Let Justice Flow: Winter/Spring 2013

January 24, 2013

The following “Let Justice Flow” column by Bill Schulz was originally published in the Winter/Spring 2013 issue of Rights Now, UUSC’s semiannual newsletter.

We have recently been through an election in this country in which young voters played an important role in the victories of progressive candidates, the growth in women officeholders, and the changes in norms indicated by increased support for marriage equality. As is true almost everywhere, youth are signaling the shape of our future society.

I teach a course in human rights every January at New York University. I love doing that not only because it provides me contact with some of the brightest young people of the new generation but also because it reminds me that all things are possible. My students are not jaded or cynical; most of them are founts of innovative ideas and unstaunched ambition. They are not afraid of testing “crazy” theories or challenging common assumptions.

That’s why youth are so often the drivers of social change around the world, and since UUSC is bent on finding the most innovative, entrepreneurial approaches to the world’s problems, it’s also why we so often end up working with youth — in Haiti, Egypt, Kenya, and elsewhere. The new issue of Rights Now focuses in part on just that kind of work.

Nor do we forget that our own Unitarian Universalist youth can provide unlimited enthusiasm for social justice. The UU College of Social Justice, profiled in the new issue, is UUSC and the UUA’s vehicle for tapping into that energy.

Young people are making a new world. UUSC is committed to seeing that it is a just world. The combination is exceptional!