City & State magazine published an op-ed written by PSC pres. Barbara Bowen on its opinions page, the Daily Slant. Here’s an excerpt:
“It feels as if months have passed since Donald Trump was elected president. Perhaps that’s because so many New Yorkers now live in palpable fear.
For thousands of students at the City University of New York, where 40 percent of undergraduates are immigrants and several thousand are undocumented, the fear is especially real. Three-quarters of CUNY undergraduates are people of color, more than half are women, many are Muslim, many are Jewish and there are large and active organizations of LGBTQ students and students with disabilities. Students in many of these groups have been directly targeted by President-elect Trump’s rhetoric and policy proposals. All are vulnerable in a regime in which violent white nationalism is normalized as policy.
Both Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio have taken strong stands against the torrent of racism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and xenophobia since the election. …Those are vitally important messages, and both the governor and mayor have begun to announce policy initiatives to reinforce their commitment to New Yorkers at risk. But few initiatives would have as profound an impact as a pledge to restore full funding to the university on which the city’s most vulnerable communities rely…” Read the full op-ed.
