After the wonderful experience I had last week at the Harvard Forum, I have been thinking a lot about bold actions, civil disobedience, and how we can express ourselves when we need to get the powers-that-be to see wrongs in our world. It was so heartwarming to experience students at the Law School come in with signs, or audience members stand and turn around as a symbolic way of refusing to listen—ways to protest homophobia. It reminded me of the time I protested the Vietnam War by marching in front of Stanford Research (SRI) Institute in California, gathering with a group that eventually got tear-gassed because we refused to move. This was in protest of SRI’s making materials to support the war effort. I remember the many signs teachers carried at protests to stand up for education and reject forced furloughs. Some men and women who refused to let the pickets at abortion clinics stop them from practicing medicine, lost their lives. In my day, it was not looked down on to stand up for what you believe in.

The Occupy movement renewed my faith in this kind of courage. And it also impressed a young woman who I ran across on Twitter. She was a Freshman when the Occupy movement took hold in Boston. And it changed her. Recently, Ali Welton sent out a tweet and although I didn’t know her, I saw it whe I looked through the hashtags (#=subjects) that indicated a tweeter was interested in Massachusetts politicians reading the tweet, i.e. #mapoli. I retweeted:

I was excited. A walkout for climate change? I hadn’t heard of such a thing recently. So I “followed” Ali Welton on Twitter, and found that the walkout she spoke of was happening soon. I wanted to know her story.

Welton, born in a town of 1000 came to Harvard (what she called “the big city”) in 2011. Two years before, there had been a big push for 100% clean electricity ( no oil, coal or gas, only renewable energies like wind and solar) from an organization at Harvard called “Students for a Just and Stable Future.” It’s a network of campus groups across the state that do climate activism, and she got involved when she came to Harvard.

In September, 2012, the Fossil Fuel Divestment Movement took off, partly because of Bill McKibbon’s stunning article, “Global Warming’s Terrifying New Math,” in Rolling Stone. Welton said, Divestment was necessary as a tactic to decrease the influence of fossil fuel companies over our political system because if fossil fuel companies go forward, we’ll have put too much pollution in the atmosphere and end up in a world of climate disaster.” 350.org, McKibbon’s organization which aims to build a global movement of climate changers, reached out to a Cambridge group called “Better Future Projects,” a climate non-profit, looking for what Welton called “guinea pig campuses” to get campaigns underway. They got lots of takers in New England.

Welton was so driven by the climate movement that she took a year off from school, got a waitress job and worked for over eight months developing the campaign with her “Team.” She also took six weeks off from her waitress job to plan the action for today, the walkout. Now that’s what I’m talking about when I use the words “dedication to a cause.”

Today, 100-200 students from more than twenty schools across the Commonwealth walked out of classes at schools such as Harvard, Suffolk, Northeastern, Boston University, Worcester State, Hampshire College, Mt. Holyoke, and UMass Amherst. Students had sent letters to their teachers explaining the action and why they felt it was necessary to bring attention to climate change, specifically pushing for a ban on building any new fossil fuel infrastructure. They wanted teachers to know that their classes were important but this required action, right now.

They had met already with Secretary Richard J. Sullivan Jr., Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs in the Commonwealth, and they felt that they needed to speak to Governor Deval Patrick directly. The walkout was intended to shore up that meeting. And they succeeded. The meeting with the Governor himself will be scheduled for this spring.

To check out more about students like Ali Welton, take a look at this website. A powerful quote from this organization shows their passion to make the world safer and more inhabitable for all: “Climate change affects low-income populations, the developing world, and youth the most. In other words, the greatest burden of the climate problem has landed on the backs of those who haven’t caused it, have the least leverage and resources to deal with its harms, and have the least amount of power to advocate for solutions.”

They’re right, this injustice wasn’t caused by them. We need to step up and help.

For those of you who didn’t have a chance to go, the Criminal Justice Forum at Harvard Law School for Gubernatorial Candidates, per my post in Boston Magazine, turned out to be an exercise in free speech. For some, it was also a frustrating realization that two hours can barely scratch the surface of complicated issues and policies that people care deeply about. For those who did attend on March 13th—more than 350—congratulations on exceedingly civil ways of shunning anti-gay pastor Scott Lively’s views while listening with a questioning mind to Evan Falchuck, Mark Fisher, Steve Grossman, and Juliette Kayyem. As candidates put forth their positions, this audience was not just taking it in. They had opinions.

I thought I’d share some of the questions that didn’t get asked and some of the tweets that helped to define how the audience responded to this event. I also hope that candidates will take the time to put forth clearer and more specific answers to many of the questions important to the audience.

Live tweeting from events is au courant today, and there were some great tweets. Prisoner Legal Services of Massachusetts (PLS) pointed out that Juliette Kayyem said “You rarely get good policy, good morals and lower cost in criminal justice.” They added that on race in criminal justice, Kayyem said “The laws are blind but they impact certain communities more than others.“ PLS quoted Steve Grossman, “More prisons, mandatory minimums, & undercutting judicial discretion are the wrong approach,“ and “I will use every tool at my disposal to stop prison expansion;” From Evan Falchuk, “We are the most progressive state in country. Seriously? We’re still shackling prisoners in labor. Needs to end.“

EPOCA (Ex-prisoners and Prisoners Organizing for Community Advancement) was impressed by Grossman’s calling for” freezing prison construction, totaling mandatory minimums, and funding drug treatment and job training.” They also understandably wondered  “Why are Martha Coakley and Charlie Baker not at the forum hosted by the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice?”

Since all the candidates were invited, I might suggest that perhaps they did not want to get grilled about their positions? Don Berwick, who could not attend, at least sent a video with his progressive positions outlined.

Some of the most insightful and critical tweets were from Jason Lydon of Black and Pink. Lydon tweeted that “Evan Falchuk: first person to mention race.” Falchuk said: “Get at the root causes of crime… Follow data driven and evidence based practices.” Lydon also added that it took awhile for Kayyem to talk about racism, and that while Grossman said he wanted to “leave no one behind,”  he needed to “TALK about how people of color are disproportionately unemployed and in poverty.” Lydon felt Mark Fisher wanted a “‘blind’ jobs programs” ignoring race so that all people were “equal under the law.” Said Lydon, “He lives in imaginary world.” Lydon also pointed out that Fisher “highlighted Chris Christie and Scott Walker as governors he wants to be like. Yikes.”

Evan Falchuk tweeted: 
“Honored to join Criminal Justice Forum last nite at the Houston Institute – reform is one of most impt opptys for next #Magov.” Agreed!

Audience members wanted to know how candidates proposed to pay for services they wanted such as increased mental health services, veterans’ courts and workforce development for returning prisoners; how might they deal with wrongful convictions and if they might insist that police interrogations be videotaped; how they might stop prison staff bringing drugs into prisons; their views on solitary confinement, the lack of commutations and the horrendous cutback in those being paroled; if candidates supported wire-tapping; what steps they might take to stop the current Finegold-Tarr bill to insist of thirty-five years of time for juveniles convicted of first-degree murder; how they planned to hold sheriffs accountable for rehabilitation of prisoners; and what they felt should be done about incarcerating immigrants. Would anyone see to it that the cuurent “gag order” that exists for the Department of Corrections is lifted so that the public might begin to see that ex-prisoners are not the monsters they are portrayed but people who are making many contributions to society?

There were many who stood and turned their back when Lively spoke–he’d been dis-invited then re-invited last minute in the name of free speech, ironic after he admitted on the panel that he didn’t know if he really wanted the job of governor; several from Harvard’s LGBT student organization, LAMDA, held signs that had slogans such as “No Hate in the State House.”

The moderators, Professor Charles Ogletree and Judge Nancy Gertner had an impossible job trying to move this discussion away from sound bites. I hope it is not the last time we try to facilitate real conversation on criminal justice issues. I’d like to think of it as only the beginning in a long race for governor. It is for many of us, one of the defining issues of the 2014 race.

See my article here about one of our candidates for governor in Massachusetts.  Juliette Kayyem may not be rocking the polls, but she has some ideas about fixing the state’s criminal justice system. The good news is that she’s not thinking about making prisoners bust rocks. More at Boston Magazine’s online website:

Check out my new post on and get a good primer on this program. Here’s the intro:

“As Massachusetts begins the process of giving the most notorious Boston gangster his due, most of us aren’t thinking about the kind of lawbreakers who want a way out of the cycle of crime. But a committee met this week to expand a little-known program that does exactly that.

Trial Court Chief Justices Robert Mulligan and Paula Carey want to ensure that more opportunities exist for probationers throughout Massachusetts to become law-abiding citizens. They want the reading program Changing Lives Through Literature (CLTL) to “emerge from the shadows.” While at least 200 probationers across the state have graduated from the program this year, the judges, probation officers, and professors on the committee are seeking to increase participation and graduation numbers.”  More