Higher Education

Kenya’s High Court Delivers Blow To Neoliberal University Funding Model

January 5, 2025 Nicholas Mwangi, People's Dispatch. Resist! Higher Education, Kenya, Legal System, Neoliberalism, Victory

The Kenya High Court delivered a landmark ruling on December 20, 2024, that declared the new funding model for higher education unconstitutional. The case, brought before the court by the Kenya Human Rights Commission and other organizations including the National Student Caucus, challenged the legality and fairness of the new model launched last year. In his ruling, Justice Mwita declared the new university funding model unconstitutional for several reasons. The high court noted that it violates Section 53 of the Universities Act by introducing policies that conflict with the law.

Voices From CUNY: Why We’re Voting No On The Proposed Contract

January 4, 2025 Left Voice. Resist! Contract Negotiations, CUNY, Higher Education, New York (NY), Unions

The leadership of the Professional Staff Congress (PSC CUNY) union, which represents more than 25,000 faculty and staff at the City University of New York, has once again agreed to a sell-out proposed contract and the membership are none too happy about it. Building a fighting union and winning a good contract begins with rejecting this memorandum of agreement and organizing students, faculty, and staff from the bottom up. Below, we reproduce several statements from members of the PSC CUNY on why they are voting no on this proposed contract.

Higher Education Must Champion Democracy, Not Surrender To Fascism

December 29, 2024 Henry A. Giroux, Truthout. Strategize! Democracy, Fascism, Higher Education, Neoliberalism, Student Activism

For decades, neoliberalism has systematically attacked the welfare state, undermined public institutions and weakened the foundations of collective well-being. Shrouded in the alluring language of liberty, it transforms market principles into a dominant creed, insisting that every facet of life conform to the imperatives of profit and economic efficiency. But in reality, neoliberalism consolidates wealth in the hands of a financial elite, celebrates ruthless individualism, promotes staggering levels of inequality, perpetuates systemic injustices like racism and militarism, and commodifies everything, leaving nothing sacred or untouchable.

Longtime Professor Resigns Over University Support For Gaza Genocide

December 16, 2024 Rochelle McLaughlin, Mondoweiss. Resist! Gaza, Higher Education, Israel, Palestine, Palestine Solidarity, Resignation

Please accept this as my letter of resignation from SJSU effective December 20, 2024. I have been teaching here for the past 20 years and I can no longer ethically or morally consent to use my labor in any way that supports an institution that is explicitly manufacturing consent for the unrestrained, illegal, “apocalyptic” ongoing series of “calculated” genocides to destroy the people of Palestine. I believe that neither our tax dollars nor students’ tuition ought to be funding genocides. Over the last 14 months, SJSU students and faculty along with our local community have been trying to hold up a moral and ethical compass for our university to stand up for humanitarian law, to speak up against killing innocent people, and to disclose and divest from war and weapons.

University Of Toronto Students Score A Win For The Climate

December 14, 2024 Nick Engelfried, Waging Nonviolence. Strategize! climate crisis, Divestment, Fossil Fuels, Higher Education, Student Activism, Toronto, Victory

When the University of Toronto’s School of the Environment announced in October that it will no longer accept donations from the fossil fuel industry, the news sent waves through the growing movement to get coal, oil and gas companies off campuses. Among other things, that means banning fossil fuel corporations from financing academic research. “This victory shows students have the ability to enact institutional change,” said Erin Mackey, a leader of the group Climate Justice UofT, which pushed for the fossil fuel money ban. “That’s especially important when, at many universities, students who want to make change are having the door slammed in their faces.”

Universities Continue To Retaliate Against Staff For Gaza Protests

December 11, 2024 Claudia Gohn, Mondoweiss. Educate! Campus Movement, Freedom of Speech, Gaza, Higher Education, Palestine, Palestine Solidarity, Political repression, student movement

Clara C. began working at Columbia University one month after the start of the genocide in Gaza in October 2023. She was hired in the Germanic Languages Department as a Department Assistant. Like many incoming members of the Columbia community, she had high hopes for her time at the university. Seven months later, the illusion of Ivy League ambition and a rich intellectual environment vanished when she was suspended from her post, ostensibly because of her involvement in the Gaza Solidarity Encampment. By early summer, she was terminated.

The New College Gambit

December 9, 2024 Kathryn Joyce, In These Times. Educate! Florida, Free Speech, Higher Education, Right wing politics

Ever since Jan. 6, 2023, when DeSantis appointed a series of right-wing activists to New College’s board of trustees with the mission to transform Florida’s weirdest, queerest public college into a “Hillsdale of the South” — emulating the Michigan Christian school known for its conservative “classical education” and hard-right politics—it was clear the takeover was meant to be a model. Nearly two years later — after interviews with current and former New College students, faculty and staff, extensive research of news and academic reports, firsthand reporting and numerous documents shared with In These Times—there’s no simple answer as to whether they’ve succeeded.

Wales Just Hit A Massive Green Energy Milestone

December 7, 2024 The Canary. Organize! Border Militarization, Divestment, Fossil Fuels, Higher Education, Wales

Earlier this week, it was revealed that over 75% of UK universities have now divested from the fossil fuel industry, illustrating how cutting financial ties with the industry is being increasingly recognised as a step that aligns with university goals and values. Laura Clayson, campaign manager at Climate Justice, said: This news is incredibly significant given how fossil fuels have shaped the nation’s recent history and landscape. It is an act of solidarity with frontline communities globally, as well as those within Wales itself. This includes the community surrounding the controversial Ffos-y-Fran, the UK’s last and largest open cast coal mine, which closed in 2023. The community continues to have to fight for justice, for everything from health impacts to restoration of the area, as the mining company continues to break their promises on each and every front. We hope this news provides some additional strength to their struggle.

Universities Are Ending Recruitment Ties To Fossil Fuel Companies

December 6, 2024 The Canary. Resist! Employment, Fossil Fuels, Higher Education, United Kingdom (UK), Wales

Aberystwyth University has committed to ending its recruitment ties with fossil fuel and mining companies. In doing so, it becomes the 10th UK university and the 3rd in Wales to exclude the fossil fuel industry from its careers and recruitment activities. In an updated Ethical Careers Policy published on Aberystwyth’s website, the university states that it will “no longer collaborate or hold relationships” with fossil fuel, mining or tobacco companies. The announcement makes Aberystwyth the 10th UK university and the 3rd in Wales to publish such a policy, following similar commitments from the Universities of Swansea in November 2023 and Wrexham in December 2022.

Organizing To Strike: How 20,000 California Workers Got Ready

November 19, 2024 Barbara Madeloni, Labor Notes. Organize! California, Higher Education, Strikes, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

Michael McGlenn is a clinical psychologist at the University of California-San Diego. Three years ago, feeling the pinch of dues, he looked into dropping the union. He felt that “the best I could do was see the person in front of me and care for them,” he said, and as far as he could see, the union had nothing to do with what happened in his office. That was until a member organizer went to see him. They talked about how his ability to care for his patients was related to turnover and understaffing that could only be fixed through collective action. That conversation not only kept McGlenn in the University Professional and Technical Employees—years later, he is a leader on his campus.

University Of South Florida Workers Lose Union And Rights

November 18, 2024 Simon Rowe, Fight Back! News. Educate! Anti-Labor, Florida, Higher Education, Tampa, Unions, University Workers, Worker Rights and Jobs

Tampa, Florida – On October 2, 355 University of South Florida (USF) employees discovered they would no longer be working for the state of Florida. Instead, beginning on December 1, custodial, groundskeeping and maintenance workers have a choice to work for a private dining and facilities contractor, Compass Group, or else find another job. In 2023, Senate Bill 256 passed in the state of Florida. SB 256 is among the most anti-union labor laws in the country and effectively decertifies any unionized bargaining unit in the public sector that does not meet a bar of at least 60% dues-paying membership.

Northwestern’s Campaign Against Palestine And Anti-Zionist Jews

November 13, 2024 Paz Baum, Mondoweiss. Resist! Anti-Zionism, Campus Movement, Higher Education, Israel, Judaism, Palestine, Palestine Solidarity, Repression, Student Activism

On the first day of Sukkot, the Jewish harvest holiday, I joined my fellow members of Northwestern Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) in constructing a sukkah on our campus. Just hours later, Northwestern staff tore down our religious structure — allegedly, they claimed, in the name of fighting antisemitism — but really because it dared express solidarity with Palestinians. Sukkot honors the displacement of our ancestors and the temporary structures they inhabited while fleeing slavery, and erecting a sukkah, a temporary shelter in which we dwell for eight days, is an essential part of celebrating this holiday.

The Crisis Of The Neoliberal University

October 30, 2024 Maryam Alaniz and Tatiana Cozzarelli, Left Voice. Strategize! Capitalism, Democrats, Higher Education, Neoliberalism, Republicans, Student Activism, Working Class

This past year in the U.S., a new chapter in class struggle has been written. Students, many from the Palestinian diaspora, anti-Zionist Jewish people, leftists, and people of conscience of all stripes have stood up against the genocide in Gaza. They have built encampments and questioned universities that run like businesses with investments in Israel. They have faced off the repression of university administrators while unmasking the imperialist character of both the Democrats and Republicans in office who help to send the police to beat up students and workers.

University Of Pennsylvania Police Raid Pro-Palestine Students’ Home

October 27, 2024 Penn Students Against the Occupation of Palestine, Popular Resistance. Educate! Campus Movement, Freedom of Speech, Higher Education, Palestine, Police, State Violence, Student Activism, University of Pennsylvania

On Friday, October 18 at 6 am, 12 Penn Police officers and one Philadelphia Police officer raided the home of pro-Palestine Penn students organizers. After threatening to break down the door with a battering ram and pointing a gun at their neighbor, they stormed the house in full tactical gear. The police banged on each door as students were sleeping, pointing rifles and handguns at their heads as they exited their rooms with their hands raised. Officers refused to show a warrant to residents of the house, and refused to provide their names and badge numbers. While the students were corralled by police in a room, one student was separated and taken in for questioning.

Tribal College Campuses Are Falling Apart

October 19, 2024 Matt Krupnick, ProPublica. Educate! Government Programs, Higher Education, Indigenous Peoples, Systemic Racism

In the 1970s, Congress committed to funding a higher education system controlled by Indigenous communities. These tribal colleges and universities were intended to serve students who’d been disadvantaged by the nation’s history of violence and racism toward Native Americans, including efforts to eradicate their languages and cultures. But walking through Little Big Horn College in Montana with Emerson Bull Chief, its dean of academics, showed just how far that idea has to go before becoming a reality. Bull Chief dodged signs warning “Keep out!” as he approached sheets of plastic sealing off the campus day care center. It was late April and the center and nearby cafeteria have been closed since January, when a pipe burst, flooding the building, the oldest at the 44-year-old college. The facilities remained closed into late September.

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