CUNY Students to March in Solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street Movement

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Free-Press-Release.com) October 25, 2011 -- For more information, please contact:
James P. Robinson at (917) 578-3384 CUNYonthemarch@gmail.com

CUNY Students to March in Solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street movement March to take place at 12 o’clock on October 29 from Union Square to Zuccotti Park

New York, NY― October 23, 2011―Students from all City University of New York colleges will be Standing in Solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street Movement by marching from Union Square to Zuccotti Park at noon on October 29, 2011. The march is in resistance to recent budget cuts to education, and to support the equal educational opportunities for undocumented and international students.

Hundreds of students have confirmed their attendance along with several college and community organizations including the CUNY Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual, and Transgender Task Force (LGBT) and University Student Senate. The organizing body consists of Alejandro Madi, 2010-2011 Student Government Association (SGA) President at LaGuardia Community College (LAGCC); Cory Provost, the Student Trustee of the CUNY Board of Trustees (BOT) since 2009 and Chairman of the University Student Senate; Brandon Clarke, 2011-2012 Public Relations Governor for LAGCC’s SGA; and James P. Robinson, Chairman of the CUNY LGBT Task Force.

Organizers have arranged for the New York Lawyers Guild to conduct free pre-march safety training for CUNY students as it is intended to be a peaceful protest demonstrating “the class and dignity that reflects that best traditions of CUNY's student body," as expressed on the group’s Facebook Event page. Since early last week, over 2,000 students and faculty from CUNY and the country have been avidly RSVP’ing and posting their comments to the web Event page titled “CUNY on the March (Standing in Solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street Movement)”.

The protest comes after the decision by officials in Albany earlier this year to cut taxes for millionaires and sacrifice funding for higher education. The State refused to increase grants to CUNY despite the University’s growing student population and the economic hardships its working-class families face.

Furthermore, CUNY has responded to these cuts by arbitrarily raising tuition costs and cutting wages and benefits for adjunct faculty – the CUNY 99%. In Fall 2009, CUNY raised tuition for undergraduate citizens by 14%. In Spring 2011, tuition was raised again by 6.2%. This fall, CUNY raised tuition by 5% and as of November 30, 2011 tuition at CUNY will increase by up to $300 each year through 2016. In addition, CUNY's international students, who already pay $240 per credit at junior colleges and $460 per credit at senior colleges, will be paying even more.

"The state deserves the lion's share of the blame, but CUNY needs to stop nickel and diming us to death, and instead fight harder for us because we cannot continue to bear this weight," says Clarke who also pleaded the students’ case at the July BOT Public Hearing held prior to the adaptation of the last tuition hike.

In addition, adjunct faculty has lost wages and health benefits. This has caused increasing friction between CUNY administrators, whose salaries have remained untouched, and the Universities untenured faculty. “All CUNY faculty members must be ensured a living wage so that their contribution to New York State, through the knowledge they impart on the students of CUNY, can be meaningful. CUNY can only be an economic engine if its faculty is protected such that they can dutifully breed the next generation of leaders,” said the indignant Provost.

“Our mission is to secure fair treatment for the LGBT community on all CUNY campuses, this includes equal access to a quality education,” says Robinson, a proactive leader of the LGBT Task Force, “We’re joining the larger group of ‘CUNY on the March’ in the name of unity and egalitarianism.”

The CUNY Students on the March, who empathize with the core values of the Occupy Wall Street movement, believe that the growing inequality in our country's economic policies are threatening the survival of a fair, just, and equal democratic society. The diminishing access of higher education for working-class and undocumented students is a striking sign of that growing inequality. “Affordable higher education should forever be a fundamental right, and not a privilege,” says Madi, a Venezuelan émigré who has flourished as a student advocate at CUNY, “and one that smart, hard-working non-resident students should benefit from as well,” he added.

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