Administrators Respond to Strikers' Demands

As negotiations on the hunger strike continued between administrators and representatives of the protesters on Monday evening, University officials released a public statement regarding the strikers’ demands.

Austin Quigley, dean of Columbia College, and Nicholas Dirks, vice president for arts and sciences, sent out the statement, which he also gave to the activists at the meeting. In the document, the administrators said that their intention was to bring a quick end to the hunger strike.

“The University is already taking initiatives and conducting reviews in many of the areas you raise for discussion. We will include concerned students in these processes, along with other students already involved. We will also invite them to meet with standing faculty committees whose current deliberations bear directly on some of the matters at issue,” the statement read.

The statement addressed the strikers’ demands regarding Core, administrative, and curricular reforms. Concerns regarding the proposed Manhattanville expansion are subject to negotiations with a different set of administrators.

The statement began by describing the $20 million in investments currently being made in the Center for the Study of Ethnicity in Race as a result of meetings with students that have taken place since the spring. While the strikers have demanded that the University hire 12 new professors in both ethnic studies and the Institute for Research in African American Studies over the next several years, the statement reported on one senior hire currently underway in IRAAS and three already-announced planned hires for CSER, including one focusing on Native American studies.

The statement also invited representatives of the activists to attend Tuesday's meeting of the Committee on the Core to discuss diversifying the Core Curriculum. Finally, the statement also announced new initiatives designed to combat hate crimes on campus, including new statistics reporting by Public Safety and the consideration of the creation of a high-level multi-cultural affairs official.

The statement discussed several “new investments [which] have been made” but did not make clear which represented a specific concession related to the hunger strike. Several of the projects were already underway.

"We hope you will agree that the points made above are consistent with the views and aspirations of the concerned students you represent, that they can serve to bring these discussions to a speedy conclusion, and that our students can return to their residence halls and classes," the statement read.

Strikers reacted coolly to the statement. While noting that the statement marked “advancements … that address critical issues of critical reforms,” Ryan Fukumori, CC '09 and part of the strikers' negotiation team, said that “basically, they haven’t conceded anything yet.”

“Ultimately there are some things that will take time...they argue that things need to be prolonged when the very fact is that people are starving on South Lawn," he said.