Here We Go Again

Yesterday, five students began a hunger strike, depriving their bodies as the worst aspects of Columbia University have deprived all of our minds, hearts, and spirits. If you listen to them speak or read their literature or Web site, you will see that they are striking in order to pressure the university to act on four broad areas: the Core Curriculum, ethnic studies, administrative reform and support, and the West Harlem expansion. None of these focus areas or the specific proposals put forth by the strikers and their supporters are new. This disheartening repetition begs the question: are we headed for another round of spectacle, whereby students make demands and, if they are disruptive and insistent enough, the University acquiesces to only some of them?

This process has given us some important, if limited, accomplishments like the Office of Multicultural Affairs and the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race. Yet, without persistent means of holding the University accountable, each conflagration must be followed by another one once it becomes clear that the administration has not lived up to its promises.

This time, not just so-called “activists” or the “angry students of color”, but all of us—students, faculty, alumni, and administrators—should do more. We must strive for more than mere concessions. Contrary to what the Internet trolls would have you believe, the hunger strike—students making demands of their University—is not akin to a group of petulant children holding their breath until their parents give them what they want. It’s democracy. The administration of this University functions in ways that alienate not just students, but faculty, alumni, and individual administrators. The hunger strikers and their supporters are not acting rashly, but are very deliberate in their actions, reflecting not only upon their own values and experiences at Columbia, but the entire history of struggle to make Columbia a more just and intellectually vibrant university.

This strike should act as a catalyst for all Columbians. Rather than react with bafflement or dismissal, we all should challenge ourselves in this University community to constructively engage the hunger strikers and the larger coalition behind them. I understand that there are people who agree with much of the platform but are more ambivalent about the tactic of a hunger strike, or don’t know where they fit in or how they can participate in such an action. We may not all choose to go on hunger strike; the strikers have chosen this course of action after engaging the administration in multiple ways. We can, and must, however, educate ourselves about this and past attempts to transform this University and, if driven, find our own ways of involving ourselves in this movement. From your computer, you can read the demands of the current strike; you can come out to the vigils at 9 p.m. every day. You can engage the strikers in conversation about their actions or attend the continued teach-ins and educational events put on by supporters.

As students, we are often at a disadvantage because we do not have the institutional memory of faculty and administrators. As with any student action, the strikers and their supporters have the burden of articulating a clear message, but don’t let misunderstanding or ambiguity lead you to dismiss the central issues at hand. Research the history for yourselves; an archive is located in the Intercultural Resource Center. Be willing to engage in personal conversation. Changing the University is as much an intellectual and creative project as it is a question of power. Protests and demonstrations help to create moments of possibility, but in and of themselves are insufficient for creating the kind of institution that is accountable to its community.

Follow-up and relationship-building are just as important, as they are the mechanisms by which we hold the University accountable to the victories of our protests. In 2004, students were able to change the CC curriculum not through protest alone, but through the bureaucratic mechanism of continued meetings with Professor Philip Kitcher and the Committee on CC. There is a need for student participation at every stage and in every form of this struggle. If you have common concerns with the hunger strikers, don’t get hung up on a question of tactics.

There are plenty of ways for all of us to change this University. We just have to stay open-minded, engage in dialogue, remain committed to the long haul, and use the imaginations and intellectual drives that got us here in the first place.

Christien Tompkins is a senior majoring in African-American studies.
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