or not Puigdemont will in fact be extradited. 4
March 11
RABAT, MOROCCO
The government council of Morocco has voted
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to introduce a bill that would legalize the medical use of cannabis. The executive body led by Prime Minister Saadeddine El Othmani approved a draft law proposed by the interior ministry that would “reconvert illicit” cannabis plantations into “legal and durable activities that generate jobs.” Recreational use would remain illegal under the bill. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Morocco is one of the world’s largest producers of cannabis resin, indicating that illicit production is widespread in Morocco. If the bill gains approval from Parliament, Morocco would become the first North African country to legalize cannabis in any form. The bill has sparked controversy and former prime minister Abdelilah Benkirane, who is opposed to legalization, threatened to leave the governing Justice and Development Party over the issue. 5
March 11
BEIJING, CHINA
The National People’s Congress, China’s national legislature, voted to undertake significant reforms to Hong Kong’s electoral system. The new law is meant to ensure only “patriots” can serve in the government of the special administrative region, according to the South China Morning Post. It was approved without a single dissenting vote and only one abstention. The reforms include an expansion of the city’s Election Committee, which chooses the chief executive and the Legislative Council. They are expected to give
China’s ruling Communist Party greater control over the electoral process in Hong Kong. Kenneth Chan, associate professor at Hong Kong Baptist University, criticized the new law as “a prelude to autocracy,” according to Deutsche Welle. United States and British officials also condemned the reforms, echoing Chan’s concerns that they will further undermine democracy. Hong Kong’s current Chief Executive Carrie Lam welcomed the changes, pledging “staunch support” for the law. 6
March 12
KABUL, AFGHANISTAN
Girls and young women in Afghanistan are protesting a directive by the education department that discourages schools from allowing girls over the age of 12 to sing in public, except at all-female gatherings. Using the hashtag #IAmMySong, girls have been posting videos of themselves performing their favorite songs to show their opposition to the directive. According to AP News, the campaign was started by Ahmad Sarmast, the founder of Afghanistan’s Institute of Music, who said the protest is meant to show that the Afghan people “stand for the rights of the children, whether boys or girls.” The campaign has garnered more than 600,000 clicks and prompted the education department to issue a follow-up memo, where it claimed the initial directive had been misinterpreted and that both boys and girls over the age of 12 should not be permitted to sing in public.
INTERNATIONAL
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A YEAR OF THE PANDEMIC HANNA ANDERSON AND DYLAN JEFFERIES The 19 in COVID-19 is due to its discovery in 2019, but it was in 2020 that the virus became a pandemic, changing the world as we knew it. On March 11, 2020, The World Health Organization (WHO) called the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic for the first time. The same day, Portland State announced that Spring term classes would be held remotely. After that day, nothing in life would look the same as before. Since the start of the pandemic, this is what has happened.
WINTER 2020
The start of the pandemic was slow and distant. The first case of what would later become COVID-19 was found in the city of Wuhan, China, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). in December 2019. Throughout January 2020, the disease became an outbreak in China and slowly spread to other countries. By the month’s end, WHO declared the outbreak a “Public Health Emergency of International Concern.” By February 11, it was finally named by WHO: COVID-19. The first case in the United States was found in Washington state, in a patient who recently traveled from Wuhan, on January 15. The first COVID-19 case in Oregon was found on February 19, according to the Oregon Health Authority, in Washington County. However, without a major effect on the general public’s lives, the pandemic was only quietly simmering in the media— until March 11, 2020, when WHO officially called COVID-19 a pandemic. The news exploded, while COVID-19 cases started rising exponentially. The same day, Portland State President Stephen Percy announced classes would be held entirely online, at least for the beginning of spring term, to aid in the efforts of curbing the spread. By the end of Winter 2020, students had a brief sampling of remote classes with entirely remote finals, as the entire university scrambled to move to remote work wherever possible. With so much uncertainty, whether or not classes would continue remotely would be reassessed four weeks into the spring term.
DAMAGED CPSO SIGN IN FRONT OF CPSO BUILDING. JUSTIN GRINNELL/PSU VANGUARD As part of the order, any business where social distancing was difficult or impossible was promptly prohibited until further notice, including restaurants, salons, gyms and theaters. And as quickly as the pandemic started, the question rose of when it would end. Estimates were proposed—two weeks, until Easter, before fall—but in the end, no one knew. With mass gatherings prohibited for the foreseeable future, PSU announced 2020 commencement ceremonies would be held online—with no opportunity for an in-person commencement in the future. The decision was immediately controversial, facing widespread critique from the graduating student body. Students questioned why the ceremony couldn’t, alternatively, be postponed to the fall, or to whenever it was safe to do so. At the end of the term, PSU walked back on its insistence that no in person ceremony would be planned, and promised commencement would be held for the class of 2020 once public health guidance allowed for it. The uncertainty surrounding the longevity of the pandemic made decision making for the future—fall term in particular— difficult. However, there was still one more term to go before fall: summer term. Only three weeks into the spring term, it was announced that summer 2020 would be held entirely online, while the world continued to focus on the COVID-19 pandemic. Then George Floyd was murdered by Minneapolis police.
A PROTESTER WEARS A FACE SHIELD THAT READS "NO JUSTICE NO PEACE." ANNIE SCHUTZ/PSU VANGUARD
THE GEORGE FLOYD MURAL THAT WAS LOCATED IN DOWNTOWN PORTLAND. JUSTIN GRINNELL/PSU VANGUARD
SPRING 2020
Remote learning lasted slightly longer than four weeks. One week after the initial announcement, PSU announced all of spring term would be held remotely. After a week-long spring break, students returned to entirely changed classes—if they were able to return at all. Oregon Governor Kate Brown’s first stay-at-home order swept the state, first issued on March 23, and any non-essential gatherings were prohibited, regardless of their size. At the end of the winter term, students were given the opportunity to cancel their housing contracts with full refunds, while other students left only for the spring break. With the stay at home order in effect, however, wherever students were when it was declared, they had to stay.
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COVER
SUMMER 2020
Following the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police on May 25, Black Lives Matter protests swept the nation. Up to 10,000 people marched through downtown Portland on May 31, according to some accounts, and for the next 100 days and beyond, those protests continued. Over the first few weeks in June, calls for PSU to disarm its campus police force—an issue students and faculty had been advocating for since 2014, with even more force after campus police shot and killed Jason Washington, a Black man, in
“Portland did not seek this federal intervention and the result appears to be more violence, not less.”
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2018—escalated once again. Multiple departments, faculty and students sent letters to Vanguard and the Board of Trustees demanding that PSU take action, and on June 12, hundreds of protesters gathered outside the Campus Public Safety Office. On Aug. 13, the university announced that CPSO officers would begin conducting unarmed patrols in the fall. “Over the past few weeks, we have listened to many voices across our campus,” Percy stated in the email announcement. “The calls for change that we are hearing at PSU are ringing out across our nation. We must find a new way to protect the safety of our community, one that works to dismantle systemic racism and promotes the dignity of all who come to our urban campus.” Throughout July and August, the protests continued, often under the national spotlight after the Trump administration sent Federal Officers into the city to guard the Mark O. Hatfield Courthouse. “To be clear: We neither seek nor need federal law enforcement assistance,” Percy stated in an email announcement to the campus community on July 22. “Portland did not seek this federal intervention and the result appears to be more violence, not less.” Many PSU students and faculty participated in the protests as press, activists, medics and other roles. Some watched from a distance as they continued to shelter in place as COVID-19 continuously spread out of control. The only thing that seemed to quell the veracity of the protests was the toxic smoke that filled the city after unprecedented wildfires began scorching the Willamette Valley on September 7. A HAZY SKY ABOVE PSU CAMPUS CAUSED BY WILDFIRES IN 2020. ANDREW CHRISTENSEN/PSU VANGUARD
FALL 2020
Fall term began while the skies were still tinged yellow with smoke. The University Place Hotel opened up free rooms to PSU students and families displaced by the fires, including some whose homes had burned down. “As hazardous air quality continues in the region, we urge everyone in the PSU community to stay indoors as much as possible,” stated a Sept. 11 message to the campus community. In late September, after the fires died down, three new issues came into focus. On Sept. 23, the PSU Homelessness Research and Action Collaborative released their findings from a study which found that a significant number of PSU students and faculty were experiencing food and housing insecurity, especially among Black and indigenous community members. “We knew anecdotally that many members of our campus community struggled with stable housing and enough food to eat,” Percy said at the press conference, “but this survey shows that those problems are much more widespread and more challenging than we thought, perhaps exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.” In October, CPSO announced it would not be disarming campus security as early as the fall, and on Oct. 11, protesters vandalized the CPSO building. Additionally, PSU’s financial difficulties caused by the pandemic began to come into clearer focus: “We’ve got to come up with alternative sources of revenue, and it’s got to be done sooner, not later,” said BOT chair Greg Hinkley at an October 5 meeting. “I say there’s a time right now that we’ve got to start doing something differently, or we’re going to be in a heap of trouble.” In November, CPSO Chief Willie Halliburton began to outline when campus security might be able to begin patrolling
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unarmed. “This is groundbreaking work,” Halliburton said in a video posted on October 27. “I have been and will continue to be transparent about the process of transferring and transforming my agency into one that leaves firearms behind.” The election loomed over the next few days. Ted Wheeler was reelected as Portland mayor. Psilocybin mushrooms and other drugs were decriminalized in Oregon. Eventually, on November 7, Joe Biden was elected president of the U.S.
WINTER 2021
Like all holidays during a global pandemic, hosting a huge New Year’s celebration was impossible—or at least, extremely unsafe. However, January 1, 2021, wasn’t just celebrated as the start of a new year, but the end of a terrible, turbulent one. 2021 was heralded as a new beginning. Vaccines were on the horizon, and after a year universally acknowledged as horrible, many asked the forbidden question: How could it get any worse? Not a week later, rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol while Congress certified the 2020 presidential election results, in a last ditch bid to overturn the results and install Donald Trump as president instead. The siege resulted in five deaths—four rioters, and one police officer. There’s always 2022. Hopefully. While the country continued to grapple with the pandemic, hope came in the form of vaccines from companies Pfizer and Moderna. In December, Oregon started distributing vaccines to frontline healthcare workers, and Governor Kate Brown made the controversial decision to offer the next wave of vaccines to K-12 educators, instead of the elderly. Vaccines for teachers and other educators started January 25, while vaccines for adults 80 years and older started two weeks later, and a full eligibility timeline soon followed. Meanwhile, PSU began to grapple with its budget, facing shortfalls that were only exacerbated by the pandemic. A budget town hall, hosted by Percy and other university administration, addressed declining enrollment rates, and major losses in auxiliary revenue and tuition dollars. The town hall was the first step in a long term plan to fix PSU’s finances, for the future—but even beyond the budget, the future remains uncertain. There is more coming soon. Brown’s vaccine timeline would have all adults eligible to receive the vaccine by July, with Biden’s plan slated to make them available earlier. PSU is planning on returning to in person classes in the fall, provided that vaccines stop the spread of COVID-19. However, this is still not the end of the pandemic—this has only been the year in review. If 2020 has taught us anything,
CHIEF WILLIE HALLIBURTON OF CPSO. SEAN BASCOM/PSU VANGUARD it’s this: If there’s one thing we can know, it’s that we have no way of knowing exactly what will happen next. In a press conference with PSU student media on March 12, a year since the pandemic changed everything, Percy shared his thoughts about 2020 and beyond. “I think people are exhausted,” he said. “I think people are emotionally just exhausted in every way. There were so many uncertainties in 2020, some more severe than others. But all of us feel that our lives have been disrupted, our patterns where they used to be haven’t been there, social interactions have largely been changed in very dramatic ways. For a year, our lives have been disrupted.” “I’m hopeful that people can get back and resume their activities with energy and their enjoyment of other people,” he continued, “learning together, being together, enjoying campus life, but remembering that what came out of the experience taught us some things we needed to know about, and it’s going to take some time for us to catch our breath and to look at those things, because it’s pretty hard to look at it all right now.” “All of your lives, you’re going to remember this period.”
“I think people are exhausted.”
A TREE COLLAPSES ON AN APARTMENT BUILDING IN THE PARK BLOCKS AFTER A SNOW STORM. JUSTIN GRINNELL/PSU VANGUARD
COVER
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INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY
AROUND THE WORLD INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY PROTESTERS IN MEXICO CITY, MEXICO. REBECCA BLACKWELL/AP PHOTO
KARISA YUASA International Women’s Day, celebrated every March 8, is typically seen as a day to celebrate the achievements of women and the progress made in terms of gender equity. “International Women’s Day this year comes at a difficult time for the world and for gender equality, but at a perfect moment to fight for transformative action and to salute women and young people for their relentless drive for gender equality and human rights,” wrote Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, U.N. Women Executive Director in a statement. “Our focus is on women’s leadership and on ramping up representation in all the areas where decisions are made—currently mainly by men—about the issues that affect women’s lives,” Mlambo-Ngcuka said. “The universal and catastrophic lack of representation of women’s interests has gone on too long.” According to the IWD website, the 2021 International Women’s Day theme was “Choose to Challenge” and that is what women around the world chose to do. In addition to organizing celebrations, women-led protests drew large crowds in cities across the globe, often defying COVID-19 restrictions, according to Al Jazeera.
INDIA
“India takes pride in the many accomplishments of the women of our nation,” Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted. “It is our Government’s honour to be getting the opportunity to work towards furthering women empowerment across a wide range of sectors.” Meanwhile, thousands of women joined the ongoing farmer’s protest in India in protest of new agriculture laws, according to Reuters. 75% of the rural women in India who work full time are farmworkers, according to the anti-poverty group Oxfam India. “To celebrate women’s day, the stage will be managed by women, and the speakers too will be women,” said Senior Farmer Leader Kavita Kurugranthy. Women across the country organized and held sit-ins and hunger strikes in protest. “Today Modi is sending wishes to women across the country on International Women’s Day,” said Babli Singh,
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a farm leader. “Who are these women he is sending wishes to? We are also like his daughters, but he clearly doesn’t care about us.” Mandeep Kaur, a female farmer, traveled 680 miles to partake in the protest, according to Al Jazeera. “Women are sitting here, out in the open, in protest, but Modi doesn’t care,” Kaur said. “He doesn’t care about mothers, sisters, and daughters. He doesn’t care about women. That’s clear.”
around. And even if I don’t agree, life has shown me that only then do they turn around to see these situations.” In other parts of the country, marches were organized in protest of López Obrador’s support of a gubernatorial candidate accused of rape. According to Reuters, the President has called the movement for Felix Salgado to step down over the allegations politically motivated. Four days later, the ruling party approved Salgado’s candidacy.
POLAND
ISTANBUL, TURKEY
Polish women’s rights activists took to the streets, spending Women’s Day continuing protests of the court decision in Jan. that lead to a near total ban on abortions, according to AP News. The protests were led by lawyer Marta Lempart, who has become a recognizable leader in the Women’s Strike movement, according to The Telegraph. In addition to incidents with police, Lempart faces criminal charges that include “causing an epidemiological threat” for planning a protest after testing positive for COVID-19. “We keep fighting. I don’t see a way to stop it,” said Klementyna Suchanow, a Women’s Strike leader. “We are under attack by religious radicals, and this is an international movement. so we women in different countries, we need to face it and fight against it,” she said. “It’s something that is happening to all of us: to Argentinians, to Americans, to Poles, to Croatians.”
MEXICO CITY, MEXICO
In a country with one of the highest rates of gender violence, a Women’s March turned violent leaving at least 62 officers and 19 civilians injured, according to The New York Times. Protestors gathered outside the National Palace, where President Andrés Manuel López Obrador resides, focused on a metal fence that was constructed to protect the building from being damaged by protesters. Protesters spray painted the names of femicide victims along the wall before tearing down a section of it. “I have already seen it throughout history in the peaceful marches of women—they did not give any results,” said demonstrator Ivette Granados. “I think that these things make governments and people turn
Approximately 1000 demonstrators gathered in the Turkish capital to protest against the growing rates of femicide in Turkey and the seeming inaction of the government, according to Reuters. Many of the protesters were seen carrying purple and LGBTQ+ flags and wearing masks that read “we will win our freedom.” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan issued a statement in support of International Women’s Day saying that, “Once again, I strongly condemn all kinds of physical and mental violence and discrimination against women, which I consider a crime against humanity. We will continue our struggle with determination and sensitivity to creating an environment where our women are not subjected to violence.” However, many critics argue that his words are not enough, if they are not made in conjunction with tangible actions. Following the demonstrations, Istanbul’s prosecuting office ordered investigations on 18 women’s rights activists for insulting the president through shouts at the protests, a criminal offense punishable with a one- to four-year prison sentence, according to the Human Rights Watch. Despite the challenges that women across the globe continue to face, the past year has also included large milestones in the fight toward gender equity: the decriminalizing of abortions in South Korea, the reformation of rape laws in Denmark and the outlaw of female genital mutilation in Sudan. “This year it’s especially important to celebrate women’s achievements—not only because we’re all in need of some good news, but because there is plenty of cause for hope,” Amnesty International wrote.
PSU Vanguard • MARCH 16, 2021 • psuvanguard.com
TIME-LAPSE OF THE NIGHT SKY POLLUTED BY STARLINK SATELLITES. COURTESY OF NSF/CSIO/AURA/DELVE
Starlink satellites pose a threat to space exploration BÉLA KURZENHAUSER Elon Musk’s SpaceX satellite spinoff Starlink has been one of the hottest new technologies of the last several years, promising blazing-fast satellite internet with worldwide reach. The service has the potential to revolutionize worldwide broadband access, although its methodology, application and impact on the night sky have researchers and astronomers worried about its long-term consequences. Starlink is what scientists call a satellite internet constellation or mega-constellation, which is a large network of interlinked satellites that orbit around the earth, providing broadband access at a global scale with high speed and low latency. In comparison, most internet access is regulated and distributed through infrastructure such as cell towers and cable networks. Although these technologies come with their advantages, they struggle to carry the load of large amounts of users and devices all attempting to grab internet access. As a result, rural areas often have poor internet speeds and access as a result due to the lack of infrastructure built in such areas. Poor access often only serves to amplify existing socioeconomic factors in rural areas. In fact, according to Michigan State University’s Quello Center, students in grades 8–11 who lived in rural areas lagged significantly behind in technological proficiency and PSAT/SAT test scores compared to those in urban areas, with their research citing poor internet access as a major contributor. The advantage to satellite internet constellation systems is that they don’t rely on ground infrastructure at all. The only piece of hardware users need to gain access to Starlink’s internet is the official Starlink kit, which costs $499 and is currently in beta. The kit includes a Starlink satellite dish in addition to necessary setup tools like a mounting tripod and user terminal. According to the FAQ on Starlink’s website, users can expect download speeds of anywhere from 50–150 Mbps (Megabits per second), with a latency of 20–40 ms. Starlink’s beta subscription cost is $99 a month, a stark comparison to most of its competitors. In comparison, Comcast Xfinity, the largest broadband provider in the United States, offers a variety of plans which vary in price per region, but the $55/month plan offers a download speed of up to 200 Mbps. Starlink’s high
PSU Vanguard • MARCH 16, 2021 • psuvanguard.com
price will certainly dissuade potential customers, although the company isn’t exactly shooting for global market domination. Musk’s eye is trained on rural areas with poor broadband, as evidenced by the Federal Communications Commission’s willingness to grant SpaceX $900 million in subsidies in exchange for rural broadband support in 35 U.S. states last December. According to CNBC, the FCC will distribute the subsidies over the next decade, dependent on Starlink’s ability to “meet all deployment milestones” with respect to fulfilling their goal for rural broadband access. Despite this, the funding was criticized by many due to the vast amount of urban areas covered under Musk’s outlined plan. “Many major metro areas are littered with Starlink-winning blocks,” said S. Derek Turner, Research Director at Free Press, in a series of articles on the FCC’s subsidy for Starlink. “It’s unlikely that any single person living in these areas will ever become a Starlink customer, and there’s no justification for the FCC to offer Musk or any ISP deployment subsidies for these densely populated urban areas.” The $99/month price tag doesn’t exactly appeal to a rural demographic either, with such an amount being considered exorbitant and unaffordable by most people who live outside of major urban regions. Starlink’s high speeds and low latency are in part aided by the sheer size of its constellation, with 1,205 Starlink satellites in orbit as of March 10, 2021. Each satellite comes with a cost, however, and the program’s appeal is threatened by its significant potential to pollute the night sky and the solar system. Starlink satellites are highly reflective, leaving behind streaking white lines in astral photographs. Researchers first started noticing the trouble at the tail end of 2019 when astronomers in Chile ended up with a large number of polluted telescope images, as reported by ScienceNews in Mar. 2020. According to a ScienceNews interview with University of Michigan at Ann Arbor astrophysicist Patrick Seitzer, Starlink’s satellites are “brighter than 99% of all objects that are now in Earth’s orbit.” Seitzer claimed astronomers could cope with Starlink’s initially-projected satellite total of around 1,500 satellites, but the company’s desire to launch upwards of 42,000 satellites into space could seriously hamper astronomers’ ef-
forts to counteract light pollution. It doesn’t help that competitors such as Amazon’s Project Kuiper or the OneWeb Satellite Constellation aim to launch their own satellite fleets in the near future. It isn’t an exaggeration to imagine that hundreds of thousands of new satellites could go up in the next decade alone due to the large potential for profit in the race for satellite broadband. Although SpaceX has been launching new black “DarkSat” satellites since the beginning of 2020, the overall reduction in brightness is only around 50%, according to a study reported on by New Atlas. The reduction is a step in the right direction but is too marginal to make enough of a difference in Starlink’s light pollution problem. Later updates made to the satellites have included anti-reflective sunshields which were found to minimize reflectivity much more effectively than DarkSat did. “There’s some relief that, yeah, [SpaceX] did manage to make their Starlinks a little less bright, and [it] was nice that they chose to work with the community,” said Harvard astronomer Jonathan McDowell in a conversation with MSN. “But it doesn’t take away the need for a more regulatory approach—a global regulatory approach.” The sheer amount of Starlink satellites also poses the potential threat of a disastrous cascading chain reaction of satellites crashing into each other, sending thousands of massive chunks of space junk and debris orbiting around the Earth. Too much space debris could pose a threat towards new shuttle and satellite launches, making space exploration completely impossible. “The worst case is: you launch all your satellites, you go bankrupt, and they all stay there,” said Stijn Lemmens of the European Space Agency in an interview with Scientific American. “Then you have thousands of new satellites without a plan of getting them out of there.” The lack of governmental space regulation means it’s hard to prevent a company like SpaceX or Amazon from unilaterally polluting the solar system, and even though the benefits of rural internet access are enticing, the satellite space race could leave us with a future without a truly dark night sky. “To bear witness to the night...is deeply humbling,” said Washington Post writer Shannon Stirone in a 2019 article on Starlink. “We exist here, together. And if we let Silicon Valley disrupt the night sky, we will never get it back.”
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
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SAM GARCIA
WANDAVISION WORKED UNTIL IT DIDN’T
THE SHOW STARTED STRONG BUT EVENTUALLY TURNED INTO MORE OF THE SAME WANDAVISION. COURTESY OF IMDB
NICK GATLIN This review contains spoilers for WandaVision. WandaVision is a show unlike anything else in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In a world full of CGI superhero fights and infuriatingly quippy dialogue, WandaVision took a chance to do something unique: explore the effects of grief, with rich, emotive characters. Ultimately, however, the show fell back on the same, tired MCU tropes that have plagued the rest of the multimedia behemoth’s creations. WandaVision worked until it didn’t. But somewhere in the aftermath of the finale, we can find a few nuggets of inspiration that Marvel will hopefully develop moving forward. WandaVision begins in the immediate aftermath of Avengers: Endgame, after the world-annihilating snap has been reversed and everyone dusted by Thanos has returned to life. This aspect of the show is immediately intriguing; MCU releases have only recently begun to touch on the snap and the world’s reaction to it in greater detail. One person who didn’t come back, though, is Vision, Wanda Maximoff’s love interest. Vision, if you recall from Avengers: Infinity War, was killed after Thanos forcibly ripped the Mind Stone from his head. We begin WandaVision in a confused state of limbo: isn’t Vision supposed to be dead? How is he alive in the show? The first few episodes of WandaVision take place entirely inside a retro TV universe, spoofing programs like I Love Lucy and The Dick Van Dyke Show. Wanda and Vision have an idyllic suburban existence in TV land, as we watch their lives play out like an audience gazing upon a black-and-white vintage television. It is eventually revealed that this TV universe is a coping mechanism for Wanda, who created a pocket dimension for herself in an idealized suburbia complete with a cast of supporting characters and her very own co-star, played by a manufactured clone of Vision made of “the piece of the Mind Stone
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that lives in [her].” Wanda, after failing to recover Vision’s body from a government facility, invents a world where he is still alive to avoid confronting her own grief. This is captivating storytelling that you don’t usually encounter in the MCU. WandaVision’s plot felt more like a storyline out of the comics than their candy-coated film counterparts. But then WandaVision hits a roadblock. The first few episodes of the show are incredibly unique by Marvel standards, showing us Wanda and Vision’s life entirely within an in-universe TV show. But by episode four, we’re introduced to characters in the “real world,” agents of the government agency S.W.O.R.D. attempting to break into Wanda’s pocket dimension. We discover that the town of Westview, the setting of Wanda’s TV show, is a real town that was somehow taken over by Wanda’s magic. The force field surrounding Westview is shaped like a hexagon, which the characters on the outside call the “hex”—clever. I’m not necessarily opposed to this conceit. Of course, the outside world would react to the takeover of Westview, and the government would want to get to the bottom of it. My problem is how these characters change the tone of the show. Inside Westview, the tone of the miniseries is completely different from any other Marvel endeavor. Everyone talks like midcentury sitcom characters, its visual language is distinct—the older sitcom sections are shot in a 4:3 aspect ratio—and there’s a thick layer of dramatic irony coating every scene. The real world characters, in contrast, sound like, well, Marvel characters. The dialogue goes back to the same quippy back-andforths we all know; everything is some shade of blue, orange or grey; the show, simply put, reverts to the same old shit. And that’s really the fundamental problem with WandaVision. Skipping ahead to the finale, we discover
Wanda’s neighbor Agnes was actually a powerful witch named Agatha Harkness, seeking to learn the secrets of Wanda’s magic and steal it for herself. We also discover S.W.O.R.D. has rebuilt Vision’s body into a weapon whose only goal is to kill the illusory Vision inside the hex. So how does WandaVision deal with Wanda discovering the true extent of her powers, or the possibility of losing Vision for a second time? This is a Marvel show. It is obviously resolved with a CGI Dragon Ball-style superhero fight. After building up the emotional stakes for a whole season, WandaVision ends with yet another climactic fight scene wherein a bunch of superpowered heroes fly in the air and shoot each other with energy beams. I have nothing against a good fight scene—but WandaVision, of all shows, really did not need one. Like Karen Han wrote in her review in Slate, “The emotional complexity that made the show so engaging wasn’t completely obscured, but it was hard to find amid the sea of red, purple, and blue laser beams that flew around the screen.” In the end, Wanda defeats Agatha and Wanda Vision defeats evil Vision. The fight between Wanda and Agatha is pretty unremarkable. It’s cool that evil Vision is defeated through a philosophical discussion about the Ship of Theseus and the nature of consciousness—a real bat-signal moment for bro intellectuals. The emotional core of WandaVision was Wanda’s experience with grief at the loss of her husband. Now that we know Vision is alive again, albeit in an altered state, what exactly was the point of this series? Initially, WandaVision had the courage to deal with complex emotional issues, and at the end it ran away from them. Let’s hope future Marvel releases take a cue from WandaVision’s premise, and take a chance to explore difficult, adult themes with the sensitivity and nuance they deserve.
PSU Vanguard • MARCH 16, 2021 • psuvanguard.com
THE BEST MUSIC OF 2021
SO FAR MORGAN TROPER It goes without saying that COVID-19 rendered live performances and touring virtually impossible for musicians, but 2020 was nonetheless a banner year for breakout indie artists. Some artists of note include Phoebe Bridgers, whose album Punisher launched the fledgling star into the stratosphere, earning her countless Grammy nods and plaudits from the likes of Sir Elton John; Bartees Strange, whose debut Live Forever synthesized post-hardcore, emo and rap and is even better than the Oasis song “Live Forever”; and Lomelda’s Hannah, the spiritual offspring of Dear Nora and Nick Drake’s Pink Moon. 2021 looks to be no different, for better or worse—and, like last year, we have some great new music to get us through the interminable horrors of our present reality. Here are some of the best new releases from the first quarter of 2021.
COALTER OF THE DEEPERS REVENGE OF THE VISITORS
Coalter of the Deepers are a genre-defying rock band from Tokyo with a rabid cult following outside of Japan. They haven’t released a proper album of new material in almost 15 years, but Nashville-based label Needle Juice is issuing a full rerecording of the band’s debut album—The Visitors of Deepspace— on vinyl. It doesn’t seem like a rapacious, George Lucas special edition-esque gesture, either; these songs benefit from the enhanced fidelity, and Revenge of the Visitors captures one of the trippiest shoegaze bands in the world during the August of their careers.
HARMONY WOODS GRACEFUL RAGE
Philly-based songwriter Sofia Verbilla—aka Harmony Woods—surprise-released Graceful Rage last weekend, and it delivers on the promise set by her 2019 album Make Yourself at Home. In terms of dynamics, this record is all over the place—there’s quite the gulf separating the woodsy, string-laden “Good Luck Rd.” from the full-throttle, CD wallet pop-punk of “God’s Gift to Women”—which opens with the unhinged and amazing line “Isn’t it fun picking out all the girls you want to fuck?”
THE BOYS WITH THE PERPETUAL NERVOUSNESS SONGS FROM ANOTHER LIFE
The latest album from the Scottish-Spanish supergroup features some of the greatest wide-eyed jangle pop this side of the Empire Records soundtrack. These songs are wistful, shamelessly tuneful and performed on guitars—and somehow, they aren’t trite or corny.
SHEERS “WET PLASTIC”
Lily Breshears is one of the most accomplished pianists, harpists and singers in the Portland music scene. Nationally, she’s perhaps best known as Haley Heynderickx’s keyboardist and collaborator, but Breshears has been playing local shows under the moniker Sheers for a number of years now, and her latest single—“Wet Plastic”—is one of her greatest productions yet. It’s a kitchen-sink composition that marries Breshears’ classical instincts to an obvious, abiding love of contemporary pop music. “Wet Plastic” is as twisted and atonal as it is radio-friendly.
SMIRK LP
Smirk is the one-man classicist post-punk project of Nick Vicario, who was one of Portland DIY’s heavyweight players for nearly two decades before his recent move to Los Angeles. Vicario cut his teeth performing alongside seminal Portland punk bands like the Exploding Hearts when he was a teenaged member of the hilariously-named Diskords; he would go on to play guitar and write songs for the lauded local bands Wild Ones and Public Eye, and has also worked as a freelance producer and recording engineer around town. Smirk is some of Vicario’s most straightforward and self-assured music yet; LP’s 12 songs rip by in only 24 minutes and bring to mind the swanky, slurred punk of artists like Richard Hell and Jay Reatard. Vicario also released a low-budget, public access style commercial to promote the record that advertises its songs as “badass rock music.” Consider the message received.
HOME IS WHERE I BECAME BIRDS
COALTAR OF THE DEEPERS. COURTESY OF BANDCAMP HARMONY WOODS. COURTESY OF BROOKE MARSH WET PLASTIC. COURTESY OF BANDCAMP
PSU Vanguard • MARCH 16, 2021 • psuvanguard.com
There has been a lot of discourse lately surrounding the so-called “fifth wave” of emo, and there are few things more insufferable and isolating than attempts to demarcate and differentiate sub-sub-subsub-genres of music created with electric guitars. Maybe ironically, the more waves of emo there are, the farther we get from the elitism and obsessive reverence for the genre’s forebears that characterizes and ultimately poisons so much of scene culture. One of the preeminent fifth wave bands is Palm Beach’s Home is Where, whose EP i became birds is some of the most cathartic and novel emo I’ve heard in a long time. Vocalist Brandon MacDonald oscillates between an acrobatic wail and full-on screaming on the EP’s crunchiest track, “the scientific classification of stingrays,” which finds the emo quartet equally in thrall to canonical indie rock bands like Superchunk and Archers of Loaf.
ARTS & CULTURE
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VANGUARD HISTORY CORNER:
PORTLAND’S LABOR HISTORY
NICK GATLIN
Hello, reader, and welcome to the Vanguard History Corner! This reoccurring column will whisk you through the little-known and forgotten history of the Pacific Northwest, as I endeavor to reconnect our past with our present. The past few decades, far from being “the end of history” as some have described it, have exposed some of the deepest fault lines in our national identity—the financial crash of 2008, rising income inequality and, most recently, the coronavirus pandemic have all shaken our collective conscience perhaps more than any time since the Great Depression. Union density has steadily fallen since the 1960s and only about 10.3% of American workers are union members today, a historic low. But all hope is not lost. Nearly 6,000 workers at one Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama are voting on whether or not to form a union, after years of complaints about unsafe working conditions and oppressive productivity demands. As we stand on the precipice of the possibly most important union drive in recent history, it’s important to remember how we got here. Workers trying to unionize today stand on the shoulders of giants, and if the labor movement is to come to power again it must learn the lessons of the past. While discussion of unions and organized labor might often focus on the industrial Northeast and Midwest, the Pacific Northwest has had its fair share of labor actions throughout its history. Three such incidents shed light on the current labor struggle: The 1934 longshoremen’s strike, the 1960–64 run of the Portland Reporter and the Powell’s union campaign.
1934 LONGSHOREMEN’S STRIKE
On May 9, 1934, in the depths of the Great Depression, longshoremen working at ports across the West Coast walked off the job to strike for better wages, union recognition, reduced hours and more. The workers were members of the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA), and they were determined to win union representation. Longshoremen—the workers who loaded and unloaded cargo ships at ports—were and are the backbone of waterfront shipping. The longshoremen’s strike was supported by much of Portland’s working class, and shipping companies had a difficult time finding nonunion workers, otherwise known as scabs, willing to cross the picket line to work. Neither the shipping companies nor the government took kindly to the work stoppage. As Michael Munk wrote in The Pacific Northwest Quarterly in his article “Portland’s ‘Silk Stocking Mob,’” for 82 days “every port from Bellingham to San Pedro” shut down entirely. Maritime commerce ceased, grain
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OPINION
Egan concludes in his 1975 thesis “That’s Why Organizing Was So Good,” because of the Unemployed Councils; workers from everywhere in the city stood in solidarity with the strikers, bolstering their strength against the class of business owners determined to get them back to work. In the end, in Portland and elsewhere, striking workers across the West Coast won wage and hour improvements, a joint hiring hall and coast-wide union recognition. Today, Oregon International Longshore and Warehouse Union Locals Portland 8 and 40, North Bend 12, Astoria 50 and Powells 5 all stand on the shoulders of the 1934 strikers. May we let their success serve as a lesson on the power of militant unionism, as well as the power of solidarity and collective action.
THE GREAT WATERFRONT STRIKE OF 1934. COURTESY IF THE OREGON HISTORICAL SOCIETY and lumber exports were disrupted and about 50,000 workers in the state lost their jobs as a result of the strike. Business owners would often try to get strikebreakers through picket lines, escorted by police, in order to keep business moving. In the 1934 strike, however, it wasn’t police that were the biggest impediment to workers, but rather so-called “citizens committees”—citizen vigilantes trained to break the strike. Portland police limited their actions to escorting scabs on their way home, refusing to directly help the businesses like other police departments often did. This made business leaders furious. Arthur Farmer, the maritime commerce manager of the Portland Chamber of Commerce, begged government officials like Governor Julius Meier to invoke martial law and call in the National Guard, suggesting “zoning off a section of the city and putting it under military control.” The striking workers held strong, largely due to the support from the working-class and unemployed people of Portland. The Oregon Unemployment Councils, organized by the Oregon Communist Party and the Oregon Workers Alliance, fought to persuade unemployed workers not to cross the picket line. Delegates from the Unemployed Councils told an ILA meeting they “had 30,000 men to help the strikers” if the need arose. Students from the University of Oregon, Reed College and other universities pledged to “fight all scab-herders” and “prevent students from strike-breaking.” The strike succeeded, Michael
"AFRICAN AMERICAN AND WHITE SHIPPING CLERKS STRIKE IN FRONT OF A FIRE FOR BETTER WAGES AND UNION RECOGNITION." KHEEL CENTER/CORNELL UNIVERSITY
PSU Vanguard • MARCH 16, 2021 • psuvanguard.com
THE POWELL’S UNION CAMPAIGN
STAFF OF THE PORTLAND REPORTER ON A PROTEST MARCH PAST THE OREGONIAN BUILDING, APRIL 1960. COURTESY OF OREGON HISTORICAL SOCIETY
THE PORTLAND REPORTER
In 1950, multi-millionaire Samuel Newhouse purchased The Oregonian. Newhouse had been buying up newspapers all across the country, and his purchase of The Oregonian wasn’t a real surprise to anyone. However, there was another daily paper in Oregon, called The Oregon Journal—and Newhouse was looking to buy that one, too. Talks had begun for Newhouse to purchase The Oregon Journal after its founder Philip Jackson died, leaving ownership of the paper up in the air. If Newhouse bought the Journal, of course, that would give him ownership of both daily newspapers in Oregon, essentially giving him a monopoly on news in the state. Management at The Oregonian decided to lay off three quarters of the stereotypers—the people who cast the newspaper’s giant printing presses—working at the company in November 1959; Newhouse was looking to replace the old machines with new ones that only required one worker to operate instead of four. Soon after, on Nov. 10, the Stereotypers’ Local 49 called a strike, followed by many of the newspaper’s writers. All told, the strike included 850 workers from 11 unions. Things escalated from there. The Oregonian hired professional strikebreakers from Texas. In Jan. 1960, 10 Oregonian delivery trucks were blown up by supporters of the strike. Strikebreakers brought guns with them, prepared for anything. Time magazine even reported on the struggle, calling it “a finish fight, eyed closely...by newspaper publishers all over the [United States].” On Feb. 11, 1960, a group of striking Oregonian writers founded a new paper called The Portland Reporter. They used a salvaged printing press from 1890, and worked out of a former Wells Fargo stable at 1714 NW Overton St. The Reporter quickly began to produce 60,000 issues per week, while The Oregonian’s circulation dropped by 70,000. The Oregonian clearly suffered from the loss of talent; the paper was riddled with typos, errors and missed deliveries during the strike, and one reader wrote to the editor, “It’s obvious your best reporters, photographers, pressmen, etc., are putting out the new paper.” The Reporter couldn’t compete against the established papers in town forever, though, and, by 1963, it had accrued a debt of $536,000. Some reporters were blacklisted from writing in any newsroom ever again, while others were able to cross the picket line and get their old jobs back. The Reporter published its last issue on Oct. 1, 1964, and The Oregonian and The Oregon Journal both banned unions from their workplaces. In November of that year, the National Labor Relations Board declared the 65-month-long strike illegal. Of course, there is no such thing as an illegal strike—only an unsuccessful one. The writers, photographers, delivery drivers and stereotypers for The Portland Reporter were simply beat by organized power and money. Today, the Oregonian remains the largest newspaper in Oregon after Sam Newhouse was successfully able to monopolize the market. The defeat of the Oregonian strike is a sad story, but it is one we can learn from. The Oregonian still managed a print run of around 170,000 during this period, more than doubling the Reporter’s run; there was no way the Reporter could have competed with that kind of revenue gap. Where the 1934 strikers were bolstered by solidarity with other workers, the Oregonian strikers were defeated by a monopolized business interest on one side and a lack of public support on the other. That is an untenable situation for building workers’ power, and it must be changed to avoid a similar result in the future.
PSU Vanguard • MARCH 16, 2021 • psuvanguard.com
Thanks to a Master’s thesis, a list of sources and an accompanying interactive timeline by PSU student Ryan Thomas Wisnor, we have a free, easy-to-understand account of the Powell’s union campaign, furnished by Portland State’s very own history department. Powell’s, of course, is the famous new and used indie bookstore chain that’s been in Portland since the 1970s—but that’s not where our story begins. In 1987, a group of Powell’s employees formed a collective called the Powell’s Employees’ Association, an organization meant to “improve communication between management and staff.” In 1990, following a disastrous holiday season, Powell’s laid off two dozen employees, prompting workers to unsuccessfully attempt to unionize. They met with organizers from the Oregon Public Employees Union, but never garnered a majority of workers’ votes to win a union election. Instead, the workers presented Powell’s owner Michael Powell with a list of demands, including “a consistent wage policy, clear job descriptions, and a grievance procedure.” Early attempts at union organizing had failed, according to Powell’s employee and founding member of the Powell’s union Mary Winzig, because “they tried to organize just the big Burnside store,” neglecting the rest of the company’s workers. Even though those previous campaigns had failed, however, Winzig describes her experience with orientation and HR: “the human resources guy...said, ‘I just want you to know that there was a union drive a couple of years ago, but we don’t need a union here.’” After he said that, Winzig recalls, she knew the company was scared of a union—and it was time to start one. The difference between this union effort in 1998 and previous efforts, Winzig notes, is that they made an effort to have one-on-one conversations with their coworkers about their concerns. “Friends of mine and I talked about how we needed a union,” she said. “Many of us felt we had nothing to lose. We were making crap wages, and even if we got fired, we felt we
could always make crap wages somewhere else.” The union activists reached out to the ILWU (the Longshoremen’s Union) to help them organize. Michael Powell and other members of management cautioned them against unionizing, calling the union a “third party,” even though they once confused the ILWU with its sister union on the East Coast, the ILA. Powell told The Oregonian in an interview at the time, “They’ve got to ask themselves whether this is really in the best interests of the company.” In the end, the union won: the final vote total in the union election was 161 for the union and 155 against. After the success, eleven strikes and 10 charges in court against Powell’s for unfair labor practices, the union finally won a contract in 2000. Since then, ILWU Local 5 has represented workers in every Powell’s store and warehouse.
LESSONS LEARNED
The actions of organized labor in the past are still very relevant to the present. Powell’s workers likely would not have been able to unionize with the ILWU without the struggle of the 1934 waterfront strikers; conversely, The Oregonian’s monopolization of Oregon state media would probably have been slowed or stopped if the 1959–64 strikers were successful. We can also take lessons from the previous workers’ successes and failures: the 1934 strikers succeeded because they mobilized the rest of the city in solidarity. Powell’s organizers succeeded because they took the time to speak to their fellow workers one-on-one to understand what they were concerned about. The Portland Reporter failed in large part because they couldn’t muster public support and the resources to withstand a sustained attack from business. If we want to revive the labor movement in the 21st century, it’s essential to learn from our history. Let’s hope Amazon workers in Bessemer, Alabama are successful in their fight to organize—and let’s hope they can emulate the wins, and not the losses, of the past.
"FAST FOOD STRIKE AND PROTEST FOR A $15/HOUR MINIMUM WAGE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA" COURTESY OF FIBONACCI BLUE
OPINION
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VIRTUAL
EVENTS CALENDAR TUE MAR
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FREE FLU SHOTS AND COVID TESTING PCC Cascade Campus 11 a.m.–6 p.m. Free Ongoing through March 31 Uninsured and BIPOC folks are prioritized for free flu shots and COVID-19 testing. You have to call in advance to schedule. Walking, driving and biking are all permitted.
KEVIN BURKE - A ST. PATRICK’S DAY CONCERT Online event - livestream via Alberta Rose Theatre 7 p.m. $20
SXSW ONLINE 2021 Online event $399 Through March 20
Due to health restrictions, everyone’s favorite music and tech summit SXSW will be entirely virtual this year. An online pass runs $399 for all four days, which is set to include a variety of conference keynotes, mentor sessions, film premieres, artist showcases and more. It’s almost prohibitively steep, but an invaluable experience for anyone interested in the music industry.
SHAMROCK RUN PORTLAND Online event $25
Portland’s 43-year old Shamrock Run—a local tradition, of sorts—will be occurring virtually this year. Yeah, I don’t quite understand it either.
“Kevin Burke returns to the Alberta Rose Theatre for a celebration of St. Patrick’s Day. Kevin will perform solo and with some of his friends direct from Ireland.”
ISHIMOTO YASUHIRO
JORYU HANGA KYOKAI, 1956–1965
In honor of his 100th birthday, the Portland Japanese Garden will be offering a limited exhibit showcasing famed Japanese-American photographer Ishimoto Yasuhiro’s work.
The Portland Art Museum presents an exhibit on Japan’s famous printmaking society, Joryū Hanga Kyōkai—or the Women’s Print Association—with a series of etchings and lithographs from 1956–65.
MIXTAPE REVIVAL
NURSES FOR BLACK LIVES VIGIL
Portland Japanese Garden 9 a.m.–3 p.m. Included with general admission pricing Thursday–Monday; ongoing through April 11
Oaks Amusement Park 7 p.m. $49 per vehicle 21+ Ongoing through April 19
“Throw it back with the OG hits of the 80s and 90s played live on stage by the coolest retro band in Oregon, The Hair Jordans, while you rock out in the safety of your own car!”
Portland Art Museum 10 a.m.–5 p.m. $20 Thursday-Sunday; ongoing through April 11
Pioneer Courthouse Square 10 a.m. Free
Portland nurses and health professionals will honor the life of George Floyd with a silent vigil every Friday morning.
CARCHELLA PDX
ECLIPTIC BREWING PUP UP
“The best of the local music scene is showcased at this weekly live concert series enjoyed from the safety of your own vehicle. The show starts off with acoustic music, interviews, and more, then the drive-in gets rocking with a performance by a special headliner band!”
“Come join Pet Wants Pearl District at Ecliptic Brewing and enjoy some delicious beer and scrumptious food while picking up a little something for your dogs and cats! We’ll be featuring our Brew-Pup Packs, Good Boy Dog Beer, Bacon Cheddar Beer Ducks (made with spent grain from the brewing process) and other assorted treats! As always we’ll have our regular assortment of healthy treats, chews, Pet Wants dog food and Spaw products for your cats and dogs.”
Oaks Park 6 p.m. $59 per vehicle Through April 10
WE’RE TEXAS: A VIRTUAL BENEFIT
Ecliptic Brewing 12 noon Free
RCR WINTER SKATE POP-UP
Live via YouTube 5 p.m. Free; donations suggested
Lloyd Center Mall 1 p.m. $10
Matthew McConaughey and his wife Camila present a virtual Texas benefit, which includes performances by Post Malone, Kelly Clarkson, Willie Nelson, Miranda Lambert and more. Donations are suggested, with all proceeds benefiting charity.
“Due to popular demand, our unique, distanced outdoor skating events will be BACK at the Lloyd Center with no more than 50 people skating at a given time. Rent, or BYO Gear and join us in the open-air, covered parking garage for some winter skating fun!”
PSU Vanguard • MARCH 16, 2021 • psuvanguard.com
