Campus Progress is pleased to announce its 2007-2008 Student Advisory Board.

Members of the Campus Progress Student Advisory Board connect on a regular basis with Campus Progress staff and with each other to help set the course for Campus Progress programs in the coming year and beyond. Board members participate in discussions on an ongoing basis, and contribute time and ideas to Campus Progress. They help us spread the word about Campus Progress and advise us on promising progressive organizations, publications or projects that we should be supporting.

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Advisory Board members were selected from a large pool of qualified applicants, and represent a diverse subsection of the different movements, organizing styles, and politics of the progressive student movement. Campus Progress relies heavily on the members of our Student Advisory Board, part of our larger network of Student Representatives, to inform much of the day to day work we do here.

Hooman Hedayati is an Iranian immigrant, student, and political activist who founded Texas Students Against the Death Penalty in 2005 and the national organization, Students Against the Death Penalty in 2006. He has since been committed to activist campaigning for the abolition of capital punishment. Hooman was presented the “Youth Service Award” by the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty and “Student Action Award” by Campus Progress in 2007. He is also a board member of the Texas Moratorium Network and member of Campaign to End the Death Penalty. Hooman assumed responsibility for organizing the anti-death penalty alternative spring break. He recruited a record number of participants by inclusively using new media advertising outlets. Hooman’s media-savvy promotion of the alternative spring break attracted the attention of MTVu and NPR, which sent a camera crew to Austin to cover the alternative spring break activities.

We submitted a Public Information Act request to the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles requesting a tally of the number of people who contacted them regarding Kenneth Foster, Jr. The board heard from a total of 17,285 people opposed to the execution (favoring commutation) and 12 who favored the execution.

11,815 people acted by calling, faxing, emailing or writing letters or postcards. 5,470 signed their names on petitions that were sent to the BPP. About 50 percent of the 11,815 came from outside the U.S., 30 percent from other U.S. states and 14 percent from Texas, 6 percent were of unknown origin.

Of the 5,470 petition signatures, 59 percent were from outside the U.S., 14 percent from Texas, 18 percent other U.S. states, and 9 percent unknown origin.

Thank you to everyone who made your voice heard and helped save Kenneth Foster.

The number of individual communications received by the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles regarding the case of Kenneth Foster Jr.

Faxes 2536
Postcards 17
Letters 3887
E-mails 5228
Telephone 158
Telegram 1

Total 11, 827

The number of communications that supported the execution.

Texas 6
United States 3
Foreign Countries 0
Unknown 3
Total 12

The number of non-petition communications that opposed the execution.
1665 From within Texas
3485 From other U.S. States
5914 Frem other countries
751 Unknown origin
11815 Total

The number of names signed on petitions opposing the execution:
759 Texas
1006 other U.S. states
3237 other countries
468 Unknown origin
5470 Total

Successful social movements require continuous innovation in order to succeed. The movement to end executions often lags behind larger social movements in innovations and in adopting new technology, mostly because there are relatively few people involved in the stop executions movement compared to other movements, like the environmental movement.

During the campaign to save Kenneth Foster, a few of us down here in Texas, started an online video campaign as part of the Save Kenneth Foster effort. We asked everyone who has a webcam to record a statement and upload it to YouTube saying why Texas Governor Rick Perry and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles should stop the execution of Kenneth Foster on August 30, 2007. Later that week Gov. Rick Perry commuted Kenneth Foster’s sentence.

Our idea was talked about by other bloggers, including Capital Defense Weekly (CDW site is temporarily down). People on MySpace and Facebook posted links to it. Now, NCADP is taking our idea and running with it in another case, that of Troy Davis. We love it when this happens. Way to go NCADP! October 9th is Troy’s birthday and in celebration of this occasion NCADP is asking all of his supporters worldwide to send him a video birthday message and to post that message on YouTube. We encourage everyone to upload a video for Troy Davis.

There has been a lot of innovative work coming out of Texas, such as using YouTube for an online video campaign and the award-winning “Anti-Death Penalty Alternative Spring Break” program, which was the recipient of the Campus Progress Award for “Student Issue Campaign of the Year”. Students Against the Death Penalty, an outgrowth of the alternative spring break, was also an early adopter of Facebook, where its group currently has more than 2000 members.

Unfortunately, the national leadership of the anti-death penalty movement has not recognized the innovative work going on in Texas by directing major funding to Texas. In 2006, Texas was turned down for funding by the Tides Foundation, which instead chose to send $70,000 to fight the death penalty in two states where it does not even exist.

Funding should be prioritized to go to those states where the most executions are taking place and to those groups with a proven track record of innovation. More funding to innovative groups equals more innovation equals fewer executions. This is about saving peoples’ lives. We hope the situation will change in 2008 and that Texas groups who are doing innovative, effective work will be given the funds that will surely spark even more great work and help reduce the number of executions in Texas.

Texas is not a lost cause. We can stop executions in Texas.

Jasmin Hilmer’s “The End”, which was one of the artworks in Texas Moratorium Network’s art show “Justice for All?: Artists Reflect on the Death Penalty” has been selected as the cover art for an upcoming book on the death penalty. Congratulations Jasmin!

The book, by Alan W. Clarke and Laurelyn Whitt, is titled “The Bitter Fruit of American Justice: International and Domestic Resistance to the Death Penalty” It argues that executions in the U.S. have far-reaching effects on relationships between the U.S. and other countries worldwide. It should come out in Fall 2007.

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