BY HANK REICHMAN Fifty years ago today, on April 23, 1968, members of the Students Afro-American Society (SAS) and Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and their supporters at Columbia University occupied Hamilton Hall, the main undergraduate classroom and administration building, demanding an end to construction of a segregated university gymnasium on public park land…
POSTED BY HANK REICHMAN The following press statement was issued by a group of graduate students at Columbia University, announcing Academic Freedom Week, a series of panel discussions to be held at Columbia April 9-11. Your silence will not protect you. ― Audre Lorde, The battle for academic freedom at our nation’s universities has been…
BY HANK REICHMAN Fifty years ago this April the administration of Columbia University deployed the New York City Police Department to clear hundreds of student protesters from five campus buildings they had occupied for nearly a week, during which the police ran riot, indiscriminately beating students and faculty members, protesting or not, while “clearing” the…
BY HANK REICHMAN Words: On November 17, Columbia University President Lee C. Bollinger spoke to attendees at the university’s annual Hamilton Award Dinner. Here is part of the Columbia Spectator’s report on his remarks: “The University is not a political institution—we do not take positions on political issues. But when you have a position that…
BY HANK REICHMAN A majority of teaching and research assistants at Columbia have voted to unionize, the National Labor Relations Board confirmed today, December 9. Graduate and undergraduate students voted 1602 to 623 in favor of joining Graduate Workers of Columbia-United Auto Workers Union. University administrators and especially provost John Coatsworth had lobbied vigorously against…
BY HANK REICHMAN Back in August, the National Labor Relations Board ruled in the Columbia University case that student employees at private universities have the right to organize unions to bargain collectively over the terms of their employment. Within a week Columbia’s provost, historian John Coatsworth, responded with a letter to the campus community, which…
BY HANK REICHMAN Last week the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruled in the Columbia University case that student employees at private universities have the right to organize unions to bargain collectively over the terms of their employment. The lengthy and carefully argued ruling overturned a 2004 decision in Brown University that denied such rights…
BY JOYA JOHN, ANNE PASEK, AND ABHISHEK BHATTACHARYYA Joya and Abhishek are members of Graduate Students United at the University of Chicago (AFT/AAUP), and Anne is a member of GSOC-Local 2110-UAW and Academic Workers for a Democratic Union at NYU. They wish to thank members of fellow unions across the country for the conversations over…
BY RISA LIEBERWITZ Today, the AAUP filed an amicus brief with the National Labor Relations Board in the Columbia University case, arguing that graduate assistants at private sector institutions should be considered employees with collective bargaining rights. The brief responded to an invitation from the NLRB to file amicus briefs addressing whether the Board should…
“Anti-Jewish Bias Claim at Columbia,” declares the headline at the National Review’s Phi Beta Cons blog. The only problem is that it’s utterly false. In January, Barnard Professor Rachel McDermott is alleged to have advised a student not to take Columbia professor Joseph Massad’s course on the Arab world because “he’s very anti-Israel,” and “You’ll…