United to Defend Public Education
Planning for April 17th action
At the Statewide organizing conference on Saturday, February 22nd, approximately 180 students faculty and staff activists came to San Francisco State to organize to oppose the cuts, layoffs, program discontinuances and tuition hikes that the CSU is currently engaging in. At the conference, we endorsed the April 17th National Day of Action for Higher Education. We are planning to have mass action in Sacramento, including a rally and march, and possibly also on the CSU headquarters in Long Beach to oppose the cuts and tuition hikes. At that conference we also adopted a collective platform that was ratified and amended by the entire delegation. The platform can be found here. This lays out a basis by which we will continue to organize and fight back against false austerity and the ongoing privatization of public higher education in California.
See Outreach Materials for Red for Ed Week schedule and April 17th Action sign-ups!
Statewide Organizing Conference
Governor Newsom announced a new round of cuts to the UC and CSU systems for the coming academic year, while several CSU and UC campuses experience ongoing austerity measures, including lay-offs, and student fee increases. In addition, the new presidential administration has pledged opposition to funding public services, basic civil liberties and social justice oriented curricula. The organizations below call on fellow unionized and non-unionized faculty, student-worker and staff unions, and other students and unions interested in advocating for a fully funded CSU and other public education systems, and for the defense of civil liberties and academic freedom to attend this organizing conference on Saturday February 22nd.
At the conference we will strategize how we stop the cuts to education, build mass support for redirecting CSU statewide funds to the classroom, defend academic freedom and civil liberties, and prioritize CA state funding for public education and social services instead of incarceration, deportation and occupation.
The SFSU faculty union and student organizations have offered to host the Organizing Conference. SFSU has been a stronghold of social justice activism since the 1968 Third World Liberation Strike, and last academic year the faculty and students showed their combined power in two historic strikes, and Students for Gaza won divestment from weapons manufacturing companies and those who violate human rights. When we organize together, we can project the future we want and need, and be the best advocates for quality public education for working people in California. Let's organize, agitate and mobilize for public education this coming Spring!
Endorsers
Asian Student Union, SFSU
Associated Students of SFSU
Bay Area Labor 4 Palestine
California Faculty Association (CFA) SEIU Local 1983
CFA Bakersfield
CFA Channel Islands
CFA East Bay
CFA Los Angeles
CFA Maritime Academy
CFA Monterey Bay
CFA Sacramento
CFA San Francisco
CFA San Jose
CFA Caucus of Rank & File Education Workers (CREW)
Faculty for Justice in Palestine, SFSU
General Union of Palestine Students (GUPS)
La Raza Student Organization
SFSU Student Union
UAW Local 4123
UCSC People's Aid
YDSA