AOC's alma mater encourages donations to prison abolition group

Boston University published an article about trans awareness, including a suggestion to donate to a prison abolition group.

The Boston-based group was started as an “explicitly anarchist project” by Reverend Jason Lydon, a Unitarian Universalist minister.

Boston University published an article about transgender awareness in it, encourages students to donate to several groups to further the cause. One of those groups, Campus Reform discovered, openly calls for the abolition of prisons. 

The university’s official news site BU Today featured an article titled “How To Be an Ally to Transgender and Gender-Nonconforming People in the BU Community” on Nov. 16 outlining how to be a transgender “ally.” In a section suggesting that students “donate!” in order to help transgender people, the university suggests students donate to variety of different groups it lists. First on the list is Black and Pink, a group whose goal is to fight to abolish prisons, while also fighting for trans rights.  

“Black and Pink was founded in 2005 and is a national prison abolitionist organization dedicated to abolishing the criminal punishment system and liberating LGBTQ2+ people and people living with HIV/AIDS who are affected by that system through advocacy, support, and organizing,” the group’s website states.  

[RELATED: Students sue Harvard for prison investments, claim school is ‘complicit in white supremacy’]

The Boston-based group was started as an “explicitly anarchist project” by Reverend Jason Lydon, a Unitarian Universalist minister, who served at the Community Church of Boston from 2005-2012. While the organization seeks to help transgender people affected by violence and HIV/AIDS,  it makes no secret that another one of its major goals is to eliminate prisons and the criminal justice system. 

This was not the only group on the donation list that had ulterior political motives. 

The Solutions Not Punishment Collaborative looks to decriminalize prostitution, while the Transgender Gender-Variant & Intersex Justice Project (TGIJP), a group that has ties to George Soros’s Open Society and former Communist Party Leader Angela Davis, has called for abolishing the police and prisons.

[RELATED: U Arizona spends tens of thousands on transgender surgery lawsuit]

BU did not respond to requests for comment.

This is not the first time that a school media outlet has asked for donations to a controversial cause. In August, the school’s radio station, WTBU, planned to host  a virtual benefit concert to raise money for the Massachusetts Bail Fund, but canceled the event after it was revealed the organization posted bail for a convicted rapist, according to a report from the school’s newspaper, The Daily Free Press. 

Boston University is the alma mater of Democratic Socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who has also advocated for the defunding or abolition of prisons, the police, and ICE.

Follow the author of this article on Twitter: @AlexCorey320