SUNY Social Justice Network & March 25th Student Strike

The SUNY Social Justice Network is calling for coordinate student strikes and demonstrations on March 25th to oppose tuition hikes and Paterson's massive budget cuts.

**PLEASE FORWARD WIDELY TO ALL STUDENTS & ORGANIZERS*

In this e-mail:

* A Welcome to the SUNY Social Justice Network & Wiki Page
* Call-Out for the March 25th Statewide Actions Against Paterson's Budget

Hello all!

Welcome to the SUNY Social Justice Network. Thank you all for making the first SUNY Social Justice Conference in November the success that it was. First off, we'd like to apologize for being out of touch for so long! The conference was to be a starting point from which we would continue to build upon the collective momentum achieved over those three days, and the events of the past months have demonstrated how incredibly important that remains.

Since the conference, The New School, Hampshire College, the University of Rochester, and NYU have all staged student occupations of campus space, demanding accountability and transparency from their institutions and waging powerful divestment campaigns. Students in New York are refusing to be silent, and we are finding more power and more voice each day in the face of compliant administrations and complicit government actors. These uprisings in New York come alongside international grassroots movements, from the riots in Greece and throughout Europe against police repression and neoliberalism, the University of Edinburgh students who have occupied campus space in solidarity with Palestine, the first Zapatista festival of dignified rage in Mexico, the people who have taken to the streets worldwide to protest the horrors in Gaza, and so many others. And although global capitalism has long been a crisis for most of the world, its inherently unsustainable nature is becoming clearer each day to those who are realizing they have the power to fight it.

This network can serve as a way to bring together the huge amount of energy, power, and inspiration present in New York right now. We believe that this can be achieved through the new format of sunysocialjustice.org, a wiki page that we claim as an autonomous internet space where we can share and coordinate our projects, events, news, ideas, actions, inspirations, thoughts, words, media, resources, etc! Although of course not limited to SUNY or CUNY students, "public" higher education in New York is clearly under attack and needs to be confronted through a coalition of these state schools. On the wiki site, CUNY and SUNY students can find their college or university and update their pages with current projects, news, calls to action, etc.

The Binghamton University link on the wiki site may give folks an idea of what sorts of possible content to include. This wiki site is open to everyone, and anyone can update it at any time (please see the how-to section at the bottom of the page if you are unfamiliar with the site). If your school is not listed, please still post news, updates, etc. regarding the student struggle! There is an "allies" section on the site, and anyone can add any categories they see fit. CUNY students: we SUNY students want to engage in dialogue about your social forum and current strategies! Students who have organized successful occupations or aspire to keep this movement alive: please share your stories and inspiration! In the same vein of the student occupations, this is OUR space to collectively create another educational model.

Although we hope that people will be inspired to utilize the wiki page, information can also be spread using the SUNY Social Justice Network Google Group. Please add your e-mail to the group, at http://groups.google.com/group/suny-social-justice-network.

Let's keep each other updated on our movement! Through these mediums, it is our hope that students throughout the state will be able to communicate and coordinate more effectively to build real social change.

MARCH 25th: Student Strike Against the Budget & Tuition Hikes!

On March 25th, a week before Paterson’s budget will be finalized, the SUNY Social Justice Network is calling for a STATEWIDE STUDENT STRIKE against Governor Paterson’s budget plan, which puts an unfair burden on students and working people to close the state deficit. Governor Paterson’s plan reflects a cycle of appropriating wealth from those who can least afford it to pay for the mistakes of Wall Street. Why should we cut education and health-care to send more wealth up the chain? Paterson’s budget will only be defeated by sustained grassroots action, in which SUNY and CUNY students must play a vital role. Coordinated statewide actions will send a clear message to those in power that the solution should not come at the expense of public education, health-care and vital social services. On March 25th, ditch your desks, skip class and organize actions on your campus!

On March 25th, we need to turn out in numbers on our campuses to demand:

-- Full funding for health care
-- Affordable public education
-- A Fair Share Tax where the richest New Yorkers pay an appropriate tax rate
-- No tuition increases for SUNY & CUNY

To get involved with the coordination of this statewide day of action, join the google group at http://groups.google.com/group/suny-social-justice-network and check back often at www.sunysocialjustice.org

In solidarity,
The SUNY Social Justice Network at Binghamton University

More information on the tuition hikes:

While SUNY students are being asked to pay more for their education, Governor Paterson is proposing massive budget cuts to education and health care in order to decrease the state deficit. Rather than increasing the tax rates of the 3.2% of the wealthiest New Yorkers (who currently pay the same rate as everyone else), SUNY tuition has been increased by $620 (in-state) and $2,260 (out of state) for the 2009-2010 academic year. Tuition is set to continue increasing each year until 2013, when the plan will be re-evaluated. Under the Fair Share Tax Reform Act which has been introduced in the New York State Senate (fairsharereform.com), slight increases in tax rates for the very rich (those making $250,000+/year) could "generate 6 billion dollars of revenue for the state". Tax the rich, not our education!

For more, visit www.fightthecuts.org