Imaan Javeed on the Connections between Socialism and Islam
Thanks, But No Thanks
Letter to Governor Scott and the Vermont National Guard from Essential Workers, drafted by Mari Cordes (VFNHP, UVM Medical Center) and Brian Cina (AFSCME Local 1674, Howard Center; CVDSA). If you are an essential worker, follow this link to sign it.
Essential workers deserve to be thanked. Essential workers have been working in the hospitals, the community health centers, the mental health system, the grocery stores, the gas stations, the departments of public works; as municipal employees, farmworkers, hardware store workers, emergency services personnel, law enforcement and others.
We are thankful to the essential workers serving in the military, especially for your hard work in building surge facilities and distributing food around the nation. Although workers appreciate the sentiment behind the display of the military jets by the United States Air Force, we do not believe this is the best way to thank us. Every flight is a massive financial expense, with the price of up to $44,000 per flight. The cost doesn’t stop there. There are health care impacts associated with these jets including excessive noise, a huge carbon footprint, and other environmental damage.
If the Federal Government wants to thank us, here are some better ways to spend this taxpayer money:
-Hazard pay for all front line workers, both retroactive and moving forward
-Unemployment benefits for all workers who have been furloughed and laid off
-A livable wage for all workers immediately
-Universal health care that is publicly-financed
-Paid family and medical leave
-Rent relief for tenants
-A universal Housing First model to end homelessness
-Forgiveness of education debt
Instead of thanking us with an air show, we ask that the United States Air Force suspend all jet practice flights for the duration of the pandemic emergency. We ask that the Federal Government re-appropriate the money designated for the fighter jets towards addressing the gaps in our social safety net.
Thank you for your consideration.
Signed,
Essential Workers
DSA Members run for Bernie Delegate in Georgia
Metro Atlanta DSA is proud to endorse Y’allidarity, a slate of DSA members running to represent Georgia at the 2020 Democratic National Convention as delegates pledged to our democratic socialist presidential candidate, Bernie Sanders.
This movement is bigger than Bernie. He said it himself: “not me, us.” Our members are running because even though Bernie has withdrawn, this movement is about all of us, the 99%, carrying forward the momentum behind Bernie’s candidacy. We have a responsibility to continue Bernie’s political revolution into a mass movement for democratic socialism that takes on the greed and hate of the capitalist class.
Even though Bernie has withdrawn, we still need to send democratic socialist delegates to the DNC to fight for working class demands: for Medicare For All, A Green New Deal, a Federal Jobs Guarantee, and a People’s Bailout. The Convention will be a huge political moment for the country, so having organized DSA members on the convention floor will be critical. We need to leverage this moment to popularize democratic socialism and demonstrate to the greater working class that there is an alternative, that a better world is possible.
Registration has already closed for the Democratic Party of Georgia’s online caucuses to select District-Level Bernie Delegates. If you’ve already registered, vote for the Y’allidarity Slate! You should get an email with a ballot to vote on Saturday, May 23rd at 9am, and you’ll have until 5pm to cast your vote.
Our Slate:
District 4: Catie L, Matthew Wolfsen, Kristen Oyler, Jon Skinner (only vote for these four, leave the rest blank)
District 5: Alexander Hernandez, V. Margot Paez, Nate K, Shaheen Rana, Ben Webb
District 6: Tracy Prescott, Daniel Hanley, Jeff Corkill, Jake Schenberg (only vote for these four, leave the rest blank)
District 7: Krupesh Patel, Ramin Zareian (only vote for these two, leave the rest blank)
District 9: Dean Trippe (only vote for this one, leave the rest blank)
Our Candidates:
District 4
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Catie L
It was never about Bernie — it was always about us! I currently serve as an at-large officer on MADSA’s executive committee. I’m excited to represent Bernie voters from Georgia’s 4th district and fight for a party platform that all working people deserve! |
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Matthew Wolfsen
I’m a Bernie volunteer, having spent countless hours, starting the weekend after New Year’s Day, making regular trips into South Carolina, mostly Greenville, to knock doors. I want to spend every last moment that I can advocating for Medicare for All, the Green New Deal, and College for All. Bernie’s campaign motto is “Not me, Us” and I will do everything in my power to ensure that his platform lives on so a younger generation can champion that same exact policy to become our future leaders. |
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Kristen Oyler
The current crisis has made it glaringly obvious that the status quo protects the rich and corporate interests at all costs, even at the expense of the lives and livelihood of average Americans. In these dark times, Bernie and the movement of devoted activists he inspired have renewed my hope that we can change our country for the better. As a volunteer, I canvassed in early primary states and sent over 50,000 texts to build support for the Bernie 2020 campaign. I would be proud to represent Bernie Sanders and the socialist movement in Milwaukee. |
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Jon Skinner
Bernie’s greatest legacy is giving millions the permission to ask for and expect more. This Bernie journey has meant everything to me, from canvassing in South Carolina and Georgia to phone banking folks in Washington & Nevada after work. Working people are suffering now more than ever and it would be my honor to go fight for them in Milwaukee. No more Republican-lite. |
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District 5
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Alexander Hernandez
I helped organize canvasses and debate watch parties all across Atlanta as part of the MADSA for Bernie campaign. This work was never meant to be easy. I’m excited to push the boundaries of the possible! |
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V. Margot Paez
I’m a former Bernie Victory Captain and member of DSA. My mission is to make “Not Me, Us” a political reality. I look forward to working with my fellow delegates to take a truly progressive and socialist agenda to the Convention this summer. |
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Nate K
I helped organize the MADSA for Bernie canvassing program, in which we knocked 10,000+ doors all across Atlanta with the help of hundreds of volunteers. We may have lost this battle, but the class war continues, and we need to cohere the Bernie movement around a democratic socialist agenda. I’m excited to carry this momentum forward, through the DNC and beyond! |
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Shaheen Rana
I am a DSA member and I support Bernie Sanders for President. I support Bernie’s platform for Medicare for All, Green New Deal, and abolishing ICE. I have canvassed and phone banked for Bernie, and am excited to represent the socialist movement in Georgia. |
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Ben Webb
As a committed Socialist and one of the organizers of MADSA for Bernie, I’d be proud to represent Bernie’s revolution in Milwaukee. As we stumble ever closer to disaster with COVID-19 and the climate crisis, we must fight back against the billionaires that control our society and the party establishment. We must fight against the narrative of restoring business as usual, both in the fight against COVID and against Trump, we must fight to transform our society through policies like Medicare for All and a Green New Deal, we must fight capitalism itself and forge a truly just world. |
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District 6
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Tracy Prescott
I’ve been a Bernie supporter since before 2015. I have been active in Georgia electoral politics and activism as a known DSA member. I’m a mom of badass kids, including a queer daughter who organizes for YDSA at her college, a communist 17-year old son, and two socialist feminists ages 19 and 17. The political revolution must go on bc status quo is not working for working people. |
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Daniel Hanley
In 2016, I helped mobilize a van full of Bernie delegates and other radically democratic agitators to Philadelphia, where we demanded a party representing working class interests and values over the DNC’s wealthy donors corporate sponsors. Collectively our efforts resulted in democratic reforms to the Democratic Party, including limitations on the roles of superdelegates and progressive improvements to the party platform. In 2020, we face similar questions of electoral legitimacy and escalated crises of capitalism, so I’m even more committed to amplifying disenfranchised voices inside and outside the convention. |
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Jeff Corkill
I supported Bernie in 2015 and this time around served on the MADSA for Bernie Steering Committee. I’d be honored to go to Milwaukee to support Bernie & socialist policies and represent DSA. |
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Jake Schenberg
I am proud to be a part of the Bernie revolution. I phonebanked, textbanked, and served as a Victory Captain because I believe we must build a movement for equality, for justice, for Democratic Socialism. I would be honored to represent Bernie’s campaign and our movement at this year’s Democratic National Convention. |
District 7
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Krupesh Patel
I came into the political revolution because of Bernie Sanders. I want to continue the fight for a habitable planet in Milwaukee. I been an active member of DSA since 2017 and currently help facilitate the eco-socialism working group |
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Ramin Zareian
Bernie’s 2016 campaign inspired me to get involved in politics and embrace socialism. It would be an honor to represent Bernie’s supporters and the socialist movement in Georgia’s 7th congressional district. |
District 9
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Dean Trippe
I’m a non-binary parent of three, an elementary school teacher, and comic book artist. I am wholeheartedly behind the #NotMeUs movement and am a proud DSA member. I support Bernie Sanders and the platform he represents, and I am a socialist who will represent our values and our solidarity in Milwaukee! |
Interview with the Burlington Food Not Bombs Collective
Food Not Bombs is a nationwide collective of activists that unite to share food with their communities. Sam Bliss and Emma Schoenberg are active members of the Burlington FNB.
How did Food Not Bombs get started in the Burlington area?
Emma Schoenberg: In November of 2012, I was actively organizing with Burlington’s Occupy encampment and ended up in someone’s kitchen to cook a giant Thanksgiving meal with Food Not Bombs.
Sam Bliss: The most recent iteration of Food Not Bombs Burlington had fizzled a few years before some housemates and I began talking about reviving it in 2018. We made a big meal that October to feed Feverish World, at the University of Vermont. We did that without permission from the university bureaucracy. It was Thanksgiving weekend, a month later, that we started doing Sunday meals at City Hall Park, which we continued until they closed it last summer for a gentrify-renovation. Then we moved to the other side of City Hall, at the bottom of Church Street.
What are the goals of the Food Not Bombs collective?
SB: We want to share food with everyone, as equals. We nourish each other with the edible-but-not-sell-able foods that would otherwise go to waste. Food is a gift, not a commodity.
ES: Direct action. Every direct action holds a balance between symbolism and direct impact. There are both transactional and transformational goals: we feed people, anyone, as the interconnected beings that we are. We commit to an ecology of mutual care meaning that we put food and political education in the system as acts of solidarity and resistance to “food access as usual” with a larger goal of abolition of militarism, inequity, police, supremacy, the list continues.
What have the folks working through Food Not Bombs been able to accomplish during this crisis? What are some victories?
SB: A week before the stay-at-home order started, BTV Copwatch started handing out sandwiches and basic stuff like toothbrushes and bandanas every day in a downtown parking garage. They raised some money and gave folks cash as well. We joined that effort with food donations, prepped meals, and more volunteers, and have continued our daily distributions for nearly two months. We’ve helped out people experiencing houselessness and unemployment with hand sanitizer, masks, gloves, safe sex supplies, $10 bills, and nourishment.
ES: One of the most satisfying accomplishments of Food Not Bombs in this time is that our presence creates more choice and more options for the people of Burlington. While the dominant narrative might be, “Well, you’re poor and you get what you get and you better be thankful to be provided food at all,” now people have the option of accessing food in multiple locations
Also, it pretty quickly became apparent that we needed to start distributing masks. Again, this is where choice can be really powerful. It took a few Facebook posts and a few personal connections from living and organizing in Burlington to collect and distribute over 200 masks. (PS: it’s now required to wear a mask on CCTA buses.)
What barriers have you met? How do you plan to circumnavigate these?
SB: We put up a portable handwashing station made from a 55-gallon plastic barrel and some buckets in that parking garage, and then Burlington’s Department of Public Works paid to have it disposed of as hazardous waste, as if it were a threat to public health. Really, removing the handwashing station was a threat to public health. I wrote about the incident, and so did the Burlington Free Press and VT Digger.
Another challenge has been distributing food and supplies without spreading the virus. I have suffered intense anxiety over it. We switched from real dishes to single-use containers, many of them recovered from our neighbors’ recycling and disinfected. We use lots of bleach and alcohol. It’s been a big change, no longer tasting dishes as we prep them, no longer serving everyone outdoors from the same pot.
FNB has many allies throughout the Burlington area, tell us about some of the collaborations you've engaged in.
SB: The collaboration with Copwatch is rad. That group exists to film the police, to hold them accountable. Now they’re Everything Not Bombs, showing up to serve and protect their community. We work well together, two autonomous collectives teaming up to provide mutual aid in our neighborhood.
Some businesses, too, are caring for struggling community members right now, even as they struggle to stay afloat in uncertain times. August First, Barrio Bakery, Kountry Kart Deli, New Moon, Miss Weinerz Donuts, and the UVM Horticulture Farm hook up food. Aqua Vitea and Barr Hill Distillery have provided alcohol sanitizers and disinfectants. The Fletcher Free Library has donated us books.
ES: We don’t fundraise. But good friends have stepped up. For example, bluegrass trio Pete’s Posse hosted a live stream fundraiser for us that was viewed by 65,000 people and raised us all the money we could need to return back to the community in the form of masks, hand sanitizer, cash, and take-out containers.
How can fellow workers, community members, and activists get involved?
SB: Drop off food, PPE, alcohol-based sanitizers, or to-go containers at our donation station at 32 Hungerford Terrace. Wash your hands obsessively and cover your face when handling things you’ll donate. Stay home if you feel at all sick, and let us know what you need brought to you.
ES: Drop off food. Make masks (like really). You could send us money (venmo: emma-schoenberg). Facebook is a great way to get in contact. Also, I think that anytime someone is creatively and safely coming up with ways to connect in the time of COVID - songs? Literature? Art?
Utility Strike & Fighting Ecofascism
You’re listening to Revolution Per Minute on listener sponsored WBAI in NYC broadcasting at 99.5 FM and streaming on your favorite podcast app. To connect with us after the show you can email us at revolutionsnyc@gmail.com. You can find us on our website revolutionsperminute.simplecast.com or on twitter @nycRPM
Working as a custodian during pandemic
Eugene DSA’s Labor Committee is doing a series of worker profiles, to give a face to the current situation and show how people’s lives are changing. Questions are borrowed from the Working People podcast.
Tell us about what’s been happening with you, your loved ones, your community, your job, your coworkers, your organization, etc.
Within this past month, I’ve seen everything around here consistently change. At work, it’s quite chaotic as contracts and assignments are being shifted around every which way. At home, I haven’t physically seen any of my family or friends. Every time I think I’ve adjusted to the new normal, something else changes. With the news and conditions at work, things are changing simultaneously going very fast and very slow.
What challenges have you been facing during all of this (physical, psychological, economic, social, etc)?
I am a custodian during a pandemic. I have to get in contact with the rest of the building’s coughs, sneezes and other human waste every day. My job’s higher ups are doing what they can in regards to safety, but there’s only so much they can do since a lot of our supply chain has been severed. Even the simple disposable gloves, dust masks and hand sanitizer is more than other workers are getting.
Almost no one at work aside from me and my coworker are taking social distancing seriously. They only recently started wearing masks because they were forced to. But even with the masks, I’ll still see scenes like the security forces meeting in a small room and talking with their masks pulled down pretty regularly. Any attempt to politely remind people at work about social distancing gets met with passive aggressive behavior. Outside work, it also seems like no one is taking this pandemic seriously. It felt to me like people were gone for two days, but now it’s just as busy as ever. I regularly see people with no masks taking walks, having picnics, hanging out with friends or loved ones while I can’t see anyone, especially my mom as she is immune-compromised.
Every now and then, I’ll get a “thank you” from someone at work. But that doesn’t make up for the fact that I am working this job with no hazard pay, no insurance, no benefits and no legal way to unionize. It doesn’t make up for the fact that I’m risking my life every day just for minimum wage. This whole thing has put me in a consistent state of stress. It’s really getting me depressed again.
What do you think people around the country don’t know/understand about people in your situation?
We have to take social distancing seriously. Custodians are exposed to so much contaminants that we have to assume we are asymptomatic and contagious. We don’t get to treat this whole thing like a vacation. We don’t get to go to friend’s houses to “quarantine” for the day. We aren’t out there making quarantine memes on Twitter. We don’t get to travel much further than the beelines from home to work and home to the grocery store. We don’t get the luxury to work at home. Our job is more important than ever. And yet, we have no change to our material conditions.
What are you, your family, community, coworkers, etc. doing to address these (or other) issues? What do you think needs to be done?
Due to other labor issues I’ve had with my job, I’ve been engaging in an agitation campaign with some of my coworkers in my site and others for about a year. This has resulted in turning one of the higher ups into a de facto worker representative who in turn has been convincing the people above them to make work a lot more tolerable to the average custodian on the ground. This has continued during this pandemic.
As for what needs to be done, I think Senator Sanders’ proposal of $2,000 a month would certainly go a long way. If less people are forced to work to survive during this crisis, we’ll all be safer in the long run. Having a cushion to fall on should things with my job get worse would ease my worries at least a little bit.
Final thoughts: Are there any final words you want to share? Any lessons/thoughts you want to share or emotions you just want to vent?
I hope the stay at home workers realize how lucky they are. I hope the petit bourgeois change their views about workers like me. I hope the capitalists are afraid of what we workers may do next. I hope the so-called “left” in the government realize the dangers they’re in if they abandon the working class (which is the most diverse class) in this critical moment. And finally, I hope we can destroy capitalism and end this exploitation once and for all.
Workers of the World, Unite.
Position On The Adirondack Pregnancy Center
Crisis Pregnancy Centers, or CPCs, are anti-choice organizations that masquerade as health facilities in order to trick women who are considering abortions. The goal of these centers is to plant themselves in close proximity to real abortion providers and divert potential clients away with deceptive advertising. Once inside a CPC, people are lied to, shamed, and pressured about their reproductive health decisions, often delaying their procedure or pushing them past the deadline for a legal abortion altogether.
One such center is on its way to Saranac Lake. Partnering with the notorious anti-choice organization Heartbeat International and approved by the Village Development Board to do business just one block away from the local Planned Parenthood, the Adirondack Pregnancy Center has all the tell-tale signs of a crisis pregnancy center (CPC). CPCs are unethical entities that employ deceptive, politically motivated practices, and the current project in Saranac Lake should be shuttered immediately.
This should not be a contentious issue in Saranac Lake. In addition to Carolyn Koestner’s comprehensive letter to the editor about CPCs in the March 10, 2020 issue of the Adirondack Daily Enterprise, there’s plenty of evidence that CPCs do not provide women with objective medical counseling on pregnancy options. The goal of these organizations is specifically to dissuade women thinking of having abortions by any means necessary, including false information about pregnancy and abortion.
In 2018, the American Medical Association (AMA) Journal of Ethics published an article titled “Why Crisis Pregnancy Centers Are Legal but Unethical.” Drawing on multiple undercover surveys of CPCs and detailed reviews of the centers’ promotional materials and websites, the study reports on how women who sought counsel at CPCs across the country were falsely told that abortions are linked to mental health issues and breast cancer. They were also told contraception is an ineffective means of preventing sexually transmitted infections.
In a segment on Last Week Tonight, John Oliver covers how CPCs often mislead women into waiting to get an abortion until it’s too late in their term to do so. Yet, because CPCs are not medically licensed facilities (Adirondack Pregnancy Center received a “Certificate of Incorporation” from New York State), they are able to give their clients misinformation without legal ramifications because of a “free speech” loophole.
That the Adirondack Pregnancy Center will be any different from these kinds of CPCs looks more and more unlikely the more digging you do. Their partnership with Ohio based Heartbeat International is particularly incriminating, given the sheer number of Heartbeat’s existing partner pregnancy centers worldwide that have been exposed for their disinformation practices. What’s the common denominator? Heartbeat International provides a handbook to their partners with “suggested scripts” that center workers can use to coerce their clients (see Last Week Tonight).
Not only does the APC have access to these harmful materials, their board members recently attended Heartbeat International’s Annual Conference, which is designed for those involved in “life-affirming” centers and provided the board with “invaluable training”. The keynote speaker for APC’s upcoming banquet is a paid speaker for the anti-choice movement.
It gets even worse: the owner of the domains www.adirondackpregnancycenter.com and www.adkpregnancycenter.com were both registered by an Ohio based company that on their own about page admits they “are experts at making sure your website is attracting the abortion-minded client.”
The company is currently in hot water for potentially exploiting personal medical information of pregnancy center clients. Clearly, the APC is backed by large, multi-national interests more invested in pushing an anti-choice propaganda campaign than actually helping women with unwanted pregnancies and allowing them to make their own decisions regarding their bodies.
If the proponents of the Adirondack Pregnancy Center are actually interested in providing quality care to pregnant women, they should obtain a medical license and engage in 100%-truthful, full-disclosure healthcare. Or they could help single mothers and other economically disadvantaged parents take care of and pay for their children, giving women with unwanted pregnancies a resource they can rely on should they choose to give birth.
Until either of those things occur, High Peaks DSA calls on the Village of Saranac Lake Development Board to take all available evidence on the unethical behavior of CPCs into account in a reconsideration of the board’s initial approval of the Adirondack Pregnancy Center. Failing that, we call on the people of Saranac Lake—the same community that stopped Walmart—to say “NO” to this entity and its deceptive practices that will bring harm to our community.
Additional Resources
- “The Adirondack Pregnancy Center – An introduction”
- Carolyn Koestner, “Protect reproductive rights; stop Adirondack Pregnancy Center”
- Laura Cunningham, “Women’s choice doesn’t seem to be pregnancy center’s priority”
- American Medical Association, “Why Crisis Pregnancy Centers Are Legal but Unethical”
- John Oliver, “Crisis Pregnancy Centers”
- openDemocracy, “Exclusive: Trump-linked religious ‘extremists’ target women with disinformation worldwide”
- Rewire.News, “How Anti-Abortion Organizations are Exploiting Personal Data”
- FactCheck.org, “Born Alive Baloney”
The post Position On The Adirondack Pregnancy Center appeared first on High Peaks DSA.
Justice for Public Housing feat. Julia Salazar
You’re listening to Revolution Per Minute on listener sponsored WBAI in NYC broadcasting at 99.5 FM and streaming on your favorite podcast app. To connect with us after the show you can email us at revolutionsnyc@gmail.com. You can find us on our website revolutionsperminute.simplecast.com or on twitter @nycRPM.
Fighting the Cuts at UVM
The following is a lightly edited transcript of a talk given for the CVDSA Webinar, “Fund Vermont’s Future: Join the Fight for Public Education” May 6 2020
After endless messages thanking us for our hard work and dedication during these challenging times, last week the administration at the University of Vermont announced budget cut plans that show nothing but callous disrespect for the lives and work of faculty.
The cuts are billed as reasonable “shared sacrifice” in face of inevitable looming crisis: as my dean said, “these measures will impact nearly every member of our community in some way.”
But nothing about this plan is fair or reasonable or equitable. Like the worst of regressive taxation, it protects the university’s wealth, while imposing undue hardship on those who earn the least. It would inflict great harm on educational quality, because it targets faculty—award winning, experienced, beloved faculty— who teach multiple sections of courses that are essential to students. For example, in my department, English, we would lose more than 20 course sections next year. And even on their terms, it makes no financial sense, because the positions being cut are so low paid, relatively little money will be saved
It is very clear that the impact of the cuts will not be evenly felt. Our dean and some other top administrators will “take an 8.3% reduction in salary.” This is in line with an earlier announcement that the University President would forego his pay for the month of April. President Garimella’s “generous” sacrifice is on a base salary of $480,000—plus stipend and benefits. My dean’s salary is $270,000, plus a stipend of an unpublished amount. At the same time, all Non-Tenure Track faculty—typically lecturers who teach four courses a semester—are slated for an involuntary reduction in their workload to 75 percent.
Now I want to take a moment to read from yesterday’s Burlington Free Press, quoting President Garimella: "The university has not imposed any pay cuts on any faculty," he said, explaining this is the time of year when each college assigns workload based on anticipated need. "It's a question of change in FTE (full-time equivalency), which is, you know, the amount of time they teach. It's their workload and it's not a pay cut."… However, he acknowledged reduced workloads will correlate with less pay.
In case there’s any confusion: when your workload is reduced, so is your pay. So, to be crystal clear, this will mean is a 25 percent pay cut for lecturers. And this would bring the average lecturer’s salary in the college of arts and sciences down to below $43,000.
So, after this “shared sacrifice,” lecturers will be below a livable wage, pushing many of them and their children into food and housing insecurity, while the president will be making more than ten times their salary and the dean more than five times. And at the same time the budget plan imposes a hiring freeze on staff and part time faculty. As a result, non-teaching staff, many of whom already earn well below livable wage, will face further uncertainty and precarity.
Part time professors are a vital sector of the university who routinely teach essential courses for little compensation, keep programs running and ensure continuity for students. Part timers are paid between $6000 and $7000 per course, without benefits, and contingent on enrollment. So, the savings for the university here are paltry. As one of my colleagues wrote on our union discussion list: “If you think of the budget as a container of large boulders, they are frantically picking out the pieces of gravel.”
The Rutgers University faculty union came up with the perfect name for this approach to budget uncertainty: “Maximum pain for minimum gain.” While the cuts hit non tenure track and part timers the hardest, they are bad for all faculty. First, because they mean that tenure track faculty will take up the slack and work more for less.
Second, because they will have a devastating impact on the university as a whole. For example, the administration plans to take away course releases and cut stipends held by faculty who run programs. Those programs include Jewish Studies, Critical Race and Ethnic Studies, and Sexuality, Gender and Women’s Studies. So much for the university’s commitment to equity and diversity.
And third, because these cuts are just the beginning; more are coming, as can be seen in other universities, such as Ohio State. As a faculty member there put it: “we are canaries in a very toxic mine. Many other schools are probably going to go through this.” If we accept the logic of these cuts now, it will be harder for us to stave off worse attacks in the future.
Although the pandemic is the catalyst for these measures, they are part of a far longer pattern, and in that way are something of a wish list for the administration. The faculty union, United Academics, has documented consistent underfunding of education, and along with it squeezing of faculty at all levels, in favor of administrative bloat, marketing and branding, expensive amenities, and any number of boondoggle initiatives. Their “budgetary crises” are really a question of misplaced priorities.
And this continues to be the case even in the context of a genuine crisis for higher education. The university is a microcosm of the broader capitalist system: the staff and faculty who do the most, struggle to make ends meet, while board members and the president and a phalanx of vice presidents—and no one is quite sure what they even do—rake in six figure salaries. The university has a reported endowment of $467.7 million, yet they are eliminating part time faculty who make less than $6000 per course. As a petition against the cuts launched by students puts it “the university apparently has enough money to pay millions in branding and consultants, but no money for its students or faculty.”
The logic of austerity is that there is not enough to go around, so we are forced to compete with each other for the crumbs, rather than demanding more access to the wealth that is there. And that logic constantly pits us one against the other: Tenure Track against Non-Tenure Track; full time against part time; and on a bigger scale, K-12 education against state colleges against the University of Vermont.
We have everything to gain by standing in solidarity with each other to defend public education at all levels. For all these reasons and more, we at the University of Vermont have just launched a public campaign against the cuts. Inspired by the faculty, staff and students of the Vermont State Colleges, we refuse to accept that “there is no alternative.” There were 55 people at our first meeting, and we are planning a car protest to coincide with the next Board of Trustees meeting. We don’t know what the future holds, but we know that if we do nothing, we will all lose, but if we fight back, we might win.