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Hunter College Exposed

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︎ Meeting the Chancellor (Undercover)




︎ File
The document for Chancellor Matos Rodríguez, as discussed in this video, can be viewed ︎here.

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The day after the “Diversity at Work” Construction Fund Conference, I sent an email to Chancellor Matos Rodríguez. 



I never received a response to this email, so I decided to look for support elsewhere... and discovered so many surprising things about CUNY that I need to share with you.

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︎ Free CUNY?


Since CUNY’s administrative leadership did not seem interested in working with me, I looked elsewhere in CUNY for support groups that could help me make this university a better place. This mission brought me to a Free CUNY campaign meeting right before the start of Fall 2019. At this meeting, I met activists that validated my concerns about Hunter’s plan to build a Starbucks on campus.

Free CUNY is a coalition of students and professors advocating for a tuition-free and fully funded university. Much to my excitement, the Free CUNY campaign advocates for a variety of different issues that center around student rights, positioning many of these problems as racial justice issues. Beyond abolishing tuition, this includes fighting for smaller class sizes, better funding for ethnic studies and the arts, living wages for adjunct professors, free metrocards for students, fixing broken infrastructure, and the de-escalation of campus police presence at our school.

More information about the Free CUNY campaign can be found here:

︎ Website:
︎free-CUNY.org
︎ Instagram:
︎@freeCUNY
︎ Twitter:
︎@CUNY_free
︎ Facebook:
︎Free CUNY




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︎ Other Key Players


Free CUNY is not the only organization that is advocating for a free and fully funded institution. Other groups at CUNY that are working hard to achieve this goal include:

  • $7K or Strike!
  • Professional Staff Caucus (PSC)
  • CUNY Rising Alliance
  • University Student Senate (USS)
  • New York Public Interest Research Group (NYPIRG) 



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︎ What makes Free CUNY unique?


While all of these groups envision a free and funded CUNY, every organization uses different tactics to further the goal. For example, USS and CUNY Rising are student groups that seem geared toward lobbying politicians and negotiating with our university’s leadership. On the other hand, $7K or Strike and PSC (our professor’s labor union) are two groups of professors that advocate against tuition increases. These professors show solidarity with students by urging CUNY’s leadership to not pass tuition increases.


Out of all these groups, Free CUNY is perhaps the most radical. Our group organizes disruptive protests and other forms of direct action. We are self-funded. Unlike some groups mentioned above, Free CUNY does not depend on the university for financial support. We are completely against CUNY’s new labor contract because we believe our professors deserve a much better deal. And we hold CUNY’s leadership accountable at every level including:

  • The Board of Trustees
  • College Presidents
  • Chancellor and Vice Chancellors
  • Mayor de Blasio
  • City Council 
  • Governor Cuomo
  • State Legislation in Albany
  • The millionaires and billionaires of New York City that aren’t paying their fair share in taxes.

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︎ What is Free CUNY up to?


September 2019

Arts and Propaganda Event


October 2019

Arts and Action Event


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Protests


October 21st, 2019¸

Direct Action at the Board of Trustees Public Hearing


︎ Video

November 1st, 2019

Free CUNY Statement on Policing in NYC and City University of New York Campuses

The students of the City University of New York have written this statement in response to the use of state-sanctioned violence by the police to terrorize people using public transportation. Many working-class students of color rely on the MTA to attend their classes on the various CUNY campuses across the five boroughs. Aside from being students, we are members of the NYC community who are subject to this violence outside of our campus walls. We know that the increase of police presence is not a coincidence, it is tied to the city council’s recent decision to build four new jails. We also know that if they build the jails they will fill them.

We see the link between the violence that police perpetrate in the MTA, and the violence CUNY enables against students. Whether it is Brooklyn College’s current president Michelle Anderson reaffirming her support for the NYPD, or City College allowing military recruiters on campus, the students of CUNY are constantly witnessing the over-policing, surveillance, racist education (by campus security and other entities), and the overwriting of their own histories. CUNY has called the cops on their students, CUNY has built walls and fences around their campuses that tell (some) students that they are welcome but their communities are not.
CUNY fosters an environment where students and faculty are supposed to see the community as outsiders and ourselves as insiders. CUNY wants to educate the elite, a ruling class, cops, congressmen. They allow racism and white supremacy to prosper on their campuses. The education CUNY provides is not meant to empower the students, nor is it meant to encourage us to embrace ourselves – it is meant to sever our ties with our communities. The administrations on campuses view the police as protectors, but we know that the police were slave catchers, they enforce settler colonialism, they kill indigenous people, they bust unions, they serve the ruling class--the ruling class we refuse to perpetuate.

We must turn CUNY into an anti-carceral institution by first removing the forces on campuses that propel students and our communities into prison. We are against tuition increases that fund increased police presence on campus that is for the purpose of surveilling students.

The city government will complain that there is no money for housing, for K-12 schools, for homeless people, for CUNY, for the MTA, for NYCHA, for anything that will help poor folks, but there is money in every budget for police, jails, and surveillance. Fuck that noise.

Student Group Endorsements:

  • Free CUNY!
  • Brooklyn College Student Union 
  • Brooklyn College Socialists
  • Brooklyn College Students for Justice in Palestine 
  • City College Young Democratic Socialists of America
  • City College of New York Students for Justice in Palestine
  • Fordham Students for Justice in Palestine
  • Fordham Socialist Students Coalition 
  • Hunter Palestine Solidarity Alliance
  • May Day Student Organization
  • Mexican Heritage Student Association at Brooklyn College
  • New York University Students for Justice in Palestine 
  • New York University Jewish Voice for Peace 
  • Puerto Rican Alliance at Brooklyn College
  • Puerto Rican Association at New York University
  • 7k or Strike! 
  • Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine

Works Cited:

Anderson, Michelle J. “Statement from Brooklyn College President Michelle J. Anderson Regarding the Monday, Nov. 20 Story in the NY Post.” 17 Nov. 2017. https://www.brooklyn.cuny.edu/web/news/bcnews/bcnews_171121.php
Thompson, Ian. “Against the War Machine: Military Recruiters Face Youth and Student Resistance.” http://www.endusmilitarism.org/studentsresistrecruiters.html




TO BE CONTINUED

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