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In this newsletter: In an environment of rising rhetoric against transgender people across the nation, impending presentations by the College Republicans and Turning Point USA on Pitt's campus have energized the debate about hateful speech on campus.

In an attempt to elevate student voices, the superintendent of Pittsburgh Public Schools has introduced an initiative that would give students a say in how a fraction of the state-received funds could be used.

Our top story

Anti-trans speakers are coming to Pitt. Student safety and speech rights collide.

The events mark another flashpoint in the national debate over student safety and open expression in academia, with the backlash at Pitt rooted in concerns over the safety of LGBTQ students. A student petition calling for the university to cancel the events has collected more than 10,000 signatures, with supporters commenting that, “Hate should not be hosted at Pitt,” “I believe ALL should feel safe to be the way they are,” and, repeatedly, “Trans rights are human rights.”

Transgender people are over four times more likely to experience violent crime than cisgender people, and LGBTQ students at four-year universities have reported higher rates of bullying, harassment and assault than their non-LGBTQ peers. The Pennsylvania House LGBTQ+ Equality Caucus has called for the events to be canceled, as has the Pittsburgh branch of the NAACP. Civil liberties groups, by contrast, have said the free exchange of ideas – even those that are offensive or hostile – is central to democracy and higher education.

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NOT TO MISS

‘By us, for us.’ PPS students make decisions on how to spend ESSER funds

Pittsburgh Arts & Lectures welcomes three-term U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo to the Carnegie Music Hall in Oakland on March 27. The 2022/23 Ten Evenings series concludes with poet Hanif Abdurraqib on April 17 and novelist Hanya Yanagihara on May 8. Purchase your in-person or virtual tickets and subscriptions at pittsburghlectures.org.

WANT MORE? WE'RE ON IT..

The Allegheny County Health Department’s Air Quality Program is seeking unprecedented access to the Clean Air Fund, a coffer of nearly $10 million earmarked largely for community-based projects that address Allegheny County’s chronic air quality issues.
In a decision impacting property owners across Pittsburgh, the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania found the city government doesn’t have authority to require registration and inspections of rental housing. Mayor Ed Gainey said the city plans to appeal the case to the state Supreme Court.

FROM OUR ARCHIVES

Programming in Pennsylvania prisons gave this lifer purpose

Introducing the Rivers of Steel National Heritage Area

A GREAT READ

Inside the secret working group that helped push anti-trans laws across the country

Mother Jones

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