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ESC Slams Hunger Strike as Two More Join
By Josh Hirschland and Mary Kohlmann
PUBLISHED NOVEMBER 14, 2007
As a hunger strike in protest of University policies completes its first week today at noon, two students have decided to join the ranks of the four remaining strikers.
Rich Brown, CC ’10, and April Simpson, CC ’11, announced Tuesday evening that they were joining the strike. Also Tuesday night, the Engineering Student Council issued a harsh critique denouncing the strikers, blasting their methods as “inappropriate and self-defeating.”
Brown and Simpson both stated that they were driven to strike by a lack of administrative response to the coalition’s demands. “I wish only to express my desire for change in a peaceful, nondisruptive way that shows that as a member of Columbia University, I am starving for concrete progress on decades-old issues,” Brown said in a statement announcing his intent to join the strike.
The two new additions bring the total number of student strikers up to six. Aretha Choi, BC ’10, dropped out of the strike Saturday night after encountering health issues.
The statement released by the ESC—the first issued by undergraduate school representatives to come out against the strike—is scathing in its attack of the protesters’ methods. “The hunger strikers have taken our community hostage in a show of sensationalism. They have chosen self-harm to promote their agenda instead of working with their fellow students, the faculty, and the administration towards mutually beneficial and agreed upon change,” the statement read.
“These fallacious arguments have not allowed for dissent in an open forum that facilitates a fair, equal, and respectful discussion. The ESC calls for an immediate end to the hunger strike and requests that interested parties proceed through legitimate and proven University channels to motivate institutional change. At that time, the ESC will gladly support the dialogue surrounding any and all issues on our campus.”
“A hunger strike is a severe measure. I do not deny that, but I reject any statement that the racist and Eurocentric climate at Columbia University is not severe as well,” Andrew Tillet-Saks, CC ’09 and a member of the ad hoc coalition, said in response to the ESC statement.
In contrast to the ESC, the General Studies Student Council issued a statement of solidarity with the strikers Tuesday night. “They have chosen a hunger strike as a tactic of last resort because they feel systematically marginalized by the administration. Our concern is for the health of our fellow students regarding the marginalization of their voices,” the statement read. “We therefore stand in solidarity with our fellow students in their efforts to eliminate some of the myriad forms of racism, sexism, homophobia, ethnocentrism, ageism, and elitism found within our campus.”
“We too are really concerned with ethnic diversity on our campus and are trying to find the best way for SGA to support some of the demands being made by the hunger strikers,” Laura Stoffel, BC ’08 and president of the Student Government Association, said. “We would like to see the incorporation of racial formation in the nine ways of knowing, which his very similar to what they’re requesting of the core.”
SGA has not yet taken a formal stance on the strike itself. The Columbia College Student Council released a statement on Monday on the strike, issuing support to several of the demands, but not formally endorsing the strike.
Meanwhile, an anti-racism ad hoc coalition—of which the strikers are a part—issued a point-by-point response to a statement issued by Columbia administrators Monday night, in which the students stated their appreciation for current University efforts while maintaining that more needs to be done and implying that the University had embellished its current commitments. The coalition alleged that among the hires discussed in the statement, some had been announced as long as two years ago, and one is “simply a replacement for a senior faculty member who is on leave.”
“The negotiators were disappointed by the administration’s reiteration of statements made in previous meetings,” the coalition said in a separate statement Tuesday night. “They ask us to believe in the effectiveness of the very administrative process that has brought us to the negotiation table in the first place.”
Laura Schreiber contributed to this article.
The reporters of this article can be reached at news@columbiaspectator.com.
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I wonder if all this "diversity" and "acceptance" actually includes white people. Because all this group seems concerned with is vilifying an entire "race." I find it fascinating that something unfair is only unfair if the person it happens to is NOT light skinned.
...Gee... That sure sounds like racism!
Great job ESC!
i'm well in support of this esc statement, couldn't have worded it better, really appreciate that at least one major organization cares about maintaining open, un-manipulative debate on campus.
everytime we don't get our way.. we go on strike.. where would that leave us?
everytime we go hungry... to persuade the rest...where would that leave us?
striker... why not/ persuade us by your writing/ by your speech/ by your art/ by your film/
The contrast between "scathing criticism" by ESC and SEAS students vs. "solidarity" by General Studies only seems to highlight even more clearly the notion of "systematic marginalization" and desperation felt by some sub-groups that others aren't even aware of. E.g. I always knew GS students were treated as 2nd-class citizens, but I didn't know until I read GS's statement that GS students need individual approval in order to use Multicultural Affairs Office's services, while we can just go in and out as we wish. Who knows how else are some of our fellow Columbians being marginalized by the university.
Now that I realize how ignorant I have been, I will not go as far as calling the protestors illogical.
When, then, are hunger strikes, strikes or civil disobedience appropriate?
this was a comment on another spec article that may help answer your question about the appropriateness of strikes (or at least hunger strikes):
"Here's the thing. Hunger striking is great when used for issues that actually warrant it. I.e., Ghandi's use of it to protest British colonialism in India, Guantanamo Bay torture victims, university students protesting against South African apartheid. These are all examples of MAJOR, glaring human rights violations which literally threatened people's lives. Today, we have a bunch of privileged ivy league students protesting the fact that the ethnic studies department doesn't get enough support? Or that the core should be changed? Come on. Every single hunger striker, if I am not mistaken, CHOSE to go to Columbia, knowing full well what the core entailed. That's not to say that they shouldn't work to change it if they believe it is uneven (I, in fact, support REASONABLE attempts to change the core), but if the Core curriculum is SO offensive to you that you have to STARVE yourself the way Guantanamo Bay detainees who have suffered water-boarding do, then MAYBE, just MAYBE Columbia isn't the University for you. I mean come on, these kids act like their victims of oppression. No one is forcing you to go to Columbia or study the core curriculum.
None of these issues are big enough to warrant this. If these kids got up and said they were hunger striking to get the University to divest from Sudan, or companies doing business in Iraq, I would say "Bravo, finally people standing up for the important causes." But seriously, upper-class kids whining that their ivy league education isn't exactly what they want it to be? Please."
when the cause has been proven to be morally legitimate, and when all negotiations through official channels have broken down.
clearly, racism is wrong and columbia could have handled the hate crime incidents much better, but if you really look at the strikers' asks, nothing on the list of demands has been proven to hold moral legitimacy. ending slavery and colonization are matters of moral legitimacy. on the other hand, giving more of the university's limited money to a certain area of study at the expense of others is not a matter of moral legitimacy. that is a very debatable issue. the same goes for reforming the core and stopping the expansion of manhattanville.
good for the ESC! Glad to see at least somebody's looking at the situation from a logical standpoint... not too suprising that it would be the engineers.
To the GSSC:
My concern is ALSO for the health of our students. It simply does not follow that we should "therefore stand in solidarity with our fellow students in their efforts to eliminate some of the myriad forms of racism, sexism, homophobia, ethnocentrism, ageism, and elitism found within our campus." This type of logic is precisely what the hunger strikers are forcing every student to adopt and which is patently fallacious and manipulative: it polarizes the campus into two radically opposite camps and makes students who dare to disagree look like uncaring racists and bigots. This is emphatically not the case. Please do not confuse our concern over their health and the discussion over the method of a hunger strike (which they chose) with the debate on the substantive issues. Most if not all of the students I have heard opposing the strike agree with some or all the demands - but they reject the appropriateness of a hunger strike as the right way to go about it.
Since the appropriateness of the method of hunger striking, typically reserved for overthrowing the British Empire and ending international conflicts, is ultimately subjective, the right way to do this would have been to garner student opinion beforehand and see what the student body thinks. Doing that now (perhaps having a general vote) will be better, but ultimately still inadequate, as they have arguably forced students to agree with them because of our concern with their health and because we want to see this emotive debate cleared up quickly. It's not unlike George Bush's shameless rhetoric about supporting the troops: confusing the debate and highlighting the dramatic consequences of disagreement. Everybody has a right to disagree in a reasonable and rational way and when we do we must not confuse who is responsible for the consequences.
The strikers' demands concern issues which affect every single student at Columbia, and indeed generations of alumni, and no-one has the right to unilaterally impose their vision of the school on the rest of us by embarking on a emotive and dramatic hunger strike. Students who disagree: say so unashamedly! It is your duty as Columbia students to stand up to manipulation on issues which affect you and all other students. Don't let them get away with this.
yawzaaa!
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