As part of the sweeping financial reform bill signed into law this past week by President Barack Obama, a surprising legislative rider took effect seeking an end to the internal conflict plaguing Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).  The provision, which resulted largely from intensive lobbying efforts by the Enough Project to stop genocide, is designed to prevent destabilizing elements within the DRC from feeding off the country’s lucrative trade in precious metals.  The DRC boasts rich deposits of tungsten, tantalum, and tin—metals commonly found in cell phones, laptops, video game consoles and other electronic devices—profits from which have long been seen to fuel the activities of non-state combatants there.            

Supporters of the provision applaud its potential to help curb the hideous violence that has ravaged DRC for better part of the last fifteen years. Writing in the Huffington Post on Friday, Representative Howard Berman (D-CA)—Chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs—championed the law’s commitment to limiting the profit opportunities that conflict minerals offer to armed groups within the country.  The new law requires “that companies doing business in the Congo and adjoining countries disclose both the provenance of the minerals they use and the efforts they have taken to ensure that their dollars do not directly or indirectly support armed groups that employ rape as a tool of war and otherwise perpetuate the conflict…An important step,” Berman argues, “in changing the situation in that beleaguered country.” 

But the unfortunate reality is that no matter how well-intentioned, the law will have little positive impact on the ground in Congo.

For starters, it presupposes a Congolese state capable of enforcing the law’s provisions.  Under the regulations imposed by the legislation, electronics manufacturers must certify the origin of all minerals used in their products with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and comply with an order to produce yearly reports detailing their efforts to avoid purchase of so-called “conflict minerals.” Yet it is precisely an absence of the state in mineral-rich regions that allows the illegal trade in precious metals to flourish. 

The vast majority of mineral wealth in DRC falls under the control of regional militias, directly and indirectly, rendering the state’s ability to regulate the flow of minerals into and out of the country practically nonexistent.  According to reports detailing the mineral trade in DRC, rebels mine the metals and sell them to traders who then smuggle them across the border into neighboring countries.  From there, the goods make their way along a complex string of exchange largely outside state purview culminating in their sale to transnational corporations.  By the time the minerals have been converted into electronic gadgets, any attempts to trace their origin become Sisyphean.    

Even if DRC possessed the state capacity to properly monitor the minerals and prevent warring factions from profiting off them, however, it’s far from clear that this would significantly reduce violence throughout the affected provinces.  Mineral exploitation is a means of fueling conflict, not an end in itself.  Until the broader issues wracking DRC—the continued presence of Hutu interahawame in Kivu, the incessant meddling of Rwanda in Congolese affairs, and land rights disputes, to name but three—are resolved, unabated violence in affected areas should be expected.  Unfortunately, the United States has thus far demonstrated little interest in directly addressing these underlying causes of conflict in DRC. 

And then there’s the larger problem of unintended consequences.  Opponents of the measure argue that the hassles and uncertainty of verification will scare off potential investors, effectively saddling the country with a de facto trade embargo.  If businesses do pull out of DRC, warns John Kanyoni—the head of the Association of Mineral Exporters in Congo—“thousands of Congolese will be jobless and might most probably (be) joining the armed groups.” Thus, the law could have the perverse effect of generating the very problems it seeks prevent.

These considerations aside, the new law constitutes a good faith effort to bring violence in the DRC to an end and force transnational corporations to reorient business practices that privilege the bottom line over human rights. It could be that, in the best case scenario, the law economically cripples warring militias in DRC, allowing local Congolese to enjoy a measure of safety that they currently are without. 

But DRC needs much more than good intentions if it’s to emerge successfully from the ruins of state collapse.  Above all, the country demands security.  As we have discovered, unfortunately, assisting countries in this regard proves exceedingly difficult and politically fraught. Yet it’s of the essence.  Until DRC is capable of performing the basic function of the Weberian state—monopolization of the use of force for the protection of civilians—the country will continue suffering under the heavy weight of social disorder. And any attempts by Washington in the meantime to bring the conflict in DRC to a close will do more to alleviate troubled consciences on Capitol Hill than actually bring about the meaningful change they purportedly affect.

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On the last day of the festival, Martin Bresnick presented on his own music, in the manner of the other principal composers. Some composers are quite shy to talk about their work, for obvious reasons: they don’t want to reveal their “tricks”, or they don’t want to share a private or personal inspiration behind a piece, and so on. Bresnick, however, dove right into the substance of his work: why he composes, how he composes, and what his pieces are all about.

Bresnick started off quite seriously by admonishing the composers and performers that music is dangerous and powerful, and that one must always treat it as a life and death matter. One must always do music at the highest level; in a sense, he said, being a musician is similar to being called to priesthood.

This philosophy guides Bresnick’s own work. He brings everything he can to his music, to the point that he considers his own artistic aims to be  “excessively ambitious.” In his works, he strives to be personally expressive and philosophical, and to create architectonic forms.

That last aim — creating architectonic forms - was one of the recurring themes throughout Bresnick’s presentation. Bresnick said outright at the beginning of his talk that he felt that many of the student composers at Music10 neglected formal integrity in favour of the surface elements of a composition. His point of view provided a nice counterpoint to those of Hartke and Hoffman, who discussed primarily surface elements, such as orchestration, and the important role that intuition plays when they compose. Intuition plays a less significant role in Bresnick’s compositional process, as he does not rely on it when he works out the formal elements of a composition.

This is not to say that the surface of a composition is unimportant to Bresnick — as he put it, “Nobody fell in love with their partner because they have beautiful ribs in their chest!” However, Bresnick urged the composers at Music10 to try to strike a balance in their works between creating a beautiful surface, and ensuring that there is a lasting structure holding that surface up.

After this weighty introduction, Bresnick expounded on his aesthetic philosophy by means of analysing several pieces. He began with Brahms’s Intermezzo in B minor, op. 119, no. 1, which has long served as a model for him, and then discussed three of his own works: Bird as Prophet, *** (the so-called “Three-Star” trio for viola, clarinet, and piano), and My Twentieth Century. (The last two were performed at Music10.)

I was especially happy that he talked about My Twentieth Century, as the piece had had quite a profound effect on me  at eighth blackbird’s concert on Monday night. He discussed both the extramusical significance of the work — its meaning — and its musical structure.  This work is Bresnick’s artistic response to the twentieth century as a whole — it is, in essence, a protest piece. In between playing their instruments, the musicians take turns reciting the lines of a poem written by a friend of Bresnick’s, the poet Tom Andrews. The poem starts out sounding like a bittersweet reminiscence of the twentieth century, but gradually turns darker, as the line “My brother died in the twentieth century” comes back again and again. The twentieth century, in Bresnick’s opinion, was a disaster — everyone’s brother died in some useless, human-caused way.

In discussing his decision to have the instrumentalists read lines of the poem, Bresnick referred to Charles Ives, whom he called a “democratic” composer. By this, he meant that Ives allowed for, and encouraged, imperfections in his music, such as wrong notes and off rhythms. In the same way, Bresnick wanted to demonstrate that music was permeable to imperfections by encouraging the players to speak in their own voices, regardless of what kind of accent they have, or how poorly they speak English. Personally, I find works like My Twentieth Century fascinating  because they allow an element of theatricality to emerge that is usually prevalent only in vocal music, rather than purely instrumental music. I would have never thought of it in the way that Bresnick described it — as “democratic” — if I were left to my own devices. Again, one of the perks of getting to hear the composer himself speak!

On a purely musical level, Bresnick discussed the ways in which he organised both the rhythm of and the pitches of My Twentieth Century. As I said in my review of the piece, there is a driving ostinato that runs throughout the work. Apparently, the rhythmic patterns he used are loosely based on those found in Balkan dances. His goal in using these types of rhythms throughout the piece was to give it a dancelike, obsessive quality, thus tying his work to the age-old, mythical totentanz (“dance of death”). Although he employs asymmetrical meters such as 5/16 or 7/16 throughout the work, he structured the piece quite rigorously into sections that are each 60 sixteenth notes long. During the sections when the instrumentalists recite the lines of the poem, however, the meter evens out into 12/16; so the spoken sections each consist of 5 measures of 12/16. Thus, he uses regular and irregular meter to distinguish between the purely instrumental sections of the piece, and those in which the instrumentalists speak.

Bresnick’s approach to pitches in My Twentieth Century was similarly systematic. Each of the instrumentalists only plays in sections, as they take turns reciting lines of the poem as well. So, any time that a particular instrument plays for a section, it only plays four pitches; moreover, all of these four-note groups are symmetrical.

The most fascinating bit of symmetry that Bresnick discussed had to do with the pitch centre of the piece. Earlier in the presentation, Bresnick had been talking about the importance of the interval of the tritone in his works; it turns out that My Twentieth Century is no exception. The whole work is centred around the pitch C sharp, although all twelve notes are used at some point in the piece. The one pitch that is reserved till the end of the piece is G, which lies a tritone away from C sharp. Bresnick introduces the pitch G at a crucial moment of the work, at the recitation of the lines: “There was something very obvious in the twentieth century / I could never see or understand.”

 After hearing Bresnick speak, I understand why he takes Brahms as one of his models. Just as Brahms did over a century ago, Bresnick strives in his compositions to unite a rigorous structure with deep, vitally important meaning, the emotional climaxes of his work coinciding with the formal ones. What type of music could be more satisfying, and more necessary, to discuss and to perform than this?

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Chancellor Goldstein,

Although it comes as no surprise to those of us who are familiar with the machinations of the CUNY hierarchy, your recent and very public support for Governor David Paterson’s proposed and cynically titled Higher Education Empowerment and Innovation Act, does not serve the needs or ease the burdens of the students and faculty who work and teach at the City University of New York. On the contrary, your support for Governor Paterson’s bill actively threatens the welfare of these stakeholders, who, should the bill pass, would be subject to unprecedented cuts, layoffs, tuition hikes, and differential tuition changes that would effectively price out many of the underprivileged poor and working class students whom CUNY has historically sworn to help, while threatening the job security of the professors and lecturers who serve those students.

When Paterson was originally considering his first round of budget cuts to CUNY way back in 2008 you did nothing to oppose that move, telling the Governor that CUNY could bear the cuts; and now in a classic and frankly quite expected quid pro quo, the governor is fighting tooth and nail against the entire legislature to pass a bill that would effectively give you and the CUNY Board of Trustees complete control over the CUNY budget, including the ability to raise tuition more than 9% per year indefinitely. This is a rate unprecedented in the history of the City University of New York, and would be a devastating blow to the students of CUNY, who have already been hit with significant tuition increases even as the university’s budget has been slashed year after year.

We realize that as Chancellor you have big visions for the future of the university. These visions are made quite explicit in the myriad advertising campaigns that the university is waging across the city in an effort to portray CUNY as a cutting edge research institution with award winning students and celebrity faculty. We, too support the best CUNY possible, but not at the expense of the current students, whose children, should this bill pass, would likely not be able to afford to attend the CUNY you envision.

By cynically and unilaterally supporting Governor Paterson’s proposed higher education bill, Chancellor Goldstein, without prior public discussion or debate within the university, without seeking the opinions and ideas of those you represent, you have overstepped the bounds of your power; and in your effort to increase that power, in your attempt to manufacture a university based on your own narrow vision rather than that of the faculty and students and citizens of NYC who make the university possible, you are in great dereliction of your duties as Chancellor.  

We the undersigned urge you and the CUNY Board of Trustees to withhold any further official support of the Higher Education Empowerment and Innovation Act until such time that there has been ample debate on the subject and all interested parties have been able to register their opinions and possible objections to the bill.

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The proposed legislation would allow the SUNY and CUNY university systems to annually raise tuition as much as two and a half times the five-year aver­age of the Higher Edu­ca­tion Price Index (which mea­sures infla­tion­ary increases in oper­at­ing costs for col­leges and uni­ver­si­ties across the nation) and to create differential tuition rates for different programs and degrees. This means that the CUNY Chancellor and Board of Trustees would be allowed to raise tuition by more than two and a half times the rate of inflation without any approval from the state legislature.  

Proponents of the bill such as John Simpson, the president of SUNY Buffalo and CUNY Chancellor Matthew Goldstein, say the bill would provide the universities greater flexibility and autonomy. “In these difficult fiscal times, budget flexibility will enable the University to strengthen its responsiveness to the changing needs of students and to the changing economy,” said Chancellor Goldstein.

But the PSC, which represents more than 20,000 staff and faculty members at CUNY, disagrees, and they are calling on members to write letters to their state legislators in opposition to the bill. In a forceful statement issued on July 25, PSC President Barbara Bowen said

“The proposal strips CUNY and SUNY of public investment while limiting access for students.  Under the governor’s proposal, tuition could go up by more than 9 percent per year, every year, and could rise even higher for certain colleges and academic majors. “This cynical proposal would accelerate the under-funding of CUNY while purporting to enhance the University.  It is accompanied by devastating budget cuts to both CUNY and SUNY.  If the proposal is enacted, the governor’s legacy will be public universities that are weakened and increasingly stratified by income and race.”

State legislators are expected to decide on the proposed budget by Monday, June 28.

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After more than forty grueling days of strikes and campus occupations, students at the University of Puerto Rico have finally reached a tentative settlement with the University that meets all of their core demands.

On April 21, students took over all eleven campuses of the University of Puerto Rico system, effectively shutting down the university for the past two months.  The strikes and occupations were called by students in protest against a series of proposed measures by the University that would have raised tuition by fifty percent, massively cut merit based scholarships, and further privatized the university.

Students negotiators are viewing the agreement as a victory for their cause, telling the Los Angeles Times that the university had agreed to all four of their central demands including:

“the continuation of tuition waivers for meritorious students, the cancellation of a planned special fee that would have raised the cost of study by 50 percent, the rejection of initiatives to privatize the university and a commitment not to enact summary sanctions against strike participants.”

The agreement protects all students, faculty, and staff who were involved in the strikes or who spoke out in favor of the strikes, against summary or retaliatory prosecution by the university.

The agreement comes after Judge José Negrón Fernández ordered arbitration negotiations between the two groups last Friday, June 11, and after the intervention of UPR trustee and former UPR president Norman Maldonado, who reportedly convinced Board of Trustees chair Ygrí Rivera to drop her insistent demands that striking students be punished.   

The administration is waiting to hear back from the student occupiers, who are scheduled to debate and vote on the agreement this weekend.

For more information see The Puerto Rico Daily Sun

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Congratulations are in order for the fine folks running CUNY-TV. The broadcasting arm of the CUNY system, located here within our very own building, cleaned up at the annual New York Emmy awards this April, taking home four awards for excellence in programming. CUNY was recognized in particular for two of its shows—“Nueva York” and “We Are New York”—that, according to CUNY senior vice-chancellor Jay Hershenson, “focus on quality-of-life issues impacting immigrants, utilizing television as an educational tool.”

“Nueva York” was recognized by the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, which hosts the Emmys, as being the best magazine program on the air this past year and for producing the best episode of TV in 2009. “We Are New York” won Emmys for Best Writer and Best Photographer.

John Jay Offers Students Real Life Lesson on Putting the “Criminal” in Criminal Justice

While CUNY-TV was busy kicking ass at the New York Emmys, administrators at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice were being recognized for their own recent activities by the US Department of Justice. On April 14, federal authorities brought suit against the school for engaging in discriminatory hiring practices targeting noncitizens authorized to work in the United States. According to the Department of Justice, John Jay violated provisions of the 1996 Immigration and Nationality Act by demanding extra authorization from over one hundred job applicants in the last two years alone instead of simply accepting regular work eligibility documents allowed by law.

The New York Times reports that the “suit seeks civil penalties of $1,100 for each individual and unspecified measures to overcome the effects of discrimination. It also seeks compensation for each person affected, including the woman who set off the investigation when she complained in 2008 to the Justice Department’s Office of Special Counsel for Immigration-Related Unfair Employment Practices. She called the special counsel after she was fired from her job as a part-time computer lab assistant at the college.” The woman, who refuses to be publicly identified, was fired after John Jay demanded she produce a green card in order to continue being employed. When she refused, the college issued her walking papers.

For its part, John Jay admits wrongdoing in this instance, and has agreed to settle the suit as quickly as possible. The college marched its PR head in front of reporters to assure them that John Jay “reaffirm[s] our commitment to providing employment opportunities to immigrants who are authorized to work in this country.” The spokeswoman also promised that the college would institute a “comprehensive training program”—whatever that means—to ensure that discriminatory practices are eradicated from John Jay’s hiring process in future.

John Jay Discriminates Against Immigrants AND Adjuncts

While we applaud John Jay’s commitment to ending discrimination, we are less impressed by its commitment to education. A few weeks ago, adjunct faculty members in the departments of sociology and computer science were put on notice that letters of reappointment would not be forthcoming from the college for fall 2010 for any adjunct faculty, and that indeed all adjuncts would be receiving letters of non-reappointment, a crass violation of the spirit animating CUNY’s contract with the PSC.

The Advocate has gotten hold of an email sent to members of the sociology department, which
we reprint below:

Dear Sociology Department Adjunct Faculty Member,

As President Jeremy Travis’s letter of April 13th indicated, there is great uncertainty over the financial state of John Jay College next year and there will be a number of changes instituted to reduce costs. It is likely there will be fewer classes than before. At present we do not know how many course sections we will have available for adjunct assignment in the fall and therefore cannot send out letters of reappointment. All adjunct faculty in the sociology department are getting this note, and all will be receiving a letter of non-reappointment from Provost Jane Bowers. We will keep you posted on course availability when we know our situation for the fall. Meanwhile, it would be prudent to consider other options for Fall 2010. If we are able to offer you one or two classes we will let you know as soon as possible. We are hoping that this is a temporary situation.

Best regards,

Susan Opotow, Chair,
Appointment Committee Adjunct

Andrew Karmen and Barry Spunt,
Committee Members”

Best regards, indeed. Apparently John Jay faculty didn’t take getting fucked on their backs, prompting a follow-up letter from Opotow, Karmen and Spunt explaining just why it is they feel compelled to act like such pricks:

Dear Part-Time Colleagues [Oh! Now they’re colleagues!!!],

We would like to make it clear the reasons for the non-reappointment letter. As we stated in our email to you of 4/20/10, there is great uncertainty over the financial state of John Jay College next year and there will be a number of changes instituted to reduce costs. We are also expected to have an increased number of graduate teaching fellows who are prioritized by the college over adjuncts in terms of teaching. This will mean we may have fewer course sections to offer. We very much value the contribution of our adjunct faculty and are already trying to do everything we can to resist a reduction in the number of the courses but this is the situation we are faced with.

As the situation becomes clearer we will be starting the process of reappointment. We are sorry if this is causing you any anxiety. Please bear with us in this period of uncertainty. We are working to save as many positions as we can and will let you know of any new developments as soon as possible.

Andrew Karmen, Susan Opotow, and Barry Spunt

On Friday April 30th, at a joint meeting of the CCU and the Adjunct Project to discuss the threat of more layoffs, members voted for a resolution that included plans to hold a demonstration in front of John Jay College sometime early this month. Keep an eye out for more information regarding this protest. Those who would like know more or who would like to participate should contact the Adjunct Project at:
theadjunctproject@gmail.com.

Union Waivers Leave CUNY Labor Split

Inherent tensions between full-time and adjunct labor pools within the Professional Staff Congress were on display this past month as a dispute over waivers allowing adjuncts to exceed their teaching loads came to a head. The PSC-CUNY contract contains provisions designed to shield part-time faculty from being stuck with full-time loads. Normally, adjuncts are limited to nine-credit workloads per semester, per college, with an allowance of one extra course at a second college (of no more than six credits). Adjuncts looking for additional work traditionally must apply for a waiver from the union allowing extra courses to be added to their already burdened schedule. And traditionally, the union has approved waiver requests.

The union announced several months ago that waiver requests will no longer be accepted moving forward, a policy change the union argues will force colleges to create more tenure-track faculty positions. Adjuncts, unsurprisingly, disagree, arguing that the union’s new position on waivers will only limit their access to income, and lead to the creation of more adjunct positions, not the creation of increased tenure-track slots.

The position of adjuncts was expressed succinctly in a letter of complaint issued by CUNY Contingents Unite. According to the CCU statement, the union’s new position on waivers not only harms adjunct laborers, but undermines solidarity within the union itself. “It does not help the union to callously tell those already on the bottom to take the lumps, grit their teeth and somehow find a way to get by,” the letter argues. “Nor can those who are barely getting by with waivers just find other jobs, especially in the present economic crisis.”

The PSC’s Barbara Bowen responded by noting that she understands the predicament faced by adjuncts. “We are aware, I feel it very acutely that when you stop a labor abuse, you have to pay special attention to your own members who have something to lose by stopping that abuse,” she said. “Somebody who had been teaching four courses and getting a waiver could have come to count on that income. That is a blow to the individual and there’s no denying that.” Nevertheless, Bowen argued that the new policy ultimately serves the best interest of adjuncts by preventing CUNY from hiring adjuncts on a full-time basis while only offering them part-time pay.

While adjuncts argue that the union’s best intentions will not come to pass, they also see that the new policy does nothing to dismantle the current, two-tiered system of salary discrepancies between part– and full-time CUNY faculty. As Inside Higher Ed recently noted, “the anger at CUNY is not just about the union’s policy but also about the process by which it decided on its strategy. Adjuncts who are critical of the shift in thinking say they never had a chance to tell the union why they like waivers. And many adjuncts noted that in a union meeting and in a union publication, union leaders have compared the issue of the caps to child labor laws. Comparing adjuncts to children was called ‘patronizing,’ among other terms. These adjuncts noted that—even if union leaders disagree with their decisions—they are adults capable of making a choice on whether teaching another section is in their interests. One adjunct who asked not to be identified said that “it is infantilizing to pretend that this is like a seven-year-old in the coal mines.”

Bowen acknowledges adjunct disgruntlement, but shot back that the PSC is fighting for faculty rights on two separate fronts, and that a freeze of teaching waivers was critical to adjunct protection. Says Bowen, “One can push very hard for long-term change and still have commitment to addressing the needs of those affected in the short term.”

More News In Brief

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Authored By: Emiliano Huet-Vaughn and Tom Pessah

Sponsored By: Senators Gaurano , Carlton, Kwon, Oatfield

WHEREAS, the ASUC notes the complexity of international relations in all cases, including the Middle East, and recognizes the inability of a body such as the ASUC to adjudicate matters of international law and human rights law, or to take sides on final status issues on wars and occupations throughout the world. Yet, we do note the following findings from the United Nations and other leading human rights organizations regarding the Israel/Palestine conflict, and use it as a case study; and,

WHEREAS, prior and subsequent to the bombing the Israeli government has engaged in collective punishment of the whole of the Palestinian population, in the view of the human rights community, as exemplified by the ongoing 32 month blockade on Gaza, of which Physicians for Human Rights-Israel has written, “the prolonged siege imposed by the Israeli government on Gaza, the closing of its borders, the tightening of policies regarding permission to exit Gaza for medical purposes, and the severe shortage of medications and other medical supplies all severely damage the Palestinian health system and endanger the lives and health of thousands of Palestinian patients,” and of which the Red Cross has said “the whole strip is being strangled, economically speaking” making life in Gaza “a nightmare” for the civilian population, with essential supplies, including electricity, water, and fuel, being denied to the 1.5 million inhabitants 90% of whom depend on aid to survive; and

WHEREAS, within the occupied West Bank (including East Jerusalem), the Israeli government continues a policy of settlement expansion that, in the opinion of the United Nations Security Council, Human Rights Watch, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and numerous other organizations concerned with enforcement of international law, constitutes a direct violation of Article 49, paragraph 6 of the 4^th Geneva Convention which declares “an occupying power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into territories it occupies.”; and

WHEREAS, in the context of this bill, “occupation” refers to the current state of Palestinian life under Israeli’s military control in the West Bank and Gaza; a definition that is consistent to commonly-held international law; and

WHEREAS, student research⁹ has revealed that, according to the most recent UC investment report¹⁰, within the UC Retirement Program fund and the General Endowment Program fund there exist direct investments in American companies materially and militarily supporting the Israeli government’s occupation of the Palestinian territories, including American companies General Electric and United Technologies; and

WHEREAS, General Electric holds engineering support and testing service contracts with the Israeli military and supplies the Israeli government with the propulsion system for its Apache Assault Helicopter fleet, which, as documented by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, has been used in attacks on Palestinian and Lebanese civilians, including the January 4, 2009 killings of Palestinian medical aide workers¹¹; and

WHEREAS, United Technologies supplies the Israeli government with Blackhawk helicopters and with F-15 and F-16 aircraft engines and holds an ongoing fleet management contract for these engines, and, Amnesty International has documented the Israeli government’s use of these aircraft in the bombing of the American School in Gaza, the killing of Palestinians civilians, and the destruction of hundreds of Palestinian homes;¹² therefore, be it

* RESOLVED, that the ASUC will ensure that its assets, and will advocate that  the UC assets, do not include holdings in General Electric and United Technologies because of their military support of the occupation of the Palestinian territories; be it further 

* RESOLVED, that the ASUC will further examine its assets and UC assets for funds being invested in companies that a) provide military support for or weaponry to support the occupation of the Palestinian territories or b) facilitate the building or maintenance of the illegal wall or the demolition of Palestinian homes, or c) facilitate the building, maintenance, or economic development of illegal Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian territories; be it further

* RESOLVED, that if it is found that ASUC and/or the UC funds are being invested in any of the abovementioned ways, the ASUC will divest, and will advocate that  the UC divests, all stocks, securities, or other obligations from such sources with the goal of maintaining the divestment, in the case of said companies, until they cease such practices. Moreover, the ASUC will not make further investments, and will advocate that  the UC not make futher investments, in any companies materially supporting or profiting from Israel’s occupation in the abovementioned ways; be it further 

* RESOLVED, that this ASUC resolution not be interpreted as the taking of sides in the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, but instead as a principled expression of support for universal human rights and equality; be it further 

* RESOLVED, that the ASUC Senate engage in education campaigns to publicize the divestment efforts and violation of international human rights law, and that furthermore, a committee of 5 members, 2 senators selected by the senate body as a whole, 2 members of or students selected by the UC Berkeley Divestment Task Force, and the ASUC President or a representative from his/her office, form at the end of this semester to monitor and promote university progress in regards to the above mentioned ethical divestment goals; and,*

BE IT FINALLY RESOLVED, that this Committee will recommend additional divestment policies to keep university investments out of companies aiding war crimes throughout the world, such as those taking place in Morocco, the Congo, and other places as determined by the resolutions of the United Nations and other leading international human rights organizations

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On May 28th US District Judge Lawrence Kahn issued a preliminary injunction against the furloughs, which were originally set to take affect May 11. In a strongly worded statement that left little room for misunderstanding, Judge Kahn agreed with plaintiffs that “the permanent 20 percent loss in salary and wages that the furlough plan effects constitutes irreparable harm.” Kahn also chided the Governor more directly adding that “The contractual impairments were the sudden and sole work of the executive and were proposed in a manner that largely precluded legislative deliberation.”

Union leaders were pleased with the decision. In a formal statement issued on the PSC Website Barbara Bowen, the President of the PSC, argued that the furloughs were a distraction from the real problems of balancing the budget, saying that “New York’s furlough scheme had nothing to do with closing the budget deficit: it would have produced about $240 million, while the deficit is $9 billion. The only real way to solve the budget crisis is to enact progressive tax reform, something the governor and the legislature have so far refused to do. I hope this decision sends them back to the bargaining table and convinces them of the need for closing tax loopholes and restoring a fair tax system.”

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 On March 4, 2010, hundreds of thousands of teachers, students, and their supporters gathered across the country in protest as part of a national day of action against cuts in education.  From New York to California, demonstrations in some forty states highlighted the current crisis in American public education made worse by recent waves of governmental budget cuts. In New York State, as the GC Advocate has been reporting consistently for the past several years, the cuts to education spending are staggering.  The past two years alone have witnessed Governor David Paterson leading the charge in a slash and burn campaign against the State and City Universities of New York, which has robbed SUNY’s budget of roughly $400 million and the CUNY system of over $172 million, and the Wonder governor is looking to relieve its coffers of an additional $104 million in the next year in the name of fiscal responsibility. 

But that’s not all!  Our state’s number one Yankee fan has shifted the burden of education even more lopsidedly since taking off by raising tuition costs by 14 percent, and has expressed his wish that future tuition hikes be decided by the CUNY Board of Trustees on an annual basis without check or balance.  This is the same board that recently reaffirmed its commitment to fiscal austerity in the face of economic crisis by voting to raise the salary of its lord and savior Matthew Goldstein by a modest $40,000, bringing the annual income of CUNY’s answer to Mephistopheles to well over half a million dollars.   And that’s before you factor in his yearly living allowance which, needless to say, is more than you’re ever likely to earn in a year, well, with your Graduate Center degree, and all. 

As the March 4th NY group pointed out in its call to action, “The K-12 public school system is also under attack.  New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has announced the closing of nineteen schools, given public schools’ space to charter schools operating in the same buildings, and attacked teachers’ salaries and tenure, while the board of the Metropolitan Transit Authority recently threatened to cancel student Metrocards. Meanwhile, in California, the state has issued more than 23,000 pink slips to k-12 teachers across the state, informing them they will not have a job next year, and in Rhode Island, all 93 of the teachers and staff at Central Falls High School were fired for poor performance. A move that President Obama himself praised as a necessary step in school reform. These attacks on K-12 education are also often racist since most schools to close are in communities of color. Furthermore, the charter school invasion, supported by Obama is a strategy of privatization not a strategy to better public education. According to a recent NYC Department of Education accountability report, although charter school students scored higher on standardized tests, traditional public schools actually did a better job at raising test scores. The truth is that charter schools raise their scores by picking the best public school students and rejecting English language learners and special needs students.”

Protests were organized across the city, beginning with walkouts at New York University and the New School just before noon, continuing on with a healthy showing of resistance at City College just after lunch, and followed by major protests at Hunter College immediately thereafter… where things reportedly got a little ugly. Unsubstantiated accusations have been hurled by a number of different sides in a bout of intramural bickering between organized groups purportedly fighting on the same side against the budget cuts.  Regardless of what actually went on, the real story is clear: the Hunter College administration, CUNY security, and the New York Police Department once again met acts of resistance to egregious state policy with a show of overwhelming force.  Before the protest even began, the NYPD raided the Hunter campus, refused entry to all non-Hunter ID holders, shut down the cafeteria, and denied protest organizers access to sound amplification devices. In the end, three protesters were arrested by police. Security is one thing, but the question needs asking: what were so many cops doing at a small-scale peaceful student protest?        

Despite some disturbances at Hunter, students gathered at the Grad Center at 4PM, and marched together on Paterson’s office at 4:30. Out in front of the governor’s Manhattan address, amidst hundreds of protestors, PSC president Barbara Bowen outlined in no uncertain terms for Democracy Now! the motivation driving the nationwide  protests and just how high the stakes are for students and teachers in New York State.  “We want to teach the students. We want to teach students in great conditions, not substandard conditions. We want funding to make our university a great university, and that takes money. So don’t believe anybody from the Governor’s office, which is right up here, when they say that budget cuts are inevitable, that CUNY and SUNY will have to tighten their belts this year. We have already tightened too hard. We wait in lines for classes. We sit on windowsills to be in a class. We stand in line to get to a lab. We wait all day to register. That is not acceptable. And if we have more cuts, we’ll only get more of that. CUNY and SUNY have been cut proportionately more than any other state agency in New York. Think about that for a minute. CUNY and SUNY, the public higher education system, has been cut, proportionately to its size, more than any other state agency in New York. What does that tell us? That someone has an agenda of your not getting an education, not getting a first-rate education. We have to change that political agenda. That’s what we’re here for today.”

White Noise

Look who’s teaching at CUNY?  White people!  At a recent City Council hearing on diversity at CUNY, municipal legislators took issue with the imbalance of diversity between City University’s students and teachers.  Matthew Goldstein’s henchwoman Gloriana Waters—vice-chancellor of the CUNY system—recently boasted CUNY’s rainbow of diversity in the student ranks, noting that “White, black and Hispanic undergraduates each comprise more than a quarter of the student body, and Asians account for more than 15 percent.”  That’s great!  And yet at the same time, white professors make up over two thirds of the city-wide CUNY faculty.  This discrepancy led the City Council to demand that CUNY do more to diversify its faculty. 

But according to our own president, William Kelly, shaking things up may be easier said than done.  According to the New York Daily News, Wild Bill “said there’s a national shortage of minority applicants with a Ph.D. that makes recruiting difficult. It takes an average of 8–1/2 years to get a doctoral degree, and starting salaries for professors pale in comparison to that of lawyers, medical residents and financial service occupations.”
But these are only excuses, says City Councilman, and recently fired head of the council’s Higher Education Committee, Charles Barron.  “If we’re the new majority, then we should be a majority of the faculty,” Barron argued.  Barron followed up these comments by officially challenging CUNY trustee Jeffrey Wiesenfeld to a duel. 

Suck on this Wiesenfeld!

Speaking of Jeffrey Wiesenfeld, the world’s sexiest trustee was recently busted down a notch by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).  The federal board of inquiry determined at the start of March that the New York Department of Education (DOE) discriminated against Debbie Almontaser—founding principal of the Khalil Gibran Academy, an Arabic language public school in Brooklyn—by forcing her to resign her position following a tsunami of controversy provoked in no small part by Wiesenfeld.  Handsome Jeff argued back in 2007 that schools like the Gibran Academy would likely become breeding grounds for Islamic fundamentalism.  “We have to be concerned with this type of school on a different level,” Wiesenfeld argued, “for the simple reason that…while today most Muslims are not terrorists, virtually all terrorists are Muslims.”  Impeachable logic, clearly.  Wiesenfeld went on to label the school a “national security concern.”

Not so, finds the EEOC. The federal commission basically ruled that arguments for Almontaser’s ouster, including Wiesenfeld’s, were, at their core, rascist, noting that the school administrator had been discriminated against “on account of her race, religion and national origin.”  While the commission’s findings are nonbinding, federal investigators recommended that the DOE reinstate Almontaser to her position, that she receive back pay, and that she be compensated for damages and legal fees.       

This wouldn’t be the first time, of course, that Wiesenfeld has been slapped by a public authority for his, er, intolerance.  In the late 1990s, then State Senator Daniel Hevesi (himself not without some questionable character issues, it should be noted, as if you couldn’t infer that from his being a state senator!), questioned Wiesenfeld’s integrity after accusations that he referred to blacks as savages and Hassidic Jews as “thieves” were leveled by community advocate Isaac Abraham.  (Jeffrey!  Baby!  Did you think we wouldn’t resurrect this particular skeleton in the closet? Feel free to respond!)   Unlike Wiesenfeld’s previous run-ins, however, this latest controversy came directly under the rigorous examination of an independent, expert body, and was rightfully dismissed as the product of politically charged bigotry.  More on this will be reported in these pages as the situation develops and demands.  

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The money used to fatten Mathew Goldstein’s wallet isn’t going to grow on trees, people, so get ready to pony up some cash! As if David Paterson hasn’t already caused the students at CUNY and SUNY enough grief with his statewide cuts to higher education, Governor Justice is now looking to help the struggling university systems recoup some of those losses by proposing legislation that would allow the Boards of Trustees at SUNY and CUNY to increase and/or adjust tuition rates at will. Paterson’s new bill (euphemistically titled the Higher Education Empowerment and Innovation Act) would neither empower students nor provide for any greater innovation, but would instead give chancellors at both SUNY and CUNY the ability to significantly raise tuition without state legislative approval, as well as the option of offering differential tuition rates for different programs and campuses. This means more prestigious CUNY or SUNY campuses, such as Hunter and City College, could potentially begin charging higher tuition rates than other schools in the system, making access to those schools out of reach for increasing numbers of poor and working class New Yorkers. Not surprisingly, Matty G. is all in favor of the plan.

According to the Gotham Gazette, the new bill would allow increases in tuition up to to two and a half times the five-year average of the Higher Education Price Index, which measures inflationary increases in operating costs for colleges and universities across the nation. In other words, Mathew Goldstein and his BOT henchmen would essentially be able to increase tuition at a rate at least two and a half times that of inflation.

This kind of power would, once again, place the burden of the current budget crisis onto the backs of our city and state’s poorest and most vulnerable citizens. To make things even worse, Goldstein has made it explicit that he intends to use differential tuition rates at the graduate level, which could mean higher tuition for students in the sciences and those earning professional degrees.

Both the PSC and some state senators argue that this new bill is nothing less than an attempt to further privatize the two state university systems. In January, Barbara Bowen gave formal testimony in Albany that pretty well sums up what the future will look like should this bill actually pass: “It is not difficult to predict the next step, given New York’s sorry history of underinvestment in CUNY and SUNY. Students become the cash machine, legislative control of tuition disappears, and the State cuts back even further on its support. The governor’s proposal says not one word about State investment and offers no guarantee that ever-escalating tuition would not be used to replace existing State support.”

The City University of Phoenix

In a wildly audacious move even by the low standards of our lord and chancellor Matthew Goldstein, the School of Professional Studies (SPS) moved during the middle of January to jettison key provisions of its governance document that threaten the quality and value of CUNY doctoral education.

Initially designed to funnel all of CUNY’s continuing education programs through a centralized bureaucratic institution modeled after NYU’s School for Continuing and Professional Studies, the SPS was founded in 2003 with the twin understandings that portions of the generated revenue would be directed to doctoral support initiatives and that the new school would not offer duplicate degrees that could be obtained through other CUNY colleges.

Not surprisingly, the SPS paid out revenue funds for doctoral support only once, while it was still in its infancy in 2003. Since then, doctoral support monies have not been collected from SPS, with over a half-million dollars sitting in a rainy-day escrow account. The GC Advocate will be reporting in depth on reasons why the allocation of these resources has been refused by the Graduate Center in next month’s issue. But more immediately, and more troubling, is the fact that the SPS board of governors voted to kill any official responsibility it previously had to doctoral support as well as its promise not to issue duplicate degrees.

As the SPS increasingly offers undergraduate and graduate degrees in various subjects, the possibility of correspondence course degrees in, say, political science or biology, at the undergraduate, Master’s and doctoral levels has become increasingly real. Moreover, the fact that the SPS does not distinguish between in-state and out-of-state students for the purposes of tuition payment (everyone gets charged the same tuition regardless of residency) opens the floodgates for University of Phoenix-style online education to take root within CUNY, and suggests a naked business logic of offering for-profit educational opportunities for anyone, anywhere, that can pay.

All of which gets compounded by matters of accreditation. SPS currently enjoys pride of place under the banner of the Graduate School and University Center, a fully-accredited institution within the Middle States accreditation initiative. If oversight or rigor is lax—and current evidence suggests it is—and credits between the school and other degree programs are rendered transferable (which is theoretically possible already), than SPS could essentially free-ride on the accredited strengths of other colleges while simultaneously draining the integrity of the CUNY network’s solid academic reputation. Look for further coverage in these pages on SPS in future issues.

What Good are Rules for If You Can’t Break Them on the Regular

According to the CUNY Board of Trustees Code of Conduct, no member of the board may accept employment with the university within two years of serving as a trustee. Yet this past month, the Board of Trustees voted to “waive” this silly ethical protocol in the name of political expediency and cronyism. The recent passing of Vice Chancellor Ernesto Malave left the board scrambling to find a replacement to fill this “large and unexpected hole in the University’s administration.” But what’s this? A perfect replacement from the board of trustees itself? What are the odds? “Fortunately, the University has a trustee,” the board announced, “whose background and experience make him uniquely qualified to step into the breach under these unique circumstances.”

Unique, indeed. Shaw’s bona fides are apparently so impressive that his fellow trustees simply brushed aside all bureaucratic constraints blocking his appointment as Interim Senior Vice Chancellor for Budget, Finance, and Financial Policy. At the same time, Shaw’s record is not so impressive that he can fill Maleve’s shoes alone. The board also promoted Matthew Sapienza, a career CUNY technocrat, to the position of Associate Vice Chancellor for Budget and Finance. Given the effusive praise heaped upon him by the board in their explanation of promotion—not to mention his close association with Malave—some might question why the board did not simply appoint Sapienza to Malave’s vacant post, and save the extra salary. Others might also question why Shaw’s portfolio includes “financial policy” whereas Sapienza’s does not. Should we expect another appointment of an additional “associate vice chancellor” to help hold Shaw’s hand through the thickets of financial policy? More on this as it develops…

Raise High the Chancellor’s Salary, Trustees

Times are tough—just ask CUNY’s Chancellor Matthew Goldstein. With the recent economic and financial crises, it’s hard to live on a nearly half-million dollar annual salary with an additional $100,000 yearly housing allowance. Good thing the Board of Trustees jumped into action with all the enthusiasm of an Obama administration official bailing out a Goldman Sachs senior executive. Citing his extraordinary—nay, Herculean—efforts to situate the CUNY system in the vanguard of corporatist efforts to smother public education, the band of trustees moved to raise the Heart of Darkness’ annual salary by nearly $40,000 a year. Seemingly without any intended irony, the board noted that such a raise was “richly deserved,” and moreover was “necessary for CUNY to remain competitive and on an upward trajectory.”

Yet despite the soaring rhetoric in honor of Darth Goldstein’s irreplaceably steady hand at CUNY’s helm, a seedling of dissent, a slight rebellion off fifth if you will, could be seen sprouting in the Board of Trustee ranks…kind of: the vote was not unanimous. Apparently concerned that a vote against Matthew Goldstein’s bank account is a vote against America, student senate representative Cory Provost, an MA student in Brooklyn College’s School of Urban Policy and Administration, abstained from casting his ballot. Way to stand up, guy!

Newsflash: You’re Both Ass Clowns!

What should have been a celebratory moment of remembrance and renewal in early December was quickly turned into an episode of Jerry Springer by City Councilmember Charles “the Red” Barron and CUNY’s own loose-cannon goon, trustee Jeffrey “don’t get spontaneous with me” Wiesenfeld.

On December 1^st, city dignitaries and other mega-millionaires gathered in downtown Manhattan to mark the start of construction on a replacement facility for Fiterman Hall, a CUNY-owned campus facility badly damaged during the attacks of September 11. Barron, who had been asked to speak at the event, had not finished delivering his opening salutations before Wiesenfeld shouted “You’re a disgrace!” at the former Black Panther-turned-politico-insider.

What followed was an exchange of machismo idiocy worthy of a middle school playground as each man taunted the other with long-distance finger jabs, threats, and, rumor has it, unspeakable insults to each
other’s mother.

The incident would have been just another example of New York politics run amok had Weisenfeld and Barron let matters rest there. But weeks later, Councilwoman—and chief adjutant to Emperor Michael Bloomberg—Christine Quinn removed Barron from his chairmanship of the Higher Education Committee, an action that Barron insists was carried out on the orders of Jeffrey Weisenfeld. For his part, our lusty trustee has been otherwise engaged, reportedly locked in a political death match with fellow Republican Chris Collins, a rising star within New York State conservative circles, and could not be reached for comment.

In a bizarrely argued response to his ouster and backdoor call to revolutionary arms, Barron compared his fight with Quinn and Weisenfeld to the deadly struggles of the 1968 civil rights movement, and invoked Steve Biko to rally supporters to his defense. It was hard to know if Barron was consoling his constituents or himself when he proclaimed that while he may no longer be the speaker’s chair of the Higher Education Committee, he would always be the “people’s chair” of social struggle. Or perhaps, more fittingly, of political irrelevancy: Barron currently finds himself the only city councilman without a seat on a single committee.

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