write & Publish an op-ed
Writing an “opinion” article for your school paper or for other campus publications can reach a wide audience. Publishing your opinion about political issues, mentioning Democracy Matters, and/or stating political facts on controversial issues will get attention.
An “opinion” article is a statement of what you think about a subject while trying to make as persuasive an argument as possible to convince others to agree.
Tips for Success
Length is typically about600 words (no more - but less is okay!)
Focus on a single issue or subject – no room for rambling.
Be timely. Choose a current political topic that you feel strogly about, that students will likely be interested in, and that you can explain to them why they should care about it.
Use clear, powerful and direct language. Avoid jargon,clichés, and overly long or complicated sentences. This is a persuasion piece!
Make it personal - use an anecdote example from your life or that of students you know.
Start by making your strongest point within the first two paragraph.
Back your basic argument up with thought-out reasons, facts and studies or reports. Personal anecdotes can be a good ways to start.
Focus on a single issue or subject – no room for rambling.
Don’t make it boring!!
Write assuming that your reader doesn’t know much if anything about this subject (or your argument).
Be timely. Op-eds submitted on issues in the news are more likely to be published.
Use clear, powerful and direct language. Avoid jargon and clichés.
The final paragraph should summarize your argument, leaving readers with what you think are the most important things for them to remember.
Start writing to get your ideas out and then edit, edit, edit!
Send a draft to Joan to get another set of eyes on it.
3 Op-Ed Examples
1) Why Democracy Matters (2015 - by DM students at the University of South Carolina)
As young people, we have been politically silenced. Big money campaign donors dominate our elections with their ability to overwhelmingly determine who runs for office, who wins, and what they vote for when elected. The use of restrictive rules like IDs to deny many people, including students, their right to vote in some states, reinforces alienation from and distrust in government. The result is a deep-seated cynicism among many students who, burdened by the cost of college, debt, or the inability to get good jobs after graduation, believe that they have no voice in politics.
But some of us are pushing back against the apathy that accompanies cynicism. We’ve become organizers for Democracy Matters (DM). DM is a non-profit national student organization that mentors and mobilizes high school and college students to become politically activists. By emphasizing the necessity of an strong and inclusive democracy, DM is engaging students in the struggle for reforms to make their voices heard and respected in the political process. DM students promote pro-democracy issues including public campaign financing, voting rights, gerrymandering, and government ethics. With non-partisan chapters at colleges and in high schools, DM students learn the skills of successful grassroots organizing, public speaking, and coalition-building. They become strong advocates for the critical issues of and need for reform to strengthen our democracy.
With creative discussion groups, lectures, educational poster campaigns, film screenings, in-class raps, video-making, and tabling, DM captures the interest of students and faculty. We organize voter registration drives and get out the student vote on election days. Wey hold DemoROCKacy parties with student bands, organize poetry slams, and feature open mic nights. In all of this, we raise awareness, urging others to join in to push back against attacks on our democracy. Founded by former NBA center, Adonal Foyle and two Colgate University professors,
Democracy Matters has been working on more than 1,200 campuses across the country since 2001. Mr. Foyle explain why he started the organization: “I wanted to give back to those who had helped make me politically aware in college. There are so many students who care about issues like the environment, health care, women’s and LGBTQ rights, gun violence, and mass incarceration. They want to be politically effective, but often don’t know how to go about it. Voting rights and money in politics are linked to all these causes, so working for a more fair and inclusive democracy is the best way to make progress on these and other issues.”
Foyle notes that the passage in 2019 in the House of Representatives of the FOR THE PEOPLE ACT (HR 1) gave hope to many young people that real political change is possible. That legislation mandated automatic voter registration, early voting, small donor public financing for Congressional elections, an end to partisan gerrymandering and ethics reform. “Democracy Matters students want to build on that success by mobilizing students into a powerful voice for reform,” says Foyle.
Democracy Matters works to ensure that their campuses engage in robust discussion of all the important issues raised by candidates running for national, state or local offices. DM helps young people and students everywhere to stand up and vote for the candidate of their choice.
As students, we want a voice in shaping our future. We understand that democracy matters. We are helping to create an American democracy we all can be proud of – one that is inclusive, fair, and truly of, by and for the people.
As young people, we are fighting for our future, fighting for our rights, fighting for democracy.
2) “Why I’m Voting” (very short but excellent!)
Today my friends and I are facing one of the most important decisions we can make – one that will affect our lives for years to come. Voting in this election is the chance to do something – to make a statement for ourselves about the often overwhelming problems of our country and the world. Voting is a decision to raise our voices in hope for the future.
There is so much at stake right now. We worry about the devastating floods, fires, and hurricanes that increase as climate change worsens. We’re anxious about whether we will be able to get good jobs when we graduate in a growing economy. School shootings and massacres that frightened us when we were young continue to haunt us. Congress has been sidelined, the press supeoned, And we fear that the rights that have already been taken away from us and from so many other Americans - reproductive rights, voting rights, and the right to protest peacefully – may be a warning of the collapse of democracy itself.
But every one of these problems has been created or worsened by decisions made by government leaders. And they can be changed in the same way. They can be addressed by electing a President and members of Congress who understand the urgency of working to undo what has been done. To push back against what the majority of Americans find appalling.
Young people in this country have a proud history of standing up and speaking out. As students, we need to honor that legacy by casting our vote for a better future on election day…and making sure that our friends do too!
3) “Get Off the Sidelines” (2020 by Adonal Foyle, President, Democracy Matters)
Can you imagine waking up one day to find our democracy gone? To find yourself in a country where rule “by the people, for the people” is replaced with a political system where only the super-wealthy or even one rich person makes the decisions and call sthe shots?
Sadly, this isn’t just a thought exercise. It’s happening to us right now. When mega-donations by rich political funders determine who runs for office and who wins elections, the foundations of our democracy erode and the peoples’ voice is silenced. Sometimes, the erosion is so slow, we hardly notice. But other times, it results from a single change that threatens our democracy.
On Jan. 21, 2010, the Supreme Court ruled on Citizens United v FEC, opening the door to unlimited anonymous corporate spending in our elections. The result has been to exponentially increase the power of private wealth in politics.
While life as we know it didn’t end that day, a decade later the impact of that decision still reverberates.
Citizens United, in essence, says corporate political spending is protected political speech. That means corporations and political action committees can spend as much as they want in support of a candidate, so long as that candidate doesn’t receive the money directly or coordinate with the donors about how it is spent.
As we pass the 10th anniversary of that ruling, we wake up to an America struggling to preserve one of our core beliefs — that our government was created to serve the interests of all its citizens. Instead, we have a political system where it is legal for a small group of mega-donors to fund candidates who win elections and then make rules that benefit the donors.
Applied to sports, it would be as if rich gamblers were allowed, by law, to pay off referees to favor one team over another. Sports would be ruined — everyone would know that the games weren’t fair. But today our political system is being ruined because of the power of big money in elections. Politics should be at least as fair as sports! Instead, we are selling our democracy to the highest bidder.
Both super PACs and political action committees funded by the rich are already on track to spend outrageous amounts in the 2020 election. You can draw a straight line from that money to policies and laws that will benefit the mega-donors — massive tax breaks for the wealthy, drug prices that most Americans can’t afford, and weaker environmental regulations among them.
But we don’t have to stand by and watch our democracy crumble. It’s not too late for us to find a way to put the big money genie back in the bottle.
We can organize and educate our friends and neighbors. We can turn out and vote. And we can urge others to do so as well. If you’re a student, you can get in the fight by joining my nonpartisan national student organization, Democracy Matters.
So, don’t just sit by and watch our democracy die. Get off the sidelines. Get in the game.