Higher Education

Organizing For Better Wages Across Sectors At Swarthmore College

June 27, 2023 Solidarity At Swat, Left Voice. Strategize! Higher Education, Pennsylvania, Student Activism, Wages, Worker Rights and Jobs

Solidarity at Swat started after a Swarthmore College alum, John Braxton ‘70, spoke on campus at an event organized by members of Swarthmore’s Young Democratic Socialists of America and suggested that we find a material issue that unites people on campus. Staff wages were previously raised to a $15 minimum, but student wages were not raised alongside this and remained quite low. We started advocating for a student-worker minimum wage of $15. At that time, we rhetorically showed support for staff wage increases and made the case that a raise in student wages would also induce an increase in staff wages.

Decolonizing Knowledge Means Supporting The Academic Boycott

June 26, 2023 Julia Elyachar, Mondoweiss. Resist! Anthropology, BDS, Decolonize, Higher Education, Israel, Palestine

It is a week since the vote in the American Anthropological Association membership to boycott Israeli institutions went live. What happened during that week? Sedil Naghniyeh, a fifteen-year-old from Jenin, died on Wednesday of a gunshot wound to her head. Israeli soldiers shot her on Monday, June 19, while she was standing in her front yard. Six others died and tens were wounded during that same attack on Jenin. On that day, hundreds of Israeli Jewish settlers descended on the Palestinian village of Turmus Ayya, just north of Ramallah. As per a Ha’aretz editorial, the scene is familiar: “cars are torched, windows are smashed, flames rise from among the houses…police and army let the attacks happen, as they have for decades.”

CUNY Shuts Down Social Justice Center Over Pro-Palestine Exhibit

June 26, 2023 Left Voice. Resist! CUNY, Higher Education, Israel, New York City (NYC), Palestine, Zionism

Faculty and staff at the Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC) in New York City have issued a statement (posted below) decrying the proposed closure of the school’s newly established Social Justice and Equity Centers (SJEC). The SJEC, which was founded only last year with a mission to offer programs, events, workshops, and training for and about historically marginalized and oppressed groups at the college, is planned to be closed on June 30. Although the administration told the Centers’ workers that they were being shut down because of a lack of funding, it’s highly unusual for a college to found a new center like this only to close it less than a year later.

How Students Jumpstarted A Bold New Campaign For Debt Abolition

June 22, 2023 Eric Stoner, Waging Nonviolence. Organize! California, Higher Education, Student Activism, Student Debt

The historic movement victory to forgive student debt won last summer is under relentless attack. At the beginning of June, the Senate passed a bill blocking President Biden’s debt cancellation plan, which he subsequently vetoed. However, the plan remains on hold as the Supreme Court considers dubious challenges to it. Another blow came with the signing of the bipartisan debt ceiling deal that will restart student loan payments at the end of August. In response to these ongoing threats, students are once again taking action — rallying outside the Supreme Court in February and organizing a sit-in at House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s office on Capitol Hill in May.

Colonial Universities Grab Land For Profit, War, And Medical Apartheid

June 19, 2023 Map Liberation. Educate! Boston, Higher Education, Land grabs, Massachusetts

Universities on Turtle Island, as la paperson writes, “are land-grabbing, land-transmogrifying, land-capitalizing machines.” Indigenous land theft, and profits from slavery, enabled these universities to be built in the first place – and they still collect profits from stolen lands.[1] With this accumulated capital, major US universities have become colonial real estate agents. Harvard University, notably, owns land all over the world – from vineyards in Washington state to farmlands in Brazil, South Africa, New Zealand, and Romania.[2] Harvard’s land-grabbing machine has harmed Indigenous communities, poisoning their water and crops in Brazil, and denying access to burial sites and pasture land in South Africa.

He Thought He’d Been Accepted To A Canadian University

June 14, 2023 Saurav Sarkar, The Real News. Resist! Canada, Deportation, Higher Education, Immigration, Scams

As the days and hours melted away, it was looking like all hope was lost: Tuesday, June 13, was going to be Lovepreet Singh’s last day in Canada before being deported. “[My family] sacrificed their whole life savings to sponsor my education here… and I’m facing deportation,” Singh told CBC News last week. “My dream is shattered,” he added. Now, thanks to a formidable protest mounted by international students and former students facing similar circumstances, Singh will be allowed to stay, at least temporarily. Singh, whose father is a farmer in Punjab, India, entered Canada several years ago on a student visa with an admissions letter verifying his enrollment at Lambton College’s Mississauga campus—a letter that he did not know had been doctored.

Solidarity Propelled Union Drive At The Country’s Richest University

June 13, 2023 Dusty Christensen, In These Times. Organize! Boston, Harvard, Higher Education, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

Boston, Massachusetts - In February, after five years of organizing under the radar, members of the nascent Harvard Academic Workers officially went public with their intent to unionize. The road to going public wasn’t always straightaway. In January, as the group of non-tenure-track teaching and research employees moved closer to announcing their drive, union member Kara Fulton and her fellow organizers were having as many feelings of discouragement as they were elation. “It felt like we were kind of working on our own,” she said. But then, later in January, other workers from across the Harvard campus and other Boston-area unions put fuel to their fire at a quickly organized roundtable event.

University Of Washington Postdocs And Research Scientists Go On Strike

June 10, 2023 Mantak Singh, Fightback News. Organize! Graduate School, Higher Education, Labor Unions, Washington State, Worker Rights

Seattle, WA - On June 7, postdoctorates and research scientists and engineers (RSEs) at the University of Washington Seattle, members of the UAW 4121 went on strike. Over 700 workers, students and community members turned out to picket lines in support. While postdoctorates and RSEs have separate bargaining committees, they are united in their fight for a strong contract. In December 2021, RSEs submitted a union certification petition, and they are still fighting to achieve a strong agreement. The certification process faced a significant delay of over six months when the University of Washington administration contested the inclusion of more than 300 individuals in the bargaining unit.

Attacks On Student Loan Forgiveness Threaten Millions In The US

June 3, 2023 Natalia Marques, People's Dispatch. Educate! Debt, Finance and the Economy, Higher Education, Student Loans

US Senators from the Republican and Democrat parties pushed to quickly approve the bipartisan debt ceiling deal on Thursday night, June 1. Republicans, led by Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy, successfully negotiated severe cuts on government spending in a way that will hurt workers the most out of any class: by kicking millions off of food and health benefits, cutting the IRS making it easier for the wealthy to evade taxes, and officially putting an end date to the current freeze on student loan payments. Senate leaders pushed this bill through to ostensibly to avoid a government default.

Campus Cops Intimidate Graduate Workers In Ann Arbor, Michigan

June 3, 2023 Left Voice. Resist! Graduate School, Higher Education, Michigan, Strikes, Worker Rights and Jobs

On Sunday, May 21, 2023, at 6:30pm, DPSS police officer John Buehler (#167) approached a graduate student in GEO (AFT Local 3550) at their home. Buehler knocked on the door and the student answered, and the cop proceeded to attempt to intimidate the student as they stood in the doorway. Buehler threatened to file a report with the Washtenaw County prosecutor’s office regarding a previous picket action, advised the student to “reach out to Student Legal Services,” and left his business card. On Monday, May 22, 2023, at 10:00am, another graduate student with GEO received an email from the same cop, John Buehler, making similar demands of this student.

The US Supreme Court Seems Ready To Gut Affirmative Action

May 27, 2023 Brandon Tensley, Capital B. Educate! Affirmative Action, Higher Education, Supreme Court, Systemic Racism

This summer, the U.S. Supreme Court’s Republican-appointed majority is anticipated to end affirmative action, which for decades has sought to remedy a bruising legacy of discrimination against marginalized groups, including Black Americans. Nearly 10 years ago, Students for Fair Admissions, an organization headed by Edward Blum, a stockbroker turned conservative legal strategist, filed lawsuits against Harvard University and the University of North Carolina, claiming that their undergraduate admissions practices are racially discriminatory. The lower courts sided with the defendants, but the high court in the coming weeks is expected to say that schools are barred from considering race when reviewing applications.

The Tampa 5 Are Facing Ten-Plus Years In Jail

May 21, 2023 Freedom Road Socialist Organization, Fight Back News!. Resist! Criminal Justice and Prisons, Florida, Higher Education, Tampa 5

Tampa, Florida – Florida state prosecutor Justin Diaz it trying to put the Tampa 5 in prison. The Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) members, arrested at a campus protest against the racist agenda of Governor Ron DeSantis, each face a trumped-up felony charge, alleging “battery on a police officer,” carrying five years of jail time. When the activists rejected a plea deal requiring them to apologize for doing the right thing, the prosecutor added on more felony charges. This means that three of the activists are facing more than ten years behind bars. In addition, the activists face ten misdemeanor charges.

Howard Students Protest Biden

May 21, 2023 Howard University Students, Workers World. Resist! Higher Education, Housing, Howard University, Student Activism

We are exhausted by the lack of resources we had as Howard Students, struggling to keep up with increasing tuition rates and inadequate housing options, amidst the corporatization of our board of trustees, and the fight to renew student, faculty and community voting representation within it, let alone the ongoing gentrification of D.C. at large, to which Howard University and its affiliates are a party. We maintain countless grievances and will not sit silently and allow them to go unrecognized, especially in light of campaign season. On today, May 13, 2023, our graduation day and the 38th anniversary of the MOVE bombing, we choose to advocate. When there is no justice, there should be no peace.

Chris Hedges: Sammy Goes To School

May 15, 2023 Chris Hedges, Scheer Post. Educate! Higher Education, Mass Incarceration, Prison Industrial Complex, Trauma

Newark, NJ - We know the story. The absent father who leaves when his son is five-years-old and moves back to Puerto Rico. The single mother, rarely at home because she works long hours to keep her three children fed and pay the rent. The poverty. The crime. The instability. Later, the stepfather who drinks, uses drugs and beats his stepchildren. The child acting up. Dropping out of school. Joining a gang. The robberies. The one that went wrong and left a man dead. Prison. The students I teach in prison have variations of the same story. They are funneled into the maw of the prison-industrial-complex, the largest in the world, and spat out decades later, even more lost and traumatized, to wander the streets like ghosts until most, unequipped to survive on the outside and without support, find themselves back in the old familiar cages.

NYC Mayor Adams Is Met With Boos At CUNY Law School Graduation

May 15, 2023 Michael Gartland, NY Daily News. Resist! CUNY, Eric Adams, Higher Education, New York City (NYC), Student Activism

New York City, New York - Mayor Adams was greeted with boos and turned backs during a CUNY Law School commencement address Friday — a day after City University students and professors protested against budget cuts laid out in the mayor’s most recent spending plan. Friday’s public demonstration, which was reminiscent of NYPD officers turning their backs on former Mayor Bill de Blasio, came as the current mayor was urging graduates to “get on the field and participate about improving the lives of the people of this city.” As he spoke, boos could be heard echoing throughout the auditorium, with dozens of graduates turning their backs.

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