by Austin DSA

Austin DSA unequivocally condemns the decision of the Texas State University President, Kelly Damphousse, to terminate Dr. Tom Alter from his position at Texas State University.

On Wednesday, 10 September 2025, Dr. Tom Alter, a well-respected educator, published historian, and tenured faculty member at Texas State University, was unceremoniously terminated from his position at Texas State University. This unjust decision came just days after Dr. Alter spoke at the Revolutionary Socialism Conference in his legal and protected capacity as a private individual and not as a representative of the university. Karlyn Borysenko, an online personality with known fascist positions, recorded his talk, livestreamed it online, and immediately began calling for his termination on 8 September 2025. Dr. Alter was summarily fired from his position by university President Kelly Damphousse without notice nor due process. The decision was announced (and communicated to Dr. Alter) via public letter.

Dr. Alter’s firing is the latest in a string of recent firings under similar circumstances: an individual acting in bad faith records the words of professional educators, publishes them online, and conducts a smear campaign against the targeted professor calling for their immediate termination. This is not just an attack on Dr. Alter himself; **it is an attack on the very institution of public education**. Further, it is an attack on the right of all Texans, of all Americans, and of all people around the world, to speak freely without fear of retaliation. It fits the ongoing pattern of right-wing, often openly-fascist, attacks on public and higher education as a means of eroding the trust, legitimacy, and power of the very concept of human knowledge.

From the intense repression of the protests during the Student Intifada last spring, to the direct targeting of immigrant students and educators as with Mahmoud Khalil, Rümeysa Öztürk, and others, to the push for school vouchers from Governor Greg Abbott, the education system is being targeted and dismantled. This sustained campaign against education is being conducted via an inside-outside strategy of institutional repression from university presidents combined with online harassment and smear campaigns by fascist “influencers” on social media platforms. In taking their marching orders from internet micro-celebrities, university administrations show a level of hypocrisy that is unbecoming of those who claim to be educators, circumventing due process and labor rights to enact openly political decisions that go against the right to freedom of speech.

Austin DSA has hosted Dr. Alter for political education events in the past. Many of our members have learned from him and hold him in high esteem. Further, our comrades in Texas State YDSA are directly affected by the decision to fire him without due process and the lack of any guarantee to protection from repression and retaliation for their own free expression. We stand in solidarity with Dr. Tom Alter and call upon Texas State University to:

Reinstate Dr. Alter immediately.
Publicly affirm the constitutional right of all employees to speak as private citizens without retaliation.
Establish clear policies guaranteeing due process before any termination related to off-duty expression.

We ask our comrades to sign this letter from Dr. Alter’s union, the Texas State Employees Union (TSEU-CWA Local 6186), voicing their own support for the above demands.

The post Reinstate Dr. Tom Alter first appeared on Red Fault.

By: Rob Switzer

The following is a post I made on Facebook that was not intended to be published. It was mainly written to vent and just to show friends the kind of things I deal with as union steward at my workplace, which is a Food and Commercial Workers meat market where I have been working for five years as a butcher.

Someone suggested this piece would work as a demonstration of how power functions in the workplace. Note that the stories included are not official union activities and could theoretically be accomplished in any workplace. However, it is worth noting that the union-provided protections we have and my status as a quasi-authority figure very likely embolden my coworkers and me to assert ourselves in ways that we otherwise might not.

A couple of weeks ago, I was informed that a coworker of mine was sent home, suspended, and written up. He had allegedly gone shopping, prepared a lunch, then had his lunch, all on the clock. He was being accused of deliberate and extended time theft, which of course is a fireable offense.

Coworker said this was not true, and I asked him to send me a screenshot of his punches on the time-keeping app we use. He did so. Upon cursory inspection, it was obvious that he had in fact neglected to clock back in from his early break, and was therefore actually off the clock during these events.

We had a meeting with the store manager, and Coworker brought the write-up itself, which included the clearly false accusations, and even had his receipt stapled to it, showing what he bought and when he bought it (while he was off the clock, remember). The store manager saw my point and understood, but told the worker that he had to be more careful about punches; this time it wouldn’t be held against him.

But I wasn’t satisfied — the shift manager who had originally made these accusations was still operating under the belief that my coworker was a time thief. So I informed him the next morning that the worker wasn’t on the clock. “Yes he was!,” he told me. “No he wasn’t!,” I retorted. “Yes he was!” he shouted back. He agreed to let me show him the screenshot. We walked to my locker to see my phone. The shift manager looked at it and I could see his mind spinning. He exclaimed something like, “Well, he probably would have done it anyway!”

About ten minutes later he approached me and apologized, admitting he was wrong and that he should have investigated better. He seemed to hide for the rest of the day; other workers noticed and told me. I made sure everyone was aware that someone had just been written up and suspended for something he demonstrably did not do. Someone chanted, “Steward! Steward! Steward!” which was pretty amusing.

Fast forward to today. We had about six first-shift meat cutters/handlers working. It was getting close to 2:30, our usual out time. But overtime was posted, meaning management can hold us later if they want to.

We had ten cases of bacon that had to be bagged and vacuum-sealed. No one likes doing this; it’s tedious. But it’s part of the job. So when I was done with my other work for the day, I took it upon myself to start.

Right around this time one manager came into the cutting room and said, “We’re getting ready to prep up!” That basically means we’re being cut loose as soon as we clean up. Two of the cutters promptly left, leaving four of us behind. We finished the bacon; we were all getting ready to leave.

Then a different manager came in and said he wanted us to make sure the bacon got vacuum-sealed before we left. Usually what we do is bag it all and let one of the afternoon-shift cutters handle the sealing. There were four of them there today. Why couldn’t one of them do it? We all were ready to leave, and had already been told we could leave.

I told the manager I thought this was bullshit. That’s literally a one-person job. Are you actually asking three of us to stand around and watch someone vacuum-seal 10 cases of bacon? In so many words, he said that yes, yes, he was asking that.

I talked to the other three workers individually. Everyone agreed they were ready to leave. So let’s leave, I told them. I went and talked to the manager, and we had a little argument. “I have other stuff for them to do; I want you to seal the bacon, blah blah blah.” He stormed off and said something like, “Just get it done and you can leave.” I don’t think he understood; I was telling him we had already decided we were leaving.

We rolled the sealer machine into the cutting room, and one of the second-shift cutters started sealing. He was clearly free to do this. I checked in with everyone to make sure we were all walking out in solidarity. And then we did. It will be interesting to see if there are any consequences tomorrow.

Epilogue: There were no consequences, other than a manager mentioning it to me in disapproval. I hope our action stands as a lesson to my coworkers that we have power when we take actions in solidarity.

Adventures of a Union Steward was originally published in The Detroit Socialist on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The post Response to the mobilization of national guard troops in Memphis first appeared on Memphis-Midsouth DSA.

Ventura County Democratic Socialists of America

Governor Gavin Newsom
1021 O Street, Suite 9000
Sacramento, CA 95814

RE: Oppose AB 715: Protect Free Expression and Academic Freedom

Dear Governor Newsom,

On behalf of the Ventura County chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, we urge you to veto AB 715 unless it is substantially amended.

We recognize and condemn the rise in antisemitic incidents in California schools. All students deserve to learn in environments free from harassment and discrimination. However, AB 715, as currently written, does not protect students from bigotry. By codifying definitions that conflate antisemitism with legitimate criticism of the Israeli state or Zionism as a political ideology, the bill risks censoring speech, curriculum, and silencing communities, particularly Palestinian, Arab, Muslim, and allied students and educators.

Key concerns include:

• Curriculum restrictions: By requiring that instructional materials about Jews or Israel/Palestine be “balanced” and “non-discriminatory,” AB 715 invites political interference and lobby-driven censorship of Ethnic Studies, social science, and history classes.
• Complaint abuse: Expanding the Uniform Complaint Process to cover school board members, teachers, and contractors opens the door for frivolous or politically motivated complaints targeting those who speak out against apartheid or advocate for Palestinian rights.
• Selective protection: Establishing a State Antisemitism Coordinator, without equal attention to anti-Arab, anti-Muslim, and anti-Palestinian hate, elevates one set of protections while neglecting others, undermining the principle of equal protection under the law.
  

We support the fight against antisemitism. But real safety for Jewish students will not come at the expense of academic freedom, student speech, or the silencing of Palestinian voices. AB 715 risks weaponizing anti-discrimination policy to punish students and educators for speaking truth to power.

We therefore urge you to veto AB 715 unless it is amended to:

• Explicitly safeguard the right to critique governments, including Israel, without being labeled antisemitic.
• Include protections against anti-Arab, anti-Muslim, and anti-Palestinian hate alongside protections against antisemitism.
• Bar the misuse of the Uniform Complaint Process as a tool for political intimidation of educators and students.
  

California schools must be places of honest dialogue, rigorous scholarship, and solidarity among all communities. AB 715, as written, threatens those values.

For these reasons, Ventura County DSA calls on you to veto this bill in its current form.

In solidarity,

Ventura County Democratic Socialists of America

Better health, stronger families and fairer spending – all for about 63$ per paycheck

The post Five Interim Policies to Bridge the Healthcare Gap appeared first on Democratic Left.

Seattle Democratic Socialists of America stand in firm opposition to the Seattle City Council decision on Tuesday, September 9th 2025 to massively increase video surveillance throughout Downtown Seattle at the behest of the Seattle Police and the encroaching carceral state, in shameless defiance of widespread public outcry against their proposal.

The theory, floated by some Seattle City Councilmembers, that Seattle, or Washington at large, can somehow keep the Trump administration from using local surveillance systems to increase the efficiency of their fascist takeover of the country, is a naive delusion only kept by a cohort of disingenuous politicians that we can now argue are knowingly collaborating with, and encouraging, the local oppressive forces which will undoubtedly have an increased role in the furtherance of Trump’s growing federal police state. 

Just this week, the federal government was given the authority by the Supreme Court to racially profile anyone they wish, giving even more unchecked power to their draconian Immigration & Customs Enforcement raids. These are the conditions under which our local Seattle City Council, made up entirely of Democratic Party politicians, has just decided to give integral pieces of surveillance infrastructure to a federal government they know will use to pursue mass arrests, disappear humans, and further deny our freedom of speech and protest.

Seattle DSA denounces our city council’s collaboration with fascist forces in our society and urges the people of Seattle to hold them to account for their actions. This measure only further reinforces our understanding that nobody will save us but ourselves.

The post STATEMENT REGARDING CITY COUNCIL APPROVAL OF MASS SURVEILLANCE appeared first on Seattle Democratic Socialists of America.

Brazilian political party PSOL reports on the 2025 DSA National Convention and reflects on their participation as invited guests.

The post DSA National Convention Strengthens the Building of the Socialist Left in the United States appeared first on Democratic Left.

Author: Andrew O

It is impossible to organize without a positive vision of the future. Placing a point on the horizon allows us to steer our ship towards that guiding star. I do not speak for the chapter here, but for myself and in hopes of spurring comrades to think about and voice their own visions of what our chapter can and should be. This document outlines what is actively and passively in my mind when I am arguing for or against something in the many debates within our chapter. These goals inform my politics and decisions. I have roughly outlined a long-, medium-, and short- term set of goals for our chapter. These goals are ambitious–as they must be for us to truly change the world.

DSA Cleveland can and should become an organized and independent political party. We should become an organization capable of building and providing mutual and material good for the working class of Northeast Ohio. This ability must be built outside the control of the state and of capital. Our membership must be militant and organized; our chapter democratic, transparent, and politically well-developed.DSA Cleveland is not and cannot simply be the left wing of the Democratic party. We are capable of being an independent party, with our own identity, program, and support base. DSA is uniquely positioned within American politics to become a true opposition party. Our message is a winning message, we have strong theoretical guides to build off, and our base is only limited by our capacity to organize.

Simultaneous to our electoral and reformist goals, it is essential that our chapter is working towards independence from the state. Our goal is not to take over the levers of power. Our goal is to build a new world.  We must create radical structures of mutual care to support our comrades and fellow workers. All of us will be required to build skills in mutual aid and true community defense, whether via food, medicine, shelter, or otherwise.

Building a new world will be the hardest fight any of us have ever seen. In order to weather it together, we must be organized and we must be militant. Each of us must build ourselves and those around us into the leaders we are all capable of being. Worker-leaders will need to be prepared to fight against the state, capital, and the disasters (natural and otherwise) that will put our entire project at risk. It is up to us to organize ourselves into a working class that can stand up to what is to come.

We will only be able to truly organize worker-leaders if we are seeking to be as democratic and transparent as possible. If we are to build a democratic world, we must start now. Member-led, bottom-up democracy cannot survive with incomplete information or an uninformed membership. Discussion and debate must be open and accessible in all ways. Structures must work to preserve the voice of the minority and to increase the general body’s democratic control of the chapter. We must ensure our elected leaders, both inside and outside of the chapter, are accountable to membership both in principle and in fact. Our membership needs to be politically mature and developed so each member has equal control over our organization.

This chapter can be a powerful base born of and built by the working class of Northeast Ohio, but it will not be easy to achieve. Movements like ours have been defeated in nearly every instance they have been built. We have yet to see a single one survive, let alone thrive, within the imperial core. In order to guide our actions, our chapter needs to work together to learn and teach ourselves political theory. We must grow our chapter through the best available methods of organizing. DSA Cleveland’s structures need to ensure our values democracy, transparency, and accountability are protected. This will only be possible if our membership is educated and knowledgeable on the history of these structures as well as the process to change them.

Every person is capable of being a great organizer. We must work together so that each of us reaches this potential. Unlike under capitalism, we want to make ourselves as replaceable as possible. Within our chapter and within our lives, we should constantly seek to organize ourselves, our neighbors, and our comrades. It is our responsibility as comrades to cultivate a wide variety of skills and pass them on as often as we are able. Organizing and teaching are frequently one in the same. For the working class to take over the world, we must make sure that each of us can lead it, together.

The idea of organizing the whole worker, as laid out by Jane McAlevy’s No Shortcuts model of organizing, is the single most effective organizing model I have encountered or tried. It is not infallible, or gospel, nor should it remain fixed and unchanged as we bring it into the various contexts and work that we are doing. It is, however, essential that we are building our organizing from this model if we want to create a truly militant and organized chapter, organization, and working class. The No Shortcuts model is frequently a lot of work, time, and energy. Not to put too fine a point on it, organizing itself is hard and there is no way to shortcut the process. If we are to build a truly organized working class that extends outside of self-selecting activists, we must do the hard work of organizing ourselves first.

To ensure we are making the best use of our capacity, our tactics, and our time, we must base our organizing, our work, and our politics in a political theory. It is our responsibility as socialists to actively cultivate and examine our own theory of politics. We must read, argue, and live our theories of politics together. Theory cannot be learned in isolation. Theory is not simply words in a book. Learning theory is, in and of itself, part of the radical work to win the future. We are each already working from our own theoretical base, whether or not we have examined it. We must come together and have our political theories debate, clash, and build our chapter. 

To guide and instruct the ways we enact our theories and have our debates, as well as to ensure our chapters’ interests in democracy, transparency, and accountability are upheld, we must work to build structures that will withstand bad actors, both those intentionally seeking to harm our chapter and those unaware that they are doing so. It is a fact that any group seeking to change the world will encounter infiltrators and bad actors. This does not mean we should seek to find these individuals, rather we should put structures in place that are better than us, less fallible than us, and structures will be able to be upheld as we continue to grow and change as an organization. These structures should strike the difficult balance between being robust enough to withstand attacks on the democracy of our organization, but flexible enough that they can be changed as needed. 

Structures are not the only method to ensuring our chapter’s democracy, transparency, and accountability is upheld, rather they are one of the tools that we have. Building a culture that values these ideals and taking steps to make sure that each member is educated and knowledgeable on the history of our chapter, our goals, and these structures will give them an understanding of why the chapter is shaped the way it is. Our chapter is built of many decisions made by members, and it can be changed and rebuilt in the same way. Members should be empowered to seek changes to our chapter as they see fit. This will ensure each member has as much ownership and control over the chapter as any other member.

In order to achieve the medium- and long-term goals laid out above, DSA Cleveland needs to realign the chapter’s dedication and support for our priority projects. We must continue the progress made in Membership Committee and bring this same system of engagement to our Education and Communications Committees. Our Priority Projects and Committees must integrate themselves into mutually supportive work. Finally, each priority we take on must move us towards our ambitious electoral and material goals.

Our chapter was in one of our most successful and sustained periods of growth during the Cleveland Housing Organizing Project (CHOP) priority project. There were many external factors for this, but also a good number of internal factors. This priority project built much of what Cleveland DSA is today. The level of commitment to the project was unlike anything our chapter has done since. Some of this was the lack of things to do in person during the lockdowns, much of this was the availability of repeatable work with predictable schedules within the project, but the fact that the chapter truly took this on as a priority cannot be ignored in the success of the CHOP Priority Project.

Our committees must be integrated with our Priority Projects to carry our mutually beneficial work. To use Membership Committee as an example, as it is what I am most familiar with, we have seen great successes this year. The membership pipeline has been rebuilt into the most effective form I have ever seen thanks to the hard work of Chad and the rest of member committee. We cannot simply be organizing members that sign up for new member one on ones and pointing them towards our projects, though. Instead we must make the work of our committees and priorities inexorable from each other. We must work to build a parallel membership pipeline into our priority projects. We must have trained and experienced organizers built into all levels of our work. This will allow us to build the engagement and capacity of both our Membership Committee and Our Priority Projects. Our Education and Communications Committees should seek to build similar methods of integration with our projects and with each other. 

Finally, DSA Cleveland must build Priority Projects that lead us to our goals. Our chapter has an appetite for electoral work and for mutual aid work. That appetite in and of itself is not enough for us to take on this work. It is important that we take on this work because building skills in these areas are essential for us to build the future we want. We cannot take on priority work merely because the work is good or worthy of being done. Our capacity is limited, but as we build and organize towards a shared positive vision, we will grow, our capacity will grow, and our ability to affect change will grow. 

The membership of DSA Cleveland must treat each Priority Project as a step to build the skills of membership, the experience of the chapter, and the capacity we have. Taking each project as a definite step towards our goals will make it easier for us to take on bigger and more varied work in the future. Right now our capacity is limited. Our chapter has not yet successfully run two simultaneous Priority Projects. When we are able to string together several properly supported projects, we will grow our capacity and will need to add more projects to properly organize membership. If we squander our capacity and burn members out without building towards our goals, we will remain at our current size and ability, or worse.

I want to build a DSA Cleveland and a DSA that can take on the world. I want to ensure we, the working class of Northeast Ohio, build the future we want for ourselves. I have great ambitions for this chapter and am sure that we can build it into something great and powerful. If this vision of the future resonates with you, work with me so we can build it together.

1.  At the 2025 DSA National Convention, we adopted the Principles for Party-Building resolution. This resolution is an excellent framework for us to use as we pursue our electoral goals. I want to call special attention to points two, five, and eight.
2.  Northeast Ohio is our chapter’s area of operation, but our struggle is a global one and we cannot lose sight of that.
3.  We must build a concrete set of goals for our chapter and our organization. These goals are what we will fight for and implement when we win power. Our big tent–which brings us strength through a diversity of thought and perspective–can be raised over these points and debate over how to pursue and achieve them can flourish.
4.  You can read the chapter’s PDF copy in our drive. I believe it is essential reading for our organizers.

The post A Positive Vision for DSA Cleveland appeared first on Democratic Socialists of America.