On Thursday, the House passed the Smarter Solutions for Students Act, which would put Stafford loan interest rates in step with financial markets from year to year, ending a system in which rates are set by Congress. This "simple" solution likely won't get far, as it faces opposition from Senate Democrats who have a competing bill that would extend the current interest rate of 3.4 percent for two years, giving Congress time to consider a long-term approach to address the growing student debt crisis that impacts 38 million Americans.

President Obama also threatened to veto the bill, calling it the "wrong approach" for students and their families, citing the lack of transparency and clarity for student and parents who try to garner the true price tag of borrowing for college, missing repayment options for borrowers who don't attend school anymore, and shifting the burden of reducing the deficit on the shoulders of student loan borrowers among others.

In response to the House's passage of the bill Carmel Martin, executive vice-president for policy at the Center for American Progress, our parent organization, said in:

The decision by the House of Representatives to approve Rep. Kline’s proposal is a step in the wrong direction for students and the economy. Rep. Kline’s bill taxes students to pay down the deficit. Congress should act to stop rates from doubling and build in protections for students to help them manage their debt. The House measure would divert $3.7 billion from the program to deficit reduction and result in an increase in student debt of close to $4 billion over what borrowers would pay under current law.

Campus Progress Director Anne Johnson agreed:

Instead of bringing relief to the millions of hardworking students and families who rely on these loans, the proposal would actually make them more expensive and exacerbate the student debt crisis. Rep. Kline’s bill also leaves out essential protections such as expanding income-based repayment and allowing current borrowers to refinance their loans. Young Americans need a solution that will make college more affordable and put them on a path to economic security, not make the problem worse.

The House bill, which was sponsored by Rep. John Kline (MN), does have a ceiling for interest rates but it might be too high according to Congressional Budgetary Office projections. For instance, under the Kline bill, a student who borrows the maximum amount for subsidized Stafford loans would have to pay $8,331 in interest payments over the next four years. If rates double, that same student would actually save money over the next four years—about $1,047 worth, when compared to Kline's plan. Keeping the interest rate at the current 3.4 percent, that student would save nearly $4,000 in interest payments.

The bill was passed 221 to 198, with four Democrats voting for the bill.

Obama's budget proposal would also attach Stafford loan interest rates to the financial market, and his plan doesn't include a cap for interest rates, which could cost future generations. But Obama's plan does keep the interest rate fixed throughout the life of the loan to give borrowers the advantage of predicting the true cost of borrowing.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan touted the president's budget proposal on Wednesday and acknowledged efforts in the Senate to prevent rates from doubling in July.

"President Obama has put forward a comprehensive solution that will help middle-class students and their families afford college by lowering interest rates on July 1, without adding to the deficit," Duncan said. "Senator Harkin and Congressman Miller have also been leaders within Congress to prevent rates from doubling for students and families”

Overall the top priority for Congress, Duncan said, is to stave off the hike.

The Boy Scouts of America’s (BSA) approved a new resolution today, and the organization will now allow for openly gay scouts. The caveat to this notable victory is this new policy only protects youth, still allowing for open discrimination and exclusion of scouts 18 and older.

"No parent should ever have to look their children in the eyes and tell them their family isn't good enough. But the Boy Scouts' [new resolution] forces gay parents and adult leaders to do just that," Tyrell told GLAAD.

The newly revised BSA Membership Standards Resolution reads: "No youth may be denied membership in the Boy Scouts of America on the basis of sexual orientation or preference alone." The significance of the word “youth” is important.

The charter continues to read, “the Boy Scouts of America will maintain the current membership policy for all adult leaders of the Boy Scouts of America," which dictates that LGBT parents and elders will continue to be prohibited from leading troops.

While the new policy is certainly a step in the right direction, there is still a lot of work to be done for LGBT advocacy groups.

“We now have a [resolution] that would protect youth across the entire country, regardless of where you live, who charters your unit, and that’s a really big deal,” founder of Scouts For Equality Zach Wahls told Campus Progress. “Frankly, that’s more than I think any of us thought we were going to get when we started this campaign last year.”  

But Wahls noted major flaws in the new charter.

“When we are are telling kids, gay or straight, that discrimination is ok, that’s a problem," he told Campus Progress. "So we certainly view this proposal as a step in the right direction, but this, in no way, will be where this campaign ends.”

The Boy Scouts is one of the largest youth organizations in the US with more than 2.5 million young scouts.

The resolution was voted in by a 61 percent margin.

“If you look at the actual values of the organization, there is nothing about scouting that I think would require you to be anti-gay,” Wahls said.

Wahls told Campus Progress that the Scouts actually taught him values and skills he utilizes in his campaign to end BSA discrimination.

“One of the merit badges you have to earn for the rank of Eagle Scout is called Citizenship in the Community...You are taught, in the Boy Scouts that if there is a policy on the books that you disagree with, you are supposed to work to change it. And that is exactly what we have done”

Photo;Flickr/GLAAD

Many student loan borrowers won't be able to pay that kind of interest with the unemployment and underemployment rates the U.S. is seeing these days.

More than 250,000 college graduates worked for minimum wage last year. For those who live in states that honor the federal minium-wage rate, that meant they made $7.25 an hour. But then there are states that actually have minimum wages lower than the federal rate—some as low as $5.15 an hour. At the federal rate, working a full 40 hours per week, those graduates would bring home $13,920 a year before taxes—if they never take a day off.

The economic conditions for students graduating these days aren't ideal. And if Congress doesn't act before July 1, it's only going to get worse.

That $7,965 of interest that the average student pays over a five-year period will increase to $12,598 if interest rates on subsidized Stafford loans are allowed to double to 6.8 percent, as they are set to do in July, according to the non-partisan Congressional Research Service.

While there are a number of plans offered to keep rates steady, one proposal would actually increase this average interest paid over a five-year period to $14,430.

Legislation introduced by Rep. John Kline (R-MN), who chairs the House Education and Workforce Committee, would tie subsidized and unsubsidized Stafford loan rates to the Treasury bond markets. This proposal could cause interest rates to fluctuate above or below the current fixed rate of 3.4 percent on subsidized Stafford loans, depending on market conditions at a given time.

Kline's plan includes an 8.5 percent interest-rate cap, while President Obama's does not have a cap. That is 1.7 percent higher than interest rates will be if Congress simply allows the rate to double on July 1.

The Senate Democrats, in the meantime, are working on a plan that would include a lower fixed rate. 

The money dumped into high-interest rate payments on student loans takes money out of the struggling economy. With lower monthly payments, many borrowers have said they'd buy cars and houses, they could start small businesses or start families, Robert Applebaum, an attorney from Staten Island and the founder of ForgiveStudentLoanDebt.com, told Campus Progress.

All of these areas of personal investment build a strong economy.

Moe Veissi, the Immediate Past President of the National Association of Realtors, said at a field hearing on student debt held by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau earlier this month that with every two houses sold, one job is created.

So by his calculations, even in the worst of times, more than 2 million jobs were being pumped out in America through the real estate market. Beyond that, with every home sold, he said, there's about $58,000 worth of additional income created in the community, and even more so, 91 percent of personal income tax is paid by homeowners.

The solution to the rising student debt crisis won't be a single policy move, Applebaum said.

He hears mostly from borrowers who are out of school and need to alleviate their monthly repayment burden, and they've mentioned every policy proposal out there—from bankruptcy forgiveness to income-based-repayment options—as potential ways of alleviating their struggles. 

One such move that policy analysts, consumer groups and borrowers alike believe would be a major piece of this puzzle is allowing student loan borrowers to refinance their federal loans to better intrest rates as corporations, homeowners and local governments are allowed. This move would reducing student loan borrowers' monthly payments overall, releasing more money directly into the struggling economy. 

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) introduced legislation this week that would allow just that. Gillibrand's legislation would allow borrowers with federal loans carrying interest rates higher than 4 percent to refinance down to 4 percent. 

The Center for American Progress estimated Gillibrand’s legislation would save borrowers $14.5 billion in the first year, leading to a $21.7 billion boost in economic activity.

"You have to address the existing $1 trillion of [student loan] debt," Anne Johnson, the director of Campus Progress, said at the CFPB hearing. But, "the whole system needs to be looked at. How are we funding higher education? How is it structured? Who has access to it? You can't separeate those two converstations because they’re totally connected."

Congress is now facing decisions on how to both handle federal student loans for current and future students. If borrowers of all ages are strapped to high-interest-rate loans there's little hope that they'll be able to have any discretionary income to support the U.S. economy. 

That’s a message Congress would do well to heed, as medical students continue to incur deep debt to fund their educations with little prospect of paying it off during their lifetimes of treating and healing Americans.

According to the Association of American Medical Colleges, the mean debt for public and private medical school graduates is $166,750. It's not surprising that medical students, like students of other disciplines, have accrued record debt to pay for their degrees; total student debt clocks in at over $1 trillion.

For medical students, though, the hefty price tag may mean turning away from general practice—vital to public health—in favor of a more lucrative specialty.

“I heard from one doctor working in the ER that his wife, who was a pediatrician, would never pay off her student loans in her lifetime making her current salary,” said Julianne Elofson, a Brown University graduate who attended Tufts University School of Medicine before taking a leave of absence. “I was not sure what I wanted to specialize in, but debt did factor into my thinking.”

More than 38 million Americans hold student loan debt, but the impact on medical students' careers and the future of our country's health is particularly troubling.

The U.S. faces simultaneously a shortage of doctors and an aging population. According to the AAMC’s Center for Workforce Studies, the population of Americans aged 65 and older will grow by 36 percent in the next 10 years. At the same time, the country's healthcare workforce will come up short 45,000 primary care doctors and 46,000 specialists and surgeons.

One reason why education debt now exceeds $1 trillion is partly due to the increasing cost of higher education, which has risen by 312 percent in public universities and 165 percent in private universities in the last two decades.

“My med school debt situation is probably the worst possible in that Tufts is one of, if not the most, expensive medical school in the country, and I received no financial help,” Elofson told Campus Progress. “This year, the cost of tuition and living expenses for first year students will be about $83,000."

Elofson said her family's income priced her out of financial aid, but many students who might receive help often fail to apply to school at all.

As Dr. Pauline Chen noted in the New York Times Well Blog, “more than half of all medical students currently come from families with household incomes in the top quintile of the nation." Limited access for low-income students and students of color increases the health care disparity that minority populations pay heavily for and, of course, the students themselves.

For most, loans have become a necessary element to finance higher education. Lately, thanks to the looming interest rate hike facing unsubsidized Stafford loans on July 1, legislators have pushed for short- and long-term solutions.

Senate Democrats are pushing for a two-year extension of the current 3.4 percent rate to give Congress time to think about ways to comprehensively tackled student debt. House Republicans introduced legislation that would tack Stafford loan interest rates to financial markets.

Like the House Republican bill, President Obama's budget proposal would tie the rate on new federal student loans to the Treasury's actual cost of borrowing (but without a cap), but it would remain fixed for the life of the loan so that borrowers would have certainty about the rates they would pay.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) suggested Stafford loan interast rates get slashed to a near-nothing 0.75 percent—the same deal the Federal Reserve gives to big banks on borrowing for just one year while Congress looked at other option to address education debt.

In this economic climate, another way to ensure a qualified workforce unburdened by unmanageable, career-choice-changing debt is to allow student loan borrowers to refinance their federal loans, reducing interest rates and making monthly payments more manageable

A bill introduced by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) proposed the Secretary of Education refinance government loans with interest rates higher than 4 percent into loans with fixed, 4-percent rates. Gillibrand called refinancing "common sense," as students would join homeowners and corporations among those paying lower interest rates.

The Center for American Progress, our parent organization, estimated the plan would save debt holders $14.5 billion in the first year.

Until legislation relieves struggling borrowers though, education debt will likely remain a roadblock for medical school graduates in the paths most needed by the public, such as primary and pediatric care.

Elofson’s semester at Tufts cost $40,000, and a future of debt and sacrificing her career inspirations, she said, weigh heavy on her decision to return.

“Med school is so much work, stress and debt,” Elofson said. “Looking at how much debt I would graduate with, becoming a radiologist seemed tempting, as they make over $300,000 a year on average, even though that would mean no patient interaction, which is a major reason I was becoming a doctor in the first place.”

United We Dream (UWD), the leading youth-led immigrant network in the nation and an active voice that urges both Democratic and Republican leaders in the Senate to move forward with the legislation, is optimistic about the prospects for the bill.

“With the bipartisan passage of the Senate immigration bill, our nation moved one step closer to a historic victory not only for the immigrant youth movement, but also for our nation." Managing Director of UWD Christina Jimenez said yesterday in a statement.  "Immigration reform that creates a real road map to citizenship for millions of Americans, ends senseless deportations, and reunites families, is within our sights.”

The bill would help set millions of DREAMers on a pathway toward citizenship.

For 24-year-old Evelyn Rivera, a member of UWD’s national coordinating committee who was moved from Columbia to Florida when she was just three-years-old, the DREAM Act provision of the legislation would enable her to acquire legal status after five years.

“It is really important for me to be able to vote one day,” Rivera told Campus Progress, highlighting the deep roots in community and civic participation many undocumented youth living in America already have, thanks to having come of age in the only country they would call home.

Young immigrants, including Rivera, shared their stories at a UWD event yesterday outside of the Senate office buildings about having their families torn apart by deportation.

Rivera’s mom was sent back to Columbia in 2009 after being stopped for a traffic violation.

University of Maryland student Yves Gomes' parents moved their family from India in 1994, in pursuit of religious freedom. Their hope were dashed and family ripped apart following a similar traffic violation, despite his mother holding master’s degree from an American university.

Cynthia Diaz, a 17-year-old U.S. citizen from Arizona, was forced charge of the household while simultaneously beginning her junior year of high school due to the 2011 deportation of her mother.

The "Gang of Eight's" bipartisan immigration bill would not only provide those undocumented with a path to citizenship, but would also have the potential of reuniting families through allowing a legal permanent resident or citizen in the U.S. to petition for the re-entry of their spouse or child.

Rivera highlights that this bill, unlike previous proposals, does not include a DREAM Act age cap, meaning that any person, regardless of their current age, brought into the U.S. as a child, is eligible for the DREAM Act provision benefits.

Additionally, the bill includes a proposed pathway to citizenship for the remaining undocumented immigrants not eligible under the DREAM Act, despite strong opposition led by Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX).

Despite the optimism following yesterday’s measure, United We Dream and activists such as Rivera are fully aware of the bill’s long journey ahead, and of the shortcomings of the current proposed legislation.

UWD and many DREAMers expressed disappointment at the failure of the Uniting American Families Act (UAFA), a measure proposed by Senator Leahy (D-VT) that, if passed, would have enabled same-sex couples to sponsor their partner for immigration into the U.S.

The organization is also weary of the augmentation and militarization of border security included in the bill. “Excessive border security will continue to be ramped up,” Jimenez said in the statement. “The new money being put into border security could instead be used for education,” Rivera told Campus Progress.

With the contention between opposing interests in the immigration debate, a gap in statistics seems to have exacerbated the clash over whether or not immigration law enforcement is too tough or not tough enough.

That's why staff at the Bipartisan Policy Center put together a document that examines the current state of interior immigration enforcement by the numbers. The document looks at the records kept by the Transactional Record Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) based on a long series of Freedom of Information Act requests. Here are some highlights from these records:

Deportations:


Figure 1. Number of deportations, Fiscal Year 1980—2011. Source: Department of Homeland Security, Yearbook of Immigration Statistics, 2011.

The Obama administration's deportation of undocumented immigrants ranks among the highest in recorded numbers. This figure measures only the individuals who went through an administrative or judicial removal process.


Percent of deportation cases ending in allowance to stay in the U.S., Fiscal Year 1998—2013. Source: TRAC.

Among deportation cases that reach immigration court, the portion ending in an allowance to stay in the U.S. has risen sharply.

According to the Bipartisan Policy Center: "This rapid increase may be due in part to President Obama’s deferred action program, which allows DREAMers to avoid deportation."


Deportation orders sought in immigration court based on alleged criminal activity, January 2008—March 2012. Source: TRAC.

Criminal prosecutions from Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement has been reduced in recent years.

Statistics like these prove that enforcement of immigration laws is actually the toughest its ever been, perhaps to the chagrin of those who claim we need stricter enforcement policies.

The way children begin to understand bodies—both their own and other people’s—largely depends on the kind of stories they’re told. Those stories include the ways their parents talk to them about their bodies, the messages they get at school, and the ones they absorb from the culture at large.

Laura Palumbo, the prevention campaign specialist at the National Sexual Violence Resource Center (NSVRC), says one of those misleading stories is the cultural narrative that suggests the beginning of sexual development starts at puberty.

During Sexual Assault Awareness Month, NSVRC’s campaign focused primarily on healthy sexuality and healthy sexual development during childhood.

“When people hit puberty, they already have a great foundation and groundwork for understanding healthy sexuality, understanding their bodies and being able to communicate their boundaries—and then that knowledge can be built upon, not just in the stage of puberty, but as they are adults,” Palumbo told Campus Progress.

Suggesting that children’s sexual development only begins in earnest during puberty and beyond works on the faulty assumption that the messages they receive about their bodies and their personal space before puberty are irrelevant and somehow have no bearing on their understanding of boundaries and consent as they grow older.

Equipping children with the resources and knowledge that will grow into an understanding of healthy sexuality starts with establishing a medically accurate vocabulary children can use to talk about their bodies,

“We can’t talk to kids about body rights if we don’t talk to them about their bodies,” Palumbo said.

Teaching the right terminology breaks down the “association of either shame or fear around the body and that terminology, and empower children with information about their bodies," Palumbo continued, "So that children are involved in every step of the process and really are gaining ownership over their bodies."

Airial Clark, a parenting and sexual health expert who runs a blog called "The Sex-Positive Parent,” said the process of teaching children about their bodies and helping them set their own boundaries is something that should be integrated into the way families interact with each other at home.

“Conversations are important, but so is modeling consensual behavior,” she told Campus Progress. “It's also about modeling rejection in healthy ways.”

Can You Debunk Victim-Blaming Culture in 9th Grade English ?

Lindsay Kovel and Samantha Wishner, who live in Georgina and Arizona, respectively, both teach 9th grade English. One of the books their syllabi have in common is Laurie Halse Anderson’s acclaimed young adult novel "Speak".

“I really fought to teach 'Speak' in my classroom, and there were a lot of people in my department who thought that it would alienate boys in particular, but I loved the text" Kovel told Campus Progress. "And when I started teaching it to my ninth graders, I actually really found that boys connected to Melinda’s experience in a high school setting on the most basic level, and then also on really complex levels when it comes to talking about consent and about rape and rape culture.”

Kovel has taught the novel for six years, and though she finds it connects with students at all levels she always encounters the same problematic question, mainly from students: was what happened to Melinda assault or was she “asking for it?”

Conducting a close reading of the passages in question, Kovel lets them debunk victim-blaming for themselves.

Citing evidence to back up your argument is already an integral part of high school English classrooms and essay guidelines across the country, so Kovel has her students apply the same technique to their own perceptions.

Wishner encounters the same kind of debates and divisions in her own classroom.

“I don’t know what kind of experiences they have at parties to make it a fine line, to make it debatable, but bottom line, when someone says no, that’s it. It’s so hard to see when the kids debate it,” she told Campus Progress.

When her students come to her in private, she says, “it’s not necessarily about sexual education. It’s about what’s happening in their lives, and them figuring out what’s right or wrong with what’s happening within their homes, or within their friendships.”

Though the book deals with weighty subjects and contains scenes that can be difficult to read at any age, Kovel finds that’s the case in any literature class, whether students are reading contemporary young adult fiction or the classics of British literature.

She said:

Talking about rape is as important about talking about disillusionment and 'The Great Gatsby.' I feel like we need to be having these conversations, because they’re timeless, and they’re also daring. I think that young adult literature has gotten progressively more and more daring because we’re not treating our teenagers like they are young children. We’re teaching them things that are actually happening in the world, and I commend authors who are brave enough to talk about things like that.

The Intersectionality of Consent

Though conversations about consent and healthy sexuality are largely missing from educational systems, there’s also a crisis in the the way existing conversations are structured. By and large, sex-ed tends to be both gendered and heterosexist, working on the assumption that teenagers’ sexual and/or romantic experiences will only occur in the context of heterosexual relationships where both parties conform to expected gender roles.

For Palumbo, a focus on healthy sexuality allows educators to teach children and teenagers about their right to sexual health and bodily autonomy, regardless of whether or not they’re in a relationship.

It also opens up the conversation about sex-ed to include a diversity of relationships.

“Sex doesn’t always happen in the context of a dating relationship or romance, and for a lot of sexual attractions and partnerships, there’s so much diversity beyond that model,” Palumbo said.

She continued:

[Children are] generally learning about [sex] in the context of heterosexual relationships where the girl is the gatekeeper of her virginity and the boy is the one who’s in pursuit of it. There really needs to be a more dynamic conversation about consent, about women that are assertive sexually, about women who are interested in other women, about people who don’t want to gender-identify, about people who are asexual.

Clark said sex-positivity as an inclusive model into which all sexual orientations and gender identities can fit and which informs a larger intersectional analysis.

“Sex-positivity can be woven into an intersectional analysis of sexual identity,” she said. “How is consent denied to people viewed as undeserving of respect? How are people navigating multiple stigmas? Queer youth on the street doing sex work to survive need a different type of sex-positive educational intervention then queer kids whose parents wouldn't dream of tossing them out of the house.”

She also advocates for teaching children about sexuality and consent without tying sexuality directly to reproduction, something which is far-removed from children’s experiences of their own bodies and which can be hard for them to grasp.

What’s more, when children grow up, the way they choose to make their own families might have nothing to do with sex.

“We spend most of our lives actively trying to avoid reproducing, so why not start from there?" Clark asked rhetorically. "Your sexual health is not tied to being in a relationship. Your sexual health matters not because it's how you have a baby, but because it is a part of you. When you are ready to have a baby, sex is one way to make that happen.”

With only about six weeks until rates on subsidized Stafford loans double from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent, Congress needs to act soon to prevent a hike for millions of students across the country.

According to a statement released by the White House, the bill sponsored by Rep. John Kline (R-Minn.), chair of the House Education and Workforce Committee, is the "wrong approach" for several reasons:

1. It doesn't ensure low rates for today's students. With interest rates subject to change as the market it clouds an already convoluted process for students and their parents as they assess the costs of borrowing for college.
2. It would impose the largest interest rate increase on low- and middle-class students and their families.
3. It doesn't include repayment options for borrowers who have already left school, leaving those education loan borrowers of any age stranded as the struggle to manage debt burdens felt by current student borrowers.
4. The bill uses student loan interest rates for defecit reduction, shifting the responsibility of balancing the budget on the backs of students and education borrowers of all ages.

Senate Democrats want to extend the current 3.4 percent rate on Stafford loans for two years to give Congress time to find a more long-term solution to the growing student debt crisis.

Like the Kline bill, the proposal in President Obama's budget would tie the rate on new federal student loans to the Treasury's actual cost of borrowing, but it would remain fixed for the life of the loan so that borrowers would have certainty about the rates they would pay.

Unlike the House Republican's bill, the president's budget doesn't provide a cap for the interest rate—which could potentially leave students and families stuck with more expensive student loans when interest rates rise with the market in the future.

To address this issue, the president's budget includes an expansion of the "Pay As You Earn" repayment option to all borrowers with federal student loans to ensure that no borrower is forced to pay more than 10 percent of his or her discretionary income on student loans.

If Congress doesn't choose a plan of action before July1, more than 7 million students and their families will see their rates jump from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent, compounding the myriad of other student debt worries expected this fall.

Foreclosed-on homeowners faced arrest by occupying the Department of Justice (DOJ), low-wage federal contract employees risked their jobs by striking for a living wage, and police showed civil disobeyers that old Occupy-like tactics would be met with force.

Both protests were somewhat desperate responses to desperate times. America is in a low-wage recovery—most jobs lost during the recession were middle-wage, and most jobs gained afterwards were lower-wage. The jobs that are available, including the non-unionized retail and food service jobs targeted by the DC strikes, pay less overall. And that means more people will have more trouble paying a mortgage that was negotiated when they had more income. 

“We’re here demanding that Eric Holder hold banks accountable,” said homeowner Gisele Mata, one of at least 27 people arrested outside the DOJ on Monday afternoon and Tuesday morning.

Mata said Bank of America refused to work with her family on a loan modification after she and her husband lost their jobs in the recession. Now Mata runs her own small business, her husband works at a job paying less than his previous one, and her daughter also contributes to the mortgage—but it’s still not enough for Bank of America to agree to modify.

Banks have paid out less than half of the already-meager settlement owed to homeowners; a few thousand dollars in compensation is nothing compared to the value of a home lost to fraudulent mortgage practices.

And when Attorney General Eric Holder has essentially admitted that some banks are “too big to jail,” some struggling current or former homeowners may feel they have no other choice than to lay their bodies on the line in hopes that someone will listen.

Occupying Again, For Homeowner Justice

The protest, organized in part by Occupy Our Homes and the Home Defenders League, included about 500 homeowners and supporters, some of whom came from as far away as California and Florida.

When the march reached the justice department, homeowners testified about their struggles while Department of Homeland Security police officers stood behind barricades armed with massive pepper-spray guns. 

A few marchers climbed over the barricades and were immediately snatched up by cops, some of whom looked ready to fire their less-lethal weapons.

But as more people crossed over and sat peacefully in the courtyard, police stood down and released detainees. Eventually, the DHS, DOJ, and other law enforcement officers completely retreated inside the building.

Then, a full-scale occupation ensued.

Homeowners took the term “sit-in” to a new level, plopping onto couches in front of the DOJ doors to wait for Holder.

Activists planted yellow and black Occupy Our Homes flags around the courtyard, transforming the building to look like a captured fortress. Tents used as props during the permitted march became functional shelters on the lawn.

Seventeen homeowners, including a few grandmothers, were arrested for refusing to budge from the front doors. Instead of their own names, they gave police those of bank CEOs like Jamie Dimon or Brian Moynihan.

At least two people were allegedly tazed, without provocation according to witnesses, when marchers who had split off to block traffic rejoined the homeowners. Zach Lerner, an activist with New York Communities for Change, displayed wounds from a tazer in this Vine clip.

Eventually things calmed down and the camping began: Donors brought pizza and cookies, a fight broke out and was settled, and a few dozen people sat with laptops or passed out in tents.

A DOJ police officer gave occupiers the scoop: Doors had to be unobstructed by morning, but the tents and decorations could probably stay a while. In fact, he said, he kind of liked the flags, and he even sympathized with the cause—he himself had recently been forced by Bank of America to short-sell his house.

But when the protesters were shaken from sleep at 5:30 a.m., DHS officers were evidently the ones in charge.

The street was lined with police tape and at least 20 law enforcement SUVs (almost one per protester at that point). One of the DHS officers had a bomb-sniffing dog—out of “an abundance of caution so close to the Boston Marathon bombings,” the officer said, glancing suspiciously at a bag of fruit. “A lot of innocents coming through.”

While surrounded by three large male cops and linking arms with other demonstrators, 23-year-old Carmen Pittman—who has long fought foreclosure of her grandmother’s home—was tazed and started writhing in apparent agony.

When another young woman expressed anger at this sight, witnesses alleged that she was grabbed from the crowd, leading to her violent arrest.

Protesters moved their belongings outside the police line as instructed, only to find 10 minutes later that the line had been moved 20 feet further out. They had to clamor to be allowed inside and retrieve their stuff. As for the tents being dismantled? “You’re not getting those back, you’ll just set them up again,” said one officer.

It was over before Tuesday's morning rush-hour began.

Demanding Fair Wages, From McDonald's and the Government

Low-wage employees have been striking around the country since September, when Wal-Mart workers first walked off the job and sparked similar walk-outs around the country. Then came strikes by New York City fast-food workers in November, which were followed by more NYC strikes last month, which spread to Chicago, St. Louis, Detroit, and most recently Milwaukee.

Many low-wage strikers are explicitly demanding a $15/hour living wage. They can't hope to support themselves, much less their families, on any current state or federal minimum wage, especially when so many jobs in this low-wage recovery have unpredictable hours and no benefits.

Tuesday's noon action at Union Station in DC was a rally in support of low-wage employees of federal contractors. A new report reveals that the federal government actually creates more low-wage jobs than Wal-Mart and McDonald’s combined, funding poverty-level wages with taxpayer dollars. 

Federal contractors employ about 2 million people who work in federal buildings and museums. They run cash registers, serve food, work as janitors, and perform other duties—sometimes for less than minimum wage. 

A few hundred of these workers walked off the job Tuesday to demand better wages and benefits. Good Jobs Nation, a new organization, is urging President Obama to sign an executive order requiring federal contractors to pay living wages and raise workplace standards.

Many of the earlier foreclosure protesters joined the noon rally, a spirited affair with a brass band and numerous speakers. 

“I’ve worked at Union Station for 19 years. I make $8.75 an hour,” said one employee.

Because many low-wage workers fear losing their jobs, these kinds of strikes have been smaller, haven’t necessarily closed businesses, and have mostly just drawn public attention to build momentum. On Tuesday, though, organizers said that a few fast-food stores in the Reagan Building food court had to close.

As workers marched chanting and singing through the echoing halls of Union Station, police left them alone for the most part. Two were arrested at the Air and Space Museum, though, where workers walked off the job and dropped a banner.

The foreclosure protesters engaged in civil disobedience at a federal building, which partly explains the vast difference in police presence between the two rallies. But longtime Occupy activists are familiar with the alarming escalation of protest crackdowns on display at the DOJ—and it might foreshadow what's in store for low-wage workers if they decide to take more drastic measures to voice their concerns.

The Clery Act, passed in 1990, requires universities to report crime statistics in an accurate and timely matter. The act was named for Jeanne Clery, a first-year student who was murdered in her dorm room at Lehigh University in 1986, and was designed to allow potential college attendees to make a safety-informed decision when choosing where to enroll.Yale was found to be in violation of the reporting requirement during the 2001-2002 academic year, having neglected to note four forcible sex offenses, each of which was assigned a $27,500 fine by the department—the maximum under law. Additionally, the DOE found Yale in violation of two other Clery requirements carrying a $27,500 fine, including a failure to include seven required policy statements in its annual crime reports.

The fines are a result of a seven year investigation into Yale's records starting in 2004, when a Yale alumni magazine brought light to the issue in an article titled "Lux, Veritas, and Sexual Assault." 

Yale subsequently altered its policies to ensure it fully complied with the requirements of the Clery Act, Title IX, and other laws related to the handling of sexual assault cases.

The fine will not have a significant effect on the university’s operations, but the negative media impact and the notoriety could impact Yale in its reputation, an area as cherished as its endowment. Unsurprisingly, Yale declared the fines excessive and vowed to fight for a reduction.

Elsewhere, faculty at Occidental College in California voted “no confidence” two weeks ago in Barbara Avery, Dean of Students, and Carl Botterud, College Counsel, in response to multiple allegations of sexual assault mismanagement.

Last week, the DOE Office for Civil Rights announced a formal investigation to determine whether Occidental violated federal law by mishandling sexual assault cases.

And Know Your Title IX, a crowdsourced initiative by sexual assault survivors, aims to raise $10,000 to “educate every college student in the U.S. about his or her rights under Title IX by the start of the next academic term.”