BRONX, NY, February 16–“If you love CUNY so much, why don’t you take a pay cut?”
City University of New York (CUNY) students militantly challenged University Provost Wendy Hensel at her administration’s “Listening Tour,” a liberal sham of an event with the intent of squelching the rebellion of antiracist, working class youth. Along with students, CUNY professors and staff members are fighting back against tuition increases and racist austerity in the higher education system. One young comrade led chants for the first time, ensuring the administrators could hear us from outside.
This is the fighting spirit workers worldwide need to see, especially on International Workers’ Day, May Day! Fellow antiracist fighters at Kingsborough Community College joined with CUNY students later in the week to share their organizing experience against police terror on campus and in the streets. It’s important for the future of our class that students make connections across campuses as a way to gain confidence in our class’ ability to control our own education and labor.
Liberals: The wolves in sheep’s clothing
CUNY is a perfect example of liberal bosses being a greater danger to our class. Every political leader involved, from the president of KCC, the CUNY Chancellor, the mayor of New York City, to the governor of New York State (who is pushing for a raise in tuition at CUNY), are liberals. They are hiding behind their “identities,” planning to launch wave after wave of racist attacks while hoping to diffuse the anger of students and workers. Members and friends of Progressive Labor Party have consistently exposed these misleaders for what they are: agents of capitalism and enemies of the working class.
Capitalism is the deficit
According to the racist administrators of CUNY, the university system has a $194 million “structural deficit.” During the Covid-19 lockdown, the federal government provided hundreds of millions of dollars to CUNY – which they promptly used to cover previous deficits and to buy equipment they could use to push unproven online teaching practices. The torrent of federal funding did nothing to improve the education of the more than 200,000 primarily Black and Latin students at CUNY. Class sizes increased, despite the clear evidence that online courses need to be smaller for students to learn effectively (see study, Oregon State University, 11/1/2021). Furthermore, administrative offices such as the registrar and financial aid suffered a loss of staff that was not replaced. Now that these federal dollars have dried up, the racist austerity at the core of the entire system has reared its ugly head.
CUNY’s answer to this deficit is two-fold: the first is to fire as many part-time professors (adjuncts) as possible, and the second is to harass our students to pay the tuition that they owe. Capitalists always try to make us pay for the crises in their system. In this case, the University Provost, who makes $488,000, was there to explain why the students and workers of CUNY will have to tolerate even more racist cuts. We met her with a loud protest, highlighting that these rapacious vipers saw fit to give themselves 30 percent raises right before the cutbacks were announced! We stressed both the need for multi–racial unity to fight back and the need for students and workers to fight together. As part of our ongoing struggle within the group, we raised the question of whether education under capitalism will ever be willing or able to properly educate our class.
Fightback forum – KCC leads the way!
In the Bronx , workers and students have taken inspiration from our class brothers and sisters at Kingsborough Community College (KCC), who, as reported in the pages of CHALLENGE, have taken on the racist administration at KCC. Later in the week, the brave students of KCC visited our campus to describe the ongoing fight against their racist administration, which continues to target antiracist students and professors while giving an openly racist student a security detail as he moves about the campus. Forty students and professors had a chance to learn about organizing and fighting back against fascist attacks from the KCC administration, which happens to be Black and Latin. We discussed how to counter identity politics, how to maintain the fighting spirit after months of work, and how to build a multiracial group that can respond to every attack with strength. Students from both campuses got a chance to exchange ideas and experiences and also enjoy some delicious food prepared by the mutual aid kitchen, La Morada, which has been supporting workers in the South Bronx community with hot meals, clothing drives, and solidarity. The forum ended with a group photo – students and workers from across CUNY, fists up in solidarity, giving a glimpse of the power that our class possesses.
Another world is possible!
The students and workers of CUNY need communism. We need a system where workers can truly be educated on what’s best for our class and how to organize society around our needs. No more racist administrators protecting racist students, no more racist cuts in education, no more precariously-employed adjuncts scraping by before being unceremoniously dumped into unemployment. This week, students and workers in the Bronx were nudged closer to seeing this future as one they are willing to fight for. We hope to bring a large contingent to May Day and bring them even closer!