CUNY is swimming in cash. The federal stimulus packages have provided CUNY with $841 million. Hostos received $15 million and Lehman $30 million from Mackenzie Scott. Yet class sizes have increased, sections have been canceled, and student services have declined. At the same time, economic stress has increased tremendously during the pandemic.
The Student Strike Committee is launching a summer campaign to address three specific aspects of the austerity regime at CUNY:
- Cancel bursar holds. At many campuses, we were prevented from registering for classes due to bursar holds, sometimes for as little as a few hundred dollars. Delaying our educational progress for these tiny amounts of money is criminal.
- Reduce student fees. The last year has brought economic hardship to tens of thousands of CUNY students. Many of us are unable to pay our rent, our bills, and provide for our families. CUNY should eliminate student fees for the foreseeable future.
- Rehire all adjuncts and college assistants. In the summer of 2020, nearly 3,000 part-time professors (adjuncts) were laid off. Only 1,000 have been rehired. These are hard-working, low-paid members of the CUNY community (they earn about $3200 per course) who lost their livelihoods—and in some cases their health insurance—in the middle of the COVID crisis.
Throughout the summer we will be agitating, organizing, educating ourselves, and building a movement of students and workers that will oppose these racist conditions. It’s up to us! College presidents, CUNY executives, and New York politicians will not come to our rescue. Only a broad, militant movement will force them to use these funds to serve CUNY students and workers.
Join the Student Strike Committee as we build this movement!
Find us on Instagram @cunystudentstrikecommittee.
Meet on Bedford Park Blvd b/w Park & Goulden at 12:00 on Friday, July 23, 2021.
Sponsored by the Hostos/Bronx Action Committee of the PSC.
