Science for the People NYC

We are the New York branch of @sftporg! We think scientists should organize to fight oppression and build science that serves all.

[Sovereign Media @sov_media]

Education has long been a cornerstone of the Cuban Revolution, and universal education is one of its most successful goals. In 1961, Cuba carried out a mass literacy campaign, targeting the rural countryside. Illiteracy declined from 23% to 3.9% that year alone.

Today, despite a 66-year-long US blockade of Cuba, the country allots about 14% of its national budget to education. According to the World Bank, Cuba had a 98% literacy rate as of 2021, and according to UNICEF, a 100% primary school completion rate.

Education is completely free in Cuba, even to the highest level. This means that in addition to primary and secondary school, university education, postgraduate studies, medical school, and all other fields of study are accessible to Cubans at no charge.

According to the U.S. Department of Education, 79 per cent of adults in the United States had sufficient English literacy skills as of 2019. This means that one in five adults in the United States lacks these skills. In September 2025, the Nation’s Report Card revealed that reading scores for high school seniors dropped to the lowest average since 1992, signalling that literacy rates are falling. Reports state that even in the United States' top Ivy League Universities, current students struggle tremendously to read just a single book. Meanwhile, in other schools, some university students struggle to read just a single sentence. Professors at the University of California system are expressing frustration that their students lack basic middle-school math skills.

While the United States has long targeted Cuba and its socialist system, it seems that the island country's dedication to investing in accessible educational opportunities for every citizen has generated results superior to those of the capitalist United States, despite the fact that the latter has a much larger economy and more global power.

[CUNY4Palestine @Cuny4P]

🚨 FLOOD THE STREETS FOR DIVESTMENT 🔻
From Harlem to Gaza—Globalize the Intifada

📆 Thurs, April 30
⏰ 5:00PM
📍 116th & Amsterdam

2 yrs since NYPD raids on Gaza solidarity encampments—repression has only intensified. Repression won’t win. The student intifada is still strong!

[Labor for Palestine @Labor4Palestine]

#NYCMayDay2026 #NoSchoolNoWorkNoShopping! @JeffSchuhrke @alaa2325 @uaw4democracy @nycedpalestine @Teamsters_Mblz @PAL_Awda @Cuny4P @SftPNewYork @NYCLabor4Pal @uaw2325L4P @uawlabor4pal @workersworld

[VPol @VocalPolitics1]

Why did the US and Israel attack Iran’s Sharif University, its most advanced site of technological development? Dr. Farhad Ardalan, a renowned Iranian physicist and professor at Sharif University, explained in an interview with VPol contributor Dr. Helyeh Doutaghi (@Helyeh_Doutaghi).

￭ “We have to have an advanced military. We have to have an advanced industry. Israelis know this. They want to prevent it. So, this war was about prevention, destroying the industry in Iran, destroying the state structure, if possible, destroying the state itself to tear apart Iran into various pieces, and especially the modern military. Everybody knows that the future wars will be based on AI,” hence the targeting of the university’s data center/AI hub, and “drones, which we see are very important, already are a significant part of the military.”

#VPol

[Black Alliance for Peace @Blacks4Peace]

Today, just as it is doing in Venezuela and Iran, the U.S. ruling class is tightening its grip on the people of Cuba, attempting to break them and their revolution. And just as in those countries, they will fail—but we in the Global North must do our part!

[Science for the People @sftporg]

If you aren't already, everyone should be following @Helyeh_Doutaghi @VocalPolitics1 for more of this clear-eyed analysis and reporting from Iran.

[Helyeh Doutaghi | حليا دوطاقي @Helyeh_Doutaghi]

An occupying, colonizing force tells its victims that the path to freedom lies in betraying those who defend their sovereignty. Yet the students and educators of Iran’s University of Science and Technology, spoke to me of their determination to rebuild their university to advance their nations sovereignty:

“I remember, after the assassination of certain nuclear scientists, many of our best people had registered to study nuclear science. The same happened in Aerospace field.

The research center that was attacked stands as the culmination of twenty years of dedication by our researchers at the University of Science and Technology. I am confident that in less than two years, and even earlier than that, it will be rebuilt and surpass its previous level. for the knowledge forged here was created from nothing, and its legacy belongs to us.”

Dr. Meisam Farajollahi, faculty member at the university targeted by US-Zionist attack.

@sov_media @VoxUmmah

[Alice Malone @alicirce]

Throughout their program, the Black Panther Party emphasized the importance of knowledge as necessary for liberation.

[Alice Malone @alicirce]

Who owns knowledge?

In capitalism, capitalists control much of it through pay walls, trade secrets, IP, etc.

In their 1972 ten-point program, the Black Panther Party put forward an alternative:

"10. We want ... people's community control of modern technology."

[Adnan A. Husain @adnanahusain]

The remark about western academics still debating BDS motions after 2 years of genocide hits me hard. We struggled so hard to get a pension divestment motion passed but even the organizing group was fearful and reluctant to propose a BDS motion. There is even less urgency being expressed about this horrific war on Iran.

[Helyeh Doutaghi | حليا دوطاقي @Helyeh_Doutaghi]

Today was one of the most horrifying days of my life as an academic. Walking through Iran University of Science and Technology, a top-ranked public university in Iran, I was struck by the devastation. Only last month, this campus was alive with students, bustling between classrooms. Now, parts of the campus lie in ruins, classrooms shattered, hallways choked with dust and shattered glass.

I saw the offices of professors burned. A newly renovated building, where students gathered for programs, for socializing, for life, destructed.

One student, tearfully, told me: “My professor’s office was still burning a little. That’s where I used to wait for office hours. To ask questions. To appeal my grade.”

This is the same university that launched Iran’s Omid and Zafar 2 satellites, symbols of homegrown technological achievement. A week ago, one of its professors was assassinated. Yesterday, they bombed it.

From sanctions to targeted killings, to the bombing of research centers and universities, there’s a clear pattern: de-development & de-industrialisation/ the systematic dismantling of a nation’s indigenous development, its industrial base, its capacity to stand on its own.

We will never forget that as the American and Zionist war criminals blatantly target universities, schools, hospitals/ assassinating professors and killing children, and after 2 years or genocice, western intellectuals are still debating whether or not to pass a symbolic, non-enforceable BDS resolution.

Photos taken by me, full report incoming.

[Monthly Review @monthly_review]

If ever there was a field demanding systemic thinking, it is ecology. @sftporg

https://t.co/niVmNpGEhY

[Science for the People @sftporg]

The current issue of @sftpmag is now online.
https://t.co/McgkfEIQf8

[Alice Malone @alicirce]

New article by me in @sftpmag! "Who Owns Knowledge?"

How do aspects of capitalist production, like division of labour, mechanization, & IP law, shape scientific research?

How would socially-owned production of knowledge, like in Cuba's biotech sector, work better?

Link ⤵️

[Helena Sheehan @HelenaSheehan]

The current issue of Science for the People is now online. https://t.co/xe97iH420J

[Helena Sheehan @HelenaSheehan]

If you are a scholar in solidarity with Cuba, please consider signing this.

https://t.co/H7u0AiUQv9

[Science for the People @sftporg]

Please support the work of the Sameer Project with whatever you can!

[The Anti-Genocide Project @justinpodur]

Imperialists don't need you to love the empire.

Hating all their enemies, on their schedule, is just as good.

[The Sameer Project @sameerproject]

When you choose to donate to The Sameer Project, you have an immediate and important impact on a family in Gaza.

We hope this explains the process of how your donation - your monetary solidarity with people suffering - helps. You click donate and your funds go to the bank account of our fiscal host (The Social Change Nest, a registered organization), which is then transferred into Gaza. We have the accounts of pharmacists, whole-sellers, and our Gaza host account that receives the funds. This is where banking commissions and fees come in, at 11%. We use these funds to immediately purchase food, water, shelter, blankets, clothing - all urgent, basic necessities for life.

We have no other overhead (we receive grants for operational costs like phone bills and administrative/translation assistance), and 100% of your donations go to facilitate help in Gaza. We do not sit on money or keep large reserves - this is an emergency, this is a genocide, people need help NOW. This is what sets us apart from many other groups and NGOs. Our duty, with your help, is to provide what is needed for families suffering, who are in pain, who need assistance immediately for survival.

So please consider clicking that “donate” button today and your help will reach a family in need. Here is the link for The Sameer Project fundraising campaigns…

https://t.co/b9z82rVEaG

Other ways to donate include:
https://t.co/OmIU4SiNtb (Paypal option, please make sure to add a message saying "Winter")
https://t.co/fWlJpZkj23 (Venmo option, please make sure to add a message saying "Winter")

[teleSUR TV @teleSURtv]

#ENVIDEO | La ministra para Ciencia y Tecnología de Venezuela 🇻🇪, Gabriela Jiménez Ramírez, denunció la destrucción de cinco centros de investigación del Instituto Venezolano de Investigaciones Científicas (IVIC) como consecuencia de los ataques perpetrados por Estados Unidos