NAMED NATIONAL FOUR-YEAR DAILY NEWSPAPER OF THE YEAR FOR 2020-21 IN THE COLLEGE MEDIA ASSOCIATION’S PINNACLE AWARDS
Thursday, Dec. 1, 2022
Volume 159 No. 42 SERVING SAN JOSE STATE UNIVERSITY SINCE 1934
WWW.SJSUNEWS.COM/SPARTAN_DAILY
ASSOCIATED STUDENTS
Board talks McWright Fund By Vanessa Tran STAFF WRITER
During an Associated Students meeting on Wednesday, the A.S. Board of Directors voted to fund Camdan McWright’s family, passed a legislation that shines light on hate crimes against people of color and wrote a resolution to honor San Jose State President Steve Perez. A.S. President Nina Chuang said their organization has the flexibility to provide resources and support of up to $1,000 to families with a deceased student from San Jose State. “We had experienced a student who passed away from our community and we’re taking our time today to honor them and consider utilizing our family emergency fund to support the McWright family,” Chuang said. McWright was a freshman football player who was killed in a traffic accident on Oct. 21. Chuang said this opportunity makes A.S. remember the privilege and opportunity they have to serve students. President Steve Perez said A.S. VANESSA TRAN | SPARTAN DAILY
MEETING | Page 2
Alonzo Carter thanks A.S. Board of Directors for utilizing the family emergency fund for Camdan McWright’s family on Wednesday.
Anti-war author touches on Ukraine By Nick Zamora STAFF WRITER
NICK ZAMORA | SPARTAN DAILY
Medea Benjamin, co-founder of CODEPINK, spoke Wednesday night at a speaker event in the Student Union Ballroom hosted by San Jose State’s Human Rights Institute about her new book “War in Ukraine.” CODEPINK is a women-led grassroots organization working to end U.S. wars and militarism, support peace and human rights initiatives and redirect our tax dollars into healthcare, education, green jobs and other life-affirming programs, according to its website.. Yesenia Sanchez Rodriguez, sociology and justice studies double major senior, introduced Benjamin and was interested in learning more about the conflict in Ukraine. “I know I don’t know much about the Ukraine war. So it would be nice to be more involved with the news and find out what’s going on,” Rodriguez said before the event. The speaker event was moderated by William Armaline, director of the Human Rights Institute and was co-sponsored by the San Jose Friday Peace Vigil and the San Jose Peace and Justice Center. San Jose native Maha Khan, CODEPINK’s website and media coordinator, who has coordinated Benjamin’s book tour, said although she’s seen the talk a few times online she was excited to finally see it in person. “I think it’s so elucidating and enlightening to hear Medea talk about the war and the crisis from an objective perspective that kind of cuts through a lot of the pro war propaganda and things that we hear in the mainstream media,” Khan said. Before the moderated discussion began, Benjamin played a 20 minute video that gave a cursory summary of her book. She said her
Medea Benjamin and William Armaline, director of the Human Rights Institute, inform audience about the war in Ukraine and the misconceptions about it from Western media in the Student Union Ballroom Wednesday night.
UKRAINE | Page 2