Students and Profs Rally Against State University Cuts, Racism

CHICAGO, March 24 — Chicago State University (CSU) President Watson must go, but students and faculty have different reasons from the Board of Trustees who want to fire him. A March 8 rally at the student union building, organized by faculty members who are building unity with students and campus workers, rang with chants of “Watson Must Go.” They condemned his disregard of the needs of CSU’s mostly-black student body and its workers and his tight control and clamp-down on all forms of dissent.
Several responded immediately when invited to speak on the open mike at the rally. A few students complained about things like broken classroom computers, parking lot potholes, and high fees in the dorm, but others called for unity and fighting back. A cafeteria worker spoke about their year-long struggle for a union contract. A professor, and PL’er attacked Watson’s hiring of his friends to fill teaching positions while ignoring faculty recommendations to hire a better-qualified black adjunct, who is also a CSU alumna.
Following the rally many of us went to a nearby meeting of the CSU Board of Trustees. Board President Gary Rozier, who is black and was appointed by Governor Quinn, wants to replace Watson, who is also black, for reasons not yet clear. Their battle over Watson’s exit has been playing in the press for  days and is still undecided.
PLP supported the rally with a leaflet explaining that the Watson-Rozier battle is a racist attack on students, workers, and faculty, and that their fight is not our fight. While they have their squabble, the rest of us are suffering state budget cutbacks. Monetary Award Program (MAP) grants have been cut by 12.5% and Governor Quinn has announced more higher education cutbacks in his new budget proposal. In addition, the state currently owes CSU $23 million in aid.
But this has not stopped Quinn from awarding tax breaks to his capitalist masters at Sears, Motorola, and The Mercantile Exchange. Our job in PLP is to explain to students, workers and faculty how capitalism inevitably makes these crises, and to win them to fight for communism. On the other hand Watson and Rozier, a senior VP at Ariel Investments, believe in capitalism and in educating students to meekly accept the tyranny of the capitalists.
Under capitalism, education serves the system and its ideology. Students’ needs rank far behind the need of U.S. imperialism to control the world’s energy resources. Obama and the Congress will pay for a new drone base in Niger, to spy on Chinese uranium mining interests, but not for jobs. Sequestration is expected to eliminate 750,000 jobs nationwide and to cut the U.S. Education Department budget $70 million, or 4.6 percent.
Progressive Labor Party fights for communism, which will enhance every worker’s contribution to society with cradle-to-grave education. Under communism all students and workers will be educated to scientifically analyze society and to exercise leadership in preserving the rule of the working class. We will learn cooperation, working for each other, instead of competing for the few crumbs allowed by capitalism. PLP believes in fighting, for working-class power through revolution for communism. JOIN US!