The University of California at Santa Cruz advertises itself as “the original authority on questioning authority.”
This was, according to one architect of the 2013 rebrand, a response to criticisms from alumni and others that the university had lost touch with its alternative roots, that it had become mainstream.
Even if this university has cut ties in everything but lip-service to its early pedagogical vision, even if this university no longer resists departments and disciplines by design, even if this university has replaced narrative evaluations with standard letter grades and has replaced intimate ratios with oversized lectures, even if this university trumpets its radical and countercultural histories while attempting to tame and mute their legacies, even if this university, as one longtime professor put it, “advertises everything it killed,” I want to make clear that there are still people who question authority on this campus. I want to make clear that the activity of questioning authority—the vocation of questioning authority—is kept alive by the university’s students.
So, this morning, on this day when graduate students are supposed to submit grades but refuse to submit until their demand for a COLA is met, I am going to share with you, specifically, what authority I question.
I question the authority of a university that does not pay all of its workers a living wage.
I question the authority of a university that shackles undergraduates in debt.
I question the authority of a university that charges a PhD student, who is also a mother, 78% of her wages for a “subsidized” apartment. Building more on-campus housing for graduate students is not a “meaningful solution” if the rent charged for that housing is PREDATORY.
I question the authority of administrators who say the housing market is complex, who say that the high cost of living has many causes, but who do not name the university as one of those causes.
I question the authority of administrators who boast, in earshot of graduate students, about how much money the university makes from graduate student housing.
I question the authority of university media staff who publicize this strike as “illegal,” so as to paint strikers as criminal, and thus unworthy of support. There is a difference between breaking a no-strike clause in a contract and breaking criminal law.
I question the authority of an Arts Dean who would call expressions of student anger “Nazi propaganda.”
I question the authority of administrators who appeal to a principle of dialogue but create no genuine and widely-accessible arena for it, then rescind that appeal when it suits them.
I question the authority of a university that claims expertise in social justice but does not, as an institution, practice social justice.
It should be clear by tonight that graduate students meant what we said. We will not be managed. We will not be ignored. The administration refused to guarantee us a COLA, so we escalated. I hope the administration does not force us to escalate more.
With unwavering conviction that what we demand is right,
With unwavering faith that we will win,
A Striker