Loyola University • New Orleans • Volume 96 • Issue 14 • January 26, 2018
THE MAROON FOR A GREATER LOYOLA
Students help impact tax bill By Erin Snodgrass eesnodgr@my.loyno.edu
Protesters participate in the New Orleans' portion of a nationwide Women's March to promote women's issues and human rights Jan. 20, 2018 in downtown New Orleans. Peace volunteers marched with the protesters. CALEB BECK/The Maroon.
Activists fight for equality at NOLA Women’s March By Caleb Beck cmbeck@my.loyno.edu @CALEBBECKIRL
The one year anniversary of Trump’s inauguration was met with feminine resistance and activism in downtown New Orleans and across the country. Five thousand women and allies congregated Saturday morning at Duncan Plaza and marched proudly through the French Quarter, rallying against sexual assault, healthcare reform, immigration policies and other human rights issues. The New Orleans protesters joined sister Women’s March movements conducted in Denver, Raleigh, New York, Las Vegas and other major cities. Activists took to the streets, many donning trademark pink cat ears hats, waving signs mocking Trump, gender inequality and other hot-button issues of the current administration. The main objectives for this year’s march were bolstering voter
See WOMEN’S MARCH, page 6
registration and encouraging more women and Democrats to run in local elections. The organization Emerge Louisiana was present and reported 390 local women are being trained for public office. In the past year, New Orleans elected its first woman mayor, LaToya Cantrell, who gave a keynote speech to the protesters. “We all have a right to be respected. We all have a right to be loved. We all have a right to live in a city that represents and loves all people,” Cantrell said. Cantrell noted that the city for the first time in its history is reflecting these goals, and New Orleans’ women can strive to make an impact come midterm elections. “We have proven that women can advance, women can lead and we can do it where we uplift women and equity in every move as we grow,” Cantrell said. Loyola biology senior Victoria Odom said the dedication of the protesters was empowering. “The oldest and youngest partici-
pants struck me the most. I couldn’t imagine having lived through the 50s to the 70s and still having to march down the street to demand equality. We owe a lot to the older generation of feminists,” Odom said. Beyond pressing women’s issues like reproductive rights and sexual assault, this march was conscious to be inclusive, and many also marched for the plight of Muslims, transgender persons and African countries offended by Trump’s recent remarks. Patricia Boyett, director of the Women's Resource Center, said an open look at new issues is crucial to show the wide breadth of human rights united under feminism. "I consider it vital that we address issues that affect all women and all genders in the feminist movement across the world. I support Mayor-Elect Cantrell's decision to reach out to El Salvador, Haiti and the entire African continent to let citizens of those nations know that she, like so many of us feminists in Ameri-
ca, oppose President Trump's racist comments," Boyett said. Peace volunteers were designated to keep crowds calm in the case that detractors might react adversely to the march. If there were such groups, they were unseen and unheard throughout the Central Business District and French Quarter. Music industry senior Cristina de Arcos said she hopes movements like these inspire future generations of females. "A big reason I marched was for my little sister, Gracie. I want to teach her that she can continue to be a strong, brave and independent girl as she enters her teenage years, when most girls tend to back down,” de Arcos said. Patricia Boyett said that these human rights campaigns can progress only if maligned groups cooperate with one another. "The feminist movement will never achieve gender equity unless feminists fight for the equal rights and dignity of all genders across the globe," Boyett said.
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Late last semester, Tommy Screen alerted the Loyola community to provisions he called "troubling" in the tax reform bill, which had passed the House of Representatives and was being considered in the Senate. “I am happy to report that your efforts, coupled with the efforts of numerous others with similar interests, helped persuade members of Congress to eliminate most of the harmful provisions that would have impacted our students, employees and graduates,” Screen said in a previous email sent out on Jan. 11, 2018. The final bill was signed by the president on Dec. 22, 2017. The bill formerly known as the "Tax Cuts and Jobs Act" was signed into history as “An Act to Provide for Reconciliation Pursuant to Titles II and V of the Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 2018." Provisions that were eventually removed included one that would have eliminated the ability to deduct student loan interest payments from taxes and one that would have taxed employer-provided tuition assistance as income. The American Opportunity Tax Credit and the Lifetime Learning Credit, both of which, according to Screen, help families offset college costs, were also saved from being devalued in the bill. The proposed provisions would not only have affected students. A provision that would have taxed tuition remission benefits for university employees as income was also taken out of the final product. Graduate students could have been impacted, as well. The original bill included a provision that would have taxed graduate student tuition remission as income. According to the New York Times, the only education related provision that was changed in the final bill passed by Congress was an expansion of the use of 529 college savings accounts to include K-12 private school tuition. This is seen as a victory for families who send their children to private school. Screen said by notifying the Loyola community to the bill and urging them to call their representatives, he hoped to educate people on the number of issues that were included in the legislation originally passed by the House, which would have had a negative impact on many of Loyola’s faculty, staff and students. “It is my hope that the call to action was seen as a motivating factor in having our students actively participate in the political process on an issue that will directly impact many of them,” Screen said. He believes that Loyola students, along with thousands of other students across the country, let their voices be heard. “They had a large impact on the members of Congress who ultimately stripped the many educational provisions that would have had a negative impact from the final legislation which was signed by the president,” Screen said.