Editorial Board

Spectator’s mission is to positively impact our community by shining a light on the actions of powerful institutions and holding them accountable. We, the 144th editorial board, aim to do so by using our collective voice to direct discourse around issues that will better inform our audience about their experiences with Columbia.

Tessa’s death is a tragedy, one that has shaken our University in ways we are only beginning to understand. With heavy hearts, we extend our deepest condolences to Tessa’s family and friends. Words fail to capture the spectrum of emotion felt across campus, and this is a loss we will all continue to endure for years to come.

Columbia exists on stolen land. Well, actually, all of Manhattan exists on stolen land. It’s no surprise that before the Dutch arrived in the 17th century and Christopher Columbus 100 years before that, the land that we now occupy belonged to Indigenous peoples. And on the second Monday of October, the day that has traditionally been celebrated throughout American history as Columbus Day, we stand behind Columbia’s Native American Council in calling for the University to recognize Indigenous Peoples’ Day.

Throughout Spectator’s history, our journalism and business sections have failed to represent and reflect the experiences of students of color both in our coverage and in our organization. As the new leaders of this paper, we have all been complicit in or responsible for perpetuating these failures.

Spectator’s mission is to positively impact our community, and with that comes a responsibility to hold institutions of power accountable. We, the new editorial board, want to wield our collective voice in a way that creates this accountability. We want to discuss the issues we face within our organization, our university, and beyond.

As the weather begins to warm, students flocking to bask on the sunny steps should recall that this time last year, the quad was filled with the rallying cries of many of Columbia's graduate students. This year, however, the silence is deafening. The decision by Graduate Student Employees United not to strike is troubling and indicates that the Columbia administration's anti-union tactics are indeed working.

The ongoing debate over graduate student unionization is not about higher wages, or better benefits, or whether or not graduate students can simultaneously be students and employees. What the debate is really about is 1,900 teaching and research assistants gaining a voice in a university that has systematically silenced them for years.

Administrators must now sit down with grad students.

Despite the liberal orthodoxy that dominates campus life, unions have never come easily to Columbia. Without fail, every time a union has tried to establish itself here, the administration —every administration —has opposed them. Now Graduate Student Employees United, preparing to vote on a weeklong strike, are facing this same opposition. Although a one-week strike won't win them union recognition, it will make a valuable statement, and it deserves undergraduate support.