A coalition of community groups, religious leaders, student organizations and labor unions gathered on March 10 outside Governor Andrew Cuomo’s Midtown offices to demand full investment in the colleges of the City University of New York. Beginning with a rally that commenced as this issue of Clarion went to press, members of the coalition called CUNY Rising planned to march to the Community Church of New York for a meeting at which next steps would be determined.
CUOMO, FUND CUNY!
Under the Cuomo administration, said PSC First Vice President Mike Fabricant, state disinvestment in CUNY has become markedly worse. (In his most recent executive budget, the governor proposed a cut of $485 million to the budget for CUNY senior colleges.) “For CUNY’s half-million students – the majority of them from communities of color, and many from low-income families – the governor’s attack on CUNY is an attack on them,” Fabricant said.
The CUNY Rising coalition includes a roster of 24 affiliated organizations, including the PSC, CUNY University Student Senate, NYPIRG, the Alliance for Quality Education, Make the Road New York, the Greater New York Labor-Religion Coalition, New York Communities for Change, the Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies, the Hispanic Federation, District Council 37 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and many others. “In this coalition, we find the representatives of all the people who really make New York work,” Fabricant said. “The governor must answer to them.”
