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COVID-19, Race, Climate Change Dominate Youth Vote Issues
Health care and racism dominate the issues important to young people in the presidential election, according to poll trackers.
Climate change is also among the top three issues to young voters, the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts, found in its polling.
The Institute of Politics at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government echoed those findings. About 45% of Americans age 30 and younger agreed they were concerned about having access to health care and mental health care. In addition, 43% of young Americans agreed that they were concerned about someone they know dying from COVID-19.
Gun violence and student loan debt are other issues that will impact young people's lives in the next five to 10 years, said Joseph Mullen, an 18-year-old DNC delegate from Florida’s 23rd congressional district.
“We want elected officials and politicians who are a little bit older than us who, you know, may not be dealing with the ramifications of what they decide in the next 10 to 15 years,” Mullen told VOA. “We want them to act as if it was their lives on the line and it’s their children’s lives on the line as well.”
Health care and racism reflect the concerns of younger voters at a time when colleges and universities have been shuttered by the COVID-19 pandemic, and when racism and law enforcement have been in the national discussion. These have overshadowed student debt concerns that dominated youth voter polls in previous election cycles.
“We have issues like climate change, student loans, free college tuition, free two-year community college, and affordable health care being addressed, and I think those are all really important things to young voters,” said Jordan Harzynski, a freshman at George Mason University in Virginia.
“I think that leadership and rhetoric matters, so up and down the ballot I want candidates that I can trust, and I think that character is playing a bigger role in the minds of a lot of voters this year given the moment were in,” said Josh Kutner, a senior at George Washington University and chairman of GW College Republicans.
“The foremost issue to all voters right now is obviously the coronavirus, as it plays such a major role in our everyday lives now and one aspect of it is making sure we have testing capability and we are able to fully distribute an effective vaccine,” Kutner said.
Young voters are also very concerned about “police treatment to communities of color,” according to a June survey by CIRCLE.
Sanjana Taskar, a recent graduate of the University of Maryland-Baltimore County and an advocate of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, said BLM “is demanding justice to be treated equal and recognizing how our foundation of government was founded on the principles of white patriarchy.”
Concern for climate change is increasing among Democrats, and young Republican voters show a higher interest in politicians attending to climate change than older Republicans, according to Pew Research Center in Washington.
“Millennial and Gen Z Republicans – those currently ages 18 to 39 – are more likely than their GOP elders to think humans have a large role in climate change, that the federal government is doing too little on climate and that the U.S. should focus on developing alternative energy sources,” according to a survey, Pew Research Center stated.
Spencer Lindquist, a junior at Pepperdine University and president of Pepperdine College Republicans, said for him, immigration and student debt were entwined.
“Immigration is an issue that affects young people in particular in a very unique way,” Lindquist said. Graduates accrue student debt “and then they find that they have to compete with people around the world for these positions,” citing Indian and Chinese H-1 work visa holders.
Youth demographics
Young Americans are more engaged in this election than in the previous election, according to CIRCLE.
According to the Tufts CIRCLE survey, “83% say they believe young people have the power to change the country, 60% feel like they’re part of a movement that will vote to express its views, and 79% of young people say the COVID-19 pandemic has helped them realize that politics impact their everyday lives.”
Out of 2,232 voters surveyed, ages 18 to 29, half said that they have tried to persuade people to vote and a quarter said they helped others register to vote, according to CIRCLE. This is significant as it is an increase from the 33% of youth who tried to persuade others to vote and 11% who registered others to vote in the 2018 election.
In 2016, the last presidential election, a little more than 40% of 18 to 29-year-olds voted, according to the United States Elections Project.
While more young Americans are engaged in this year's election, how much they believe the election will actually affect them can depend on race. A recent Harvard poll found that 64% of young white Americans were more likely to agree the election will impact their lives compared with 52% of young black Americans.
Engagement among young voters could be because of issues they believe to be impacting both America and themselves, going into the election. Young voters like the idea of voting for something and feeling mobilized versus voting against something, according to Mullen.
Mullen says that while he is a fan of candidates’ campaign efforts to reach young voters, it’s a mistake for politicians to reiterate the idea of “returning to normalcy.”
“Things have never really felt normal in this country. I was born right after 9/11, and the only things I’ve ever seen in the U.S. have been, you know, wars, recessions and pandemics,” Mullen said. “That’s just what I’ve grown up with.”
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Pro-Palestinian protesters set up a new encampment at Philadelphia's Drexel University
Pro-Palestinian protesters set up a new encampment at Drexel University in Philadelphia over the weekend, prompting a lockdown of school buildings, a day after authorities thwarted an attempted occupation of a school building at the neighboring University of Pennsylvania campus.
After several hundred demonstrators marched from Philadelphia's City Hall to west Philadelphia on Saturday afternoon, Drexel said in a statement that about 75 protesters began to set up an encampment on the Korman Quad on the campus. About a dozen tents remained Sunday, blocked off by barricades and monitored by police officers. No arrests were reported.
Drexel President John Fry said in a message Saturday night that the encampment "raises understandable concerns about ensuring everyone's safety," citing what he called "many well-documented instances of hateful speech and intimidating behavior at other campus demonstrations." University buildings were "open only to those with clearance from Drexel's Public Safety," he said.
Authorities at Drexel, which has about 22,000 students, were monitoring the demonstration to ensure it was peaceful and didn't disrupt normal operations, and that "participants and passersby will behave respectfully toward one another," Fry said.
"We will be prepared to respond quickly to any disruptive or threatening behavior by anyone," Fry said, vowing not to tolerate property destruction, "harassment or intimidation" of students or staff or threatening behavior of any kind, including "explicitly racist, antisemitic, or Islamophobic" speech. Anyone not part of the Drexel community would not be allowed "to trespass into our buildings and student residences," he said.
On Friday night, members of Penn Students Against the Occupation of Palestine had announced an action at the University of Pennsylvania's Fisher-Bennett Hall, urging supporters to bring "flags, pots, pans, noise-makers, megaphones" and other items.
The university said campus police, supported by city police, removed the demonstrators Friday night, arresting 19 people, including six University of Pennsylvania students. The university's division of public safety said officials found "lock-picking tools and homemade metal shields," and exit doors secured with zip ties and barbed wire, windows covered with newspaper and cardboard and entrances blocked.
Authorities said seven people arrested would face felony charges, including one accused of having assaulted an officer, while a dozen were issued citations for failing to disperse and follow police commands.
The attempted occupation of the building came a week after city and campus police broke up a two-week encampment on the campus, arresting 33 people, nine of whom were students and two dozen of whom had "no Penn affiliation," according to university officials.
On Sunday, dozens of George Washington University graduates walked out of commencement ceremonies, disrupting university President Ellen Granberg's speech, in protest over the ongoing siege of Gaza and last week's clearing of an on-campus protest encampment that involved police use of pepper spray and dozens of arrests.
The ceremony, at the base of the Washington Monument, started peacefully with fewer than 100 protesters demonstrating across the street in front of the Museum of African American History and Culture. But as Granberg began speaking, at least 70 students among the graduates started chanting and raising signs and Palestinian flags. The students then noisily walked out as Granberg spoke, crossing the street to a rapturous response from the protesters.
Students and others have set up tent encampments on campuses around the country to protest the Israel-Hamas war, pressing colleges to cut financial ties with Israel. Tensions over the war have been high on campuses since the fall but demonstrations spread quickly following an April 18 police crackdown on an encampment at Columbia University.
Nearly 3,000 people have been arrested on U.S. campuses over the past month. As summer break approaches, there have been fewer new arrests and campuses have been calmer. Still, colleges have been vigilant for disruptions to commencement ceremonies.
President Joe Biden told the graduating class at Morehouse College on Sunday, which included some students wearing keffiyeh scarves around their shoulders on top of their black graduation robes, that he heard their voices of protest and that scenes from the conflict in Gaza have been heartbreaking. Biden said given what he called a "humanitarian crisis" there, he had called for "an immediate cease-fire" and return of hostages taken by Hamas.
The latest Israel-Hamas war began when Hamas and other militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing around 1,200 people and taking an additional 250 hostage. Palestinian militants still hold about 100 captives, while Israel's military offensive has left more than 35,000 people in Gaza dead, according to the territory’s health ministry, which doesn't distinguish between civilians and combatants.
Biden tells Morehouse graduates that he hears their voices of protest over war in Gaza
President Joe Biden on Sunday told the graduating class at Morehouse College that he heard their voices of protest over the Israel-Hamas war, and that scenes from the conflict in Gaza have been heartbreaking.
"I support peaceful nonviolent protest," he told students, some who wore keffiyeh scarves around their shoulders on top of their black graduation robes. "Your voices should be heard, and I promise you I hear them."
The president told the crowd that it was a "humanitarian crisis in Gaza, that's why I've called for an immediate cease-fire to stop the fighting" and bring home the hostages taken when Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7. The comments, toward the end of his address that also reflected on American democracy and his role in safeguarding it, were the most direct recognition to U.S. students about the campus protests that have swept across the country.
Morehouse's announcement that Biden would be the commencement speaker drew some backlash among the school's faculty and supporters who oppose Biden's handling of the war. Some Morehouse alumni circulated an online letter condemning school administrators for inviting Biden and soliciting signatures to pressure Morehouse President David Thomas to rescind it.
The letter claimed that Biden's approach to Israel amounted to support of genocide in Gaza and was out of step with the pacifism expressed by Martin Luther King Jr., Morehouse's most famous graduate.
The Hamas attack on southern Israel killed 1,200 people. Israel's offensive has killed more than 35,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to local health officials.
Some members of the graduating class showed support for Palestinians in Gaza by tying keffiyeh scarves around their shoulders on top of their black graduation robes. One student draped himself in a Palestinian flag. On the stage behind the president, academics unfurled a Democratic Republic of Congo flag.
The country has been mired in an ongoing civil war that has plunged the nation into violence and displaced millions of people. Many racial justice advocates have called for greater attention to the conflict and for greater attention in the US to the conflict as well as American aid in ending the violence.
"Thank you God for this 'woke' class of 2024 that is in tune with the zeitgeist, the spirit of the times," the Rev. Claybon Lea Jr. said during a prayer at the start of the commencement.
The class valedictorian, DeAngelo Jeremiah Fletcher, said at the close of his speech that it was his duty to speak on the war in Gaza and that it was important to recognize that both Palestinians and Israelis have suffered.
"From the comfort of our homes, we watch an unprecedented number of civilians mourn the loss of men, women and children, while calling for the release of all hostages he said. "It is my stance as a Morehouse man, nay as a human being, to call for an immediate and permanent cease-fire in the Gaza Strip."
Biden stook and shook his hand after Fletcher finished.
The speech, and a separate one Biden is giving later Sunday in the Midwest, is part of a burst of outreach to Black constituents by the president, who has watched his support among these voters soften since their strong backing helped put him in the Oval Office in 2020.
After speaking at Morehouse in Atlanta, Biden will travel to Detroit to address an NAACP dinner.
Georgia and Michigan are among a handful of states that will help decide November's expected rematch between Biden and Republican former President Donald Trump. Biden narrowly won Georgia and Michigan in 2020 and needs to repeat — with a boost from strong Black voter turnout in both cities.
Biden spent the back end of the past week reaching out to Black constituents. He met with plaintiffs and relatives of those involved in Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark 1954 Supreme Court decision that outlawed racial segregation in public schools. He also met with members of the "Divine Nine" Black fraternities and sororities and spoke with members of the Little Rock Nine, who helped integrate a public school in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1957.
In Detroit, Biden was set to visit a Black-owned small business before delivering the keynote address at the NAACP's Freedom Fund dinner, which traditionally draws thousands of attendees. The speech gives Biden a chance to reach thousands of people in Wayne County, an area that has historically voted overwhelmingly Democratic but has shown signs of resistance to his reelection bid.
Wayne County also holds one of the largest Arab American populations in the nation, predominantly in the city of Dearborn. Leaders there were at the forefront of an "uncommitted" effort that received over 100,000 votes in the state's Democratic primary and spread across the country.
A protest rally and march against Biden's visit are planned for Sunday afternoon in Dearborn. Another protest rally is expected later that evening outside Huntington Place, the dinner venue.
US remains top choice for Indian students going abroad
About 69% of Indian students traveling abroad for their studies chose the United States, according to a Oxford International’s Student Global Mobility Index. Other popular choices were the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia.
Education Times reports the main influencers for deciding where to study abroad – for Indian students and others – were parents. (April 2024)
Malaysian official: Schools can’t turn away from global tensions
Zambry Abdul Kadir, Malaysia’s higher education minister, said protests spreading across universities in the United States show that schools can’t ignore political tensions.
Helen Packer, reporting in Times Higher Education, said the minister reminded educators that universities are key in the development of leaders, individuals and societies. (April 2024)
