Tag Archives: UOC

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A fitting close to the strike today, with a roving band of musicians on the pickets and poetry in several languages on the Languages picket (I was even compelled to write up a quick sonnet during the picketing), followed by a sprawling march around campus to Helen Hadley Hall, where Chinese graduate employees are fighting discrimination from their landlord, and from there to Betts House, home of Yale’s Globalization Center. Today we called for global leadership from Yale in the form of a new commitment to human rights and global justice. And LWB-favorite Barbara Ehrenreich was there to share moving words on issues and the fight ahead.

This week we ratcheted up the pressure on Yale, brought the message to new audiences, mobilized and organized new people, and broke down Yale’s decade-long policy of non-engagement with the union representing the teachers who makes this university function. Now on to that meeting with Roland Betts…

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Powerful picketing all afternoon today, including a thundering presence outside of the Yale Corporation’s meeting, complete with megaphone-enhanced trumpet. We had our strongest undergraduate turnout yet, marching down College Street chanting “My TA deserves fair pay” and joining our teachers in standing for educational excellence and equal opportunity at Yale. And Jesse Jackson certainly draws a crowd.

The biggest news of the day, though is Yale Corporation Senior Fellow Roland Betts’ agreement to meet with GESO, a historic concession from the body which has refused such meetings for over a decade. Just another way in which this strike has made visible the work and the workers which Yale refuses to see. Bringing Yale to the table is a crucial step in bringing Yale to the point of recognizing these workers, recognizing their work, and recognizing their union.

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An energized rally today on the Green before folks set out for this afternoon’s rally in New York with strikers from Columbia’s CGEU, unionized graduate teachers from NYU preparing for a contract fight, and workers and allies from across the Northeast. I and fourteen other undergads will unfortunately be unable to attend, at this afternoon we’re being brought before Yale’s Executive Committee for consideration of disciplinary action over our sit-in in February. I hope the Committee will recognize the action we took as an act of conscience which used non-violent means with a long history at the university to pursue changes central to realizing Yale’s best values. I hope Yale can turn its time and energy now to furthering the work of realizing equal opportunity for undergraduates and graduate employees alike.

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We had a great crowd of undergrads and prospective students at our ice cream social last night to discuss the strike and progressive activism on campus. The event was made that much more interesting by a protest outside by the Committee for Freedom (right-wing undergrads from the Party of the Right) with slogans like “GESO caused the tsunami.” Nice to know that at least some of the folks in the Committee for Freedom see public protest as legitimate. I think their failure, after a couple hours of tabling at the bazaar for prospective students, to recruit a single prospective student, or more than four current undergrads, to come make posters and protest us speaks nicely to the sentiment on campus.

This morning we revived Education in the Streets and, just as we did two years ago, set up classrooms on College Street in which graduate employees, undergrads, and community members taught classes on the issues at the center of the strike and of the social movement in this city. Scores of students turned out for classes on diversity, debt, contract negotiations, community benefits, and the challenges facing women in the sciences. Attending the latter was a particularly appropriate reason for me to miss my seminar on the Political Economy of Gender.

After moving words from John Wilhelm and others, we picketed a panel of Yale alumni in Battell Chapel including Roland Betts, Senior Fellow of the Yale Corporation. Unfortunately but unsurprisingly, the doors were locked and Betts refused to come out and speak with us, valuing the discussions in our sections as little and fearing disucussion with the people who lead those sections as much, apparently, as President Levin.

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Inspiring picketing today all over campus, including great conversations with other undergraduates and prospective students about what GESO is fighting for and what our stake is in it. Moving words this afternoon from union, community, and political allies, and from several of the men and women striking their teaching this week to defend their rights. As Dick Blumenthal said this morning, “GESO, I recognize you.”

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Some thoughts on what yesterday was about:

Tuesday night, after four months since receiving the platform for real financial aid reform borne out of our hundreds of canvassing interviews and supported by over a thousand students, President Levin had a great opportunity to offer real solutions, or to take to heart the voices of students who had. And he blew it. He opened the under thirty minutes on financial aid by trying to discuss our platform and the parallel Yale College Council in terms which made clear just how empty his claim that he couldn’t respond until February 22 because he was carefully reviewing our proposal had been. He told students he wanted feedback on whether Yale should make some change on the student contribution or the family contribution, insisting that Yale “can’t lead on every dimension.” Not something one would hear Levin say if we were talking about different dimensions of, say, scientific research. Yale can and should lead on drawing a diverse group of students and on fostering a more equal and more integrated experience for those who are here. A choice between the student contribution and the family contribution is an impossible choice. And it’s a meaningless choice for those students working additional hours to pay what Yale expects from their parents as well. But when those students spoke up Tuesday night, Levin responded by making facial expressions roughly approximating Bush’s during the first debate while questioning their honesty and describing them all as extreme cases. He even went so far as to conjecture, with a shrug, that if there was a problem it only affected a couple hundred students. I’m not sure whether it was this baseless claim, or the implication that the quality of life of a couple hundred students could not be an urgent issue for the university, which angered more of us. So it should have come as no surprise to Levin that students left deeply disappointed and personally insulted.

Yesterday we demonstrated that we’re not willing to sit back and wait for President Levin to offer what he thinks is a sufficient proposal for change, and we’re not willing to settle for a proposal which makes modest change in either the student contribution or the family contribution. So fifteen of us showed up at the Admissions Office as a tour group was leaving and let Dean of Admissions Richard Shaw know that we didn’t plan to leave without a meaningful commitment from Levin to comprehensive reform. Dean Shaw told us we’d have to be out of the building by 5 PM, passed the message along to Levin, and then disappeared into selection committee. We never heard from Levin, despite enough phone calls from students inside and outside of the building, alumni, and parents that the phone began going directly to voicemail. Unfortunately, it appears Levin would rather arrest his students than talk to him.

Folks working in the office were by and large very friendly to us, with a few notable exceptions, and we had a number of productive conversations with some of them about our campaign. We weren’t able to communicate directly with any more prospective students, because the Admissions Office was soon locked to the public and tours were moved to the Visitor’s Center. Because this was signified only with a sign on the door to the Admission’s Office, our folks on the outside got ample opportunities to talk to somewhat confused visiting families about what we were fighting for, to generally very positive response by all accounts, before giving them directions to the new location. The Admissions Office made the peculiar decision to communicate with those families only by yelling at them through the window. The low point during the day in our interactions with others in the building was during the noontime rally outside when Phoebe opened and leaned out of a window to address the crowd and Deputy Secretary Martha Highsmith physically yanked her back into the building (fortunately, the whole thing was caught on camera by Channel 8). Not long after that, they cut off all internet access in the building.

There are no words which can describe my admiration for the tremendous organizing undergrads, as well as folks from Local 34, Local 35, GESO, and the broader community did outside all day yesterday, in constantly shifting conditions and fairly unfavorable weather. Every time a door opened and we heard surging chants, I think each of us was moved and inspired. They did amazing work, talking to visiting families, sending a delegation to President Levin’s office in Betts House, finding Yale Corporation member Margaret Marshall on the way to a Master’s Tea and calling on her to come visit us, dropping into dining halls to share news, and standing outside yelling through the cold for hours.

One of their greatest accomplishments was keeping a powerful crowd outside for the nearly three hours over which Yale made gestures and having us arrested and then, presumably in hopes of waiting out the crowd and the cameras, chose to delay. It had been a full two hours (much of it spent singing, which inspired at least one administrator to turn up “We are the Champions” in his office) since the time we had been told that morning was closing when plainclothes police showed up in an unidentified van and Martha Highsmith had someone videotape her (despite some technical difficulties) reading to us from the Undergraduate Regulations. When we made clear that we still had no intention of leaving without a commitment from Levin to a financial aid policy which better reflects the best values of the university, the police told us were under arrest. We were taken in pairs into Jim Nondorf’s office, cited for simple trespass and led out, singing “Carry It On” and holding our citations, to a still strong crowd. There we shared some stories with each other and ate the pizza that they had been unable to get to us while we were inside before heading back to campus.

On the eve of the Yale Corporation’s meeting, right before the budget deadline, we mobilized a new breadth and depth of student support, leveraged new pressure, took our message to new audiences, and demonstrated the urgency of the issue. Now it’s time to keep building.

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To the editor:

If President Levin offered a plan for financial aid reform last night (“Levin states plan to alter financial aid,” 2/23), I must have missed it. Levin made no specific proposals and maintained his refusal to sit down at the table with students who have. He asked students to choose between unspecified reductions in the family contribution and the student contribution, on the grounds that Yale can’t “be a leader along every dimension.” Yale students, including the over a thousand who’ve pledged support to the UOC’s financial aid reform platform, expect better. It’s time for Yale to eliminate the family contribution for low-income families and halve the student contribution for everyone as a step towards equality of access to Yale and equality of experience for students here. Asking students to choose one reform or the other is an impossible choice. And for the many students working additional hours to help close the gap between what Yale thinks their families can afford and their actual circumstances, it’s a meaningless one. That’s among the things Levin might have learned last night if he had taken students’ stories seriously rather than dismissing them as exceptions or questioning their honesty.

Josh Eidelson ‘06

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The YDN reports on the New Haven Student Fair Share Coalition’s dramatically succesful call-in day yesterday to Bruce Alexander and John DeStefano, urging a fair share settlement between Yale and New Haven with a contribution that would narrow the gap between Yale’s tax value and the PILOT money New Haven receives, a mechanism for indexing that contribution to Yale’s growth, and a commitment from Yale to enter Community Benefits Agreements for future expansion:

About 75 students gathered on Cross Campus throughout the day Monday to call Alexander and DeStefano’s offices and urge progress on talks to increase Yale’s contribution in lieu of taxes to the city. The campaign was organized by the New Haven Student Fair Share Coalition, a group of Yale organizations formed in April that claims there is a $10 million gap between the actual tax value of University property and the payments the city receives in lieu of those taxes…Any change in the status of Yale’s contributions to the city would be the first change since 1990, when the Yale Golf Course was opened to taxation and the University began paying the city for fire services. Yale, like most nonprofits, is exempt from property taxes on its noncommercial buildings. Property taxes are the major source of funding for New Haven, which has faced budgetary problems in recent years. New Haven also receives about 65 percent of the money it would have obtained from taxing Yale through Connecticut’s Payment In Lieu of Taxes program (PILOT).

…Josh Eidelson ’06, a member of the Undergraduate Organizing Committee (UOC), one of the Fair Share Coalition’s member groups, said that the launch of talks had encouraged the coalition. “The fact that these negotiations are happening now demonstrates the importance of pressure from students and the community in pushing Yale to have a more progressive settlement with New Haven,” Eidelson said. In addition to the UOC, 13 other undergraduate student groups — including The Black Student Alliance at Yale, Movimiento Estudantil Chicano/a de Atzlan, and Jews for Justice — belong to the coalition. Ben Siegel ’07, who is involved with Jews for Justice, said different groups had different motives for joining the coalition. “The highest principle of charity in Jewish tradition is to give in a way that facilitates other people becoming empowered and gaining control of their futures,” Siegel said. “We hope that the University will live up to those principles.” UOC member Helena Herring ’07, who helped organize the phone calls yesterday, said there was a lot of support for the coalition’s ideas. “People have been really receptive and excited by the idea and people who have been coming to make calls have not been inclusive of the member groups,” Herring said. “It shows that there is broad-based support for this.”

Alas, the article makes no mention of the amazing pies Emily Jones baked for the event, which were as tasty as they were symbolic.

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To the Editor:

The New Haven Student Fair Share Coalition, which Associate VP for New Haven and State Affairs Michael Morand called a “small group” making a “partisan press bid,” (“Fair share coalition presses for payment”) represents sixteen undergraduate organizations, from the Yale Hunger and Homelessness Action Project, to the Black Student Alliance at Yale, to the Muslim Student Association, to Peace by Peace, which together are calling for Yale to make an institutional financial investment in New Haven commesurate with Yale’s economic power in New Haven and its aspirations for local and national leadership. Last night, before a vote in which half of Dwight Hall’s Cabinet demonstrated support for the Fair Share Campaign, Yale’s Associate General Counsel referred to the push for the nation’s second wealthiest university to contribute more to one of the nation’s poorest cities as “a zero-sum game” (“Dwight Hall rejects Fair Share proposal,” 4/21). This echoes Morand’s argument in these pages (“Math won’t add up in proposed PILOT cuts”, 3/5) that for an $11 billion institution to spend more money on improving the public school education of low-income children would have to mean spending less money on extending a Yale education to low-income undergraduates. Our coalition is calling on Yale to stop clinging to an 1834 tax “super-exemption” and to show civic leadership at a time of fiscal scarcity when citizens throughout the city will be paying increased taxes for the third year in a row and further cuts to education funding appear imminent (“City ready for cuts in state aid,” 4/14). For the Office of New Haven and State Affairs to pit the needs of undergraduates and those of New Haven’s other students against each other while accusing our coalition of being “divisive” is as cynical as it is ironic.

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Today was the National Campus Day of Action for disclosure by Farallon Capital Management. Here at Yale that meant a satirical protest by Yale Student Shareholders for Aggressive Management of the Endowment (Yale SHAME), chanting “Profits over People!” and calling on Yale to invest in privatizing and selling off Yale’s resources in the manner that its clients have exploited natural resources around the globe. We then took matters into our own hands by marking trees on cross-campus to be felled and setting up equiptment to drain and sell the water from the Women’s Table.

Pictures and quotes are on-line here.

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This afternoon, a coalition of fifteen Yale undergraduate groups came together to call on Yale to make a fair-share contribution to New Haven and to discuss how such a policy would affect them as members of their groups – the Black Student Alliance at Yale, the Muslim Student Association, MEChA, Social Justice Network, Jews for Justice, Women’s Center Political Action Committee, Peace by Peace, Early Childhood Educators, Yale Coalition for Peace, Yale Coalition to End the Death Penalty, Climate Campaign, Yale Hunger and Homelessness Action Project, the Student Legal Action Movement, the Progressive Party, and the Undergraduate Organizing Committee – and as members of the Yale and New Haven communities. It was a powerful event and a strong kick-off for a coalition that will keep organizing and mobilizing for real partnership between this city and this University.

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Yesterday, undergrads joined graduate students in marching to David Swenson’s and Richard Levin’s offices to demand investment disclosure to shed some light on the truth about the impact of Yale’s money.

Today, undergrads set up three installations on Beinecke – eight hundred paper plates whose distribution represents the racial and gender make-up of Yale’s tenured faculty, a mini-classroom to discuss academic casualization, and a weighted game of juggling based on financial aid status – and talked with peers about the impact of these issues on our education and our community. Then we marched to join GESO at HGS and stand together in calling for a more progressive vision of the academy.

Oh – and the “Dissertation Derby” was pretty fun too, as well as a vivid demonstration of the disjuncture between administration policy and the best interests of graduate students and the academy.