Governor to Close CUNY,
Everyone knows how New York State has a budget deficit for the coming fiscal year. And everyone has heard the usual rhetoric from the political classes about belt tightening and sacrifices. Negro school children will dine on the carcasses of disabled vets; the mayor will eat less caviar.
But few could have anticipated the devastating bravery that Governor Patterson has displayed with his latest proposal. According to outsider sources, the governor plans to close the entire CUNY system in order to close the budget gap.
“We’re not thinking of it as a ‘closing’; we’re thinking of it more as a euthanasia,” said the governor’s unofficial spokesperson, Mark Schiebe. “The CUNY system is a lot like Terri Schiavo. For a while it was a normal, healthy university, then one day anemic state funding caused a massive brain aneurism.
“Since about 1990, CUNY has been lingering in a vegetative state, drooling lackluster graduates from the mouth. The state is tired of visiting CUNY at the hospice, pretending like it isn’t physically repellant to us. As Michael Schiavo said of Terri, ‘It’s time.’”
But since CUNY’s operating budget is only $1.4 billion, while the total state deficit is whopping $6.4 billion, the governor has had to take even more extreme measures. “Of course, closing CUNY won’t solve the problem alone,” continued Schiebe, from his offices on the L train. “That’s why the governor plans to liquidate all of CUNY’s assets, including its real estate holdings, as well.
“We are already in negotiations with Columbia University about purchasing what used to be The City College campus. And we think we’ll be able to sell Hunter to Leona Helmsley’s dog, Trouble.”
But if state officials think that CUNY students, faculty, and staff are going to take this kind of despotic policy lying down, they’re pretty much right.
As the news spread, CUNY faculty quickly began to express their outrage, by writing long, boring, sanctimonious emails to obscure listserv discussions, which led to the creation of a new listserv devoted exclusively to this problem.
Petitions were gathered, mostly electronic. A few Facebook groups were created, while the governor’s page lost a not insignificant number of fans. After consulting with their sages, Neil Smith and David Harvey, some radical anthropology students even went so far as to mention their discontent in their Facebook status updates.
One of them, who had just finished locking up his messenger-bike, explained it best, “We just want to do whatever it takes to feel like we’re doing something.” He then asked me if I was a registered socialist. By the end of that first day, at least 17,000 separate protests and direct actions had been organized.
Over in the English department, the professors were busyily thinking of clever word play to describe their fate. “The governor is blind to the suffering he’s causing,” chimed in Prof Reid-Pharr during a wine-and-cheese mixer. He thought his joke was hilarious.
“This is what is so beautiful about America,” commented unofficial spokesperson Schiebe. “People with no power can complain all they want about decisions they have no part in. In exchange for us not arresting them, they agree that nothing will change.
“The governor hopes that as the real estate market improves, the liquidation sale will eventually result in a small budget surplus. With this extra money, he plans to open a recovery center for politicians who are admitted sex addicts.” At press time the contentious issue of whether the new center will be named for former President Clinton, former Governor Spitzer, or Senator Larry Craig had not yet been resolved.
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