My Blog

Testimony Opposing HB1094 / SB793 Maryland House and Senate Judiciary Committees Corey Payne, Graduate Student at Johns Hopkins University February 22, 2019 My name is Corey Payne. I am a sociology Ph.D. student at Johns Hopkins University, an alumnus of JHU’s undergraduate program, and a six-year resident of Baltimore’s 43rd district. I am testifying today…… Continue reading My testimony opposing JHU’s private police bill

Mira Wattal, Emeline Armitage, and I got the old Hopkins SDS band back together last week for an op-ed in the Baltimore Sun regarding the recent revelations that JHU has been collaborating with ICE–to the tune of (at least) $10 million–since 2009. While any left-of-center citizen worth their salt has already come around to the…… Continue reading Johns Hopkins, ICE, and the Militarized University

Two years ago, I wrote my first article in Jacobin Magazine. I had naively drafted it part way through my first extended stay in Havana, before I had fully understood the imperial power dynamics undergirding my relation to the revolution. The main problem discussed in the article is, in my current view, still relevant: the…… Continue reading A Self-Critique in Defense of Cuba

“We are people of this generation, bred in at least modest comfort, housed now in universities, looking uncomfortably to the world we inherit.” These opening words of the Port Huron Statement defined a student movement for a generation that would become known for both its vision for a better world and its activism to make…… Continue reading The University as a Space—and a Tool—for Left Organizing

Today I testified before the City Council supporting the Displaced Workers Protection Ordinance. This bill would give contracted service workers the guarantee of continued employment when contractors change. This is a policy we have been fighting for at Johns Hopkins for a year, with little progress. I’m glad to have been a part of the bill’s…… Continue reading Testimony to Baltimore City Council

I stole this idea from a journalist friend who writes WAY more than I do– you can check out her great list here– but I thought this would be a nice way to reflect on my studies and struggles throughout the year. Here is a list of the articles that I am proudest of this year:…… Continue reading My Publications from 2016

This article originally appeared in Jacobin Magazine on 10/25/16 The School of Subcontracting Universities use subcontracting to distance themselves from their low-wage employees’ needs. by Corey Payne The National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) decision to classify graduate student teachers and researchers as employees in addition to students — granting them the right to employee protections and unionization — is…… Continue reading The School of Subcontracting

This op-ed originally appeared in The Baltimore Sun on 7/29/16 By Corey Payne, Gracie Hargrove, and Chase Alston Johns Hopkins University and the AlliedBarton security guards who patrol its Homewood campus have a subcontracting relationship — removing much of the responsibility of labor protections and adequate support from JHU and placing it on a “middle man.”…… Continue reading JHU efforts to cut a union company raises doubts about its commitment to Baltimore

This article originally appeared in CounterPunch Magazine on 5/31/16. After President Obama’s historic trip to Havana this spring, liberal politicians and pundits have praised the Administration’s policy of temperance towards the United States’ long-time adversary. Since Presidents Obama and Castro announced the “normalization of diplomatic relations” in December 2014, the U.S. government has claimed credit for allowing…… Continue reading Reentry Through Resistance

This article originally appeared in Jacobin Magazine on 4/8/16 Last month, Barack Obama became the first US president in nearly ninety years to set foot in Cuba and the first ever to make an official state visit to the island. Obama’s trip came on the heels of his historic decision to re-establish diplomatic relations with…… Continue reading After the Blockade