College students demand eight hours of sleep per night
Zachary Petrizzo, George Mason University - The College Fix
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Causes advanced by democratic socialists are many: tuition-free college, universal health care, a federal jobs guarantee, a “living wage,” and much more.
Now they’re adding a new “right” to the list — the right to eight hours of sleep per night. Apparently, gone are the days when pulling an all-nighter is a rite of passage for college kids.
A group of democratic socialist students at the Georgia Institute of Technology has launched a campaign demanding that campus leaders allow for eight hours of sleep every night.
“We’re beginning our 8 Hours Campaign! If you are not getting enough sleep due to coursework overload or academic committments [sic], email us! We will advocate for you; confronting professors, challenging administration, and so forth to make a real committment [sic] to the health of every student. Everyone deserves 8 hours of sleep,” stated an emailed memo from the Young Democratic Socialists of America at Georgia Tech obtained by The College Fix.
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The email was sent out in early November, and the group has since upped the ante.
More recently, on Dec. 6, it published an open letter to university President George Peterson outlining their formal grievances regarding mental health on campus and alluding to students’ suffering sleep cycles.
“Some professors still hold their students to unreasonable expectations. There are professors who announce to their students that losing sleep and pulling all-nighters to finish assignments is expected for them to excel in the course,” the letter states. “ … This behavior is unacceptable.”
The letter also calls for the university to hire more counselors and psychiatrists, and demands that the campus make classes easier and less competitive and reduce student coursework.
“Classes should be graded based on students learning course material as well as transparent criteria of course objectives, instead of through opaque bell curves that pit students against each other,” the letter states.
They also want campus leaders to “eliminate all fees for psychiatry appointments.”
So far, hundreds of students have signed the letter. As for the letters’ signers, some have expressed praise for the YDSA chapter for fighting for healthcare, calling it a “right.”
The College Fix has reached out multiple times to members of the Young Democratic Socialists of America at Georgia Tech for comment. They have ignored those requests.
But in addition to calling for eight hours of sleep every night, they have also begun calling for eight hours of free time, too.
With the growing popularity of Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and democratic socialism among young people, the Young Democratic Socialists of America has not steered away from controversy. Earlier this year the national organization urged socialists to “infiltrate” higher education, while more recently the Georgia Tech chapter launched a petition to disinvite Condoleezza Rice from speaking at the university’s December commencement.
