Cuomo's Resignation Presents New Opportunity for CUNY
Photo courtesy of Youtube.
Words by Luca GoldMansour.
Those invested in a free and fully funded CUNY can finally see a new political horizon in Albany as Andrew Cuomo, the most commanding figure in New York politics in a generation, resigned in disgrace in August. This departure ends a decade-long tenure during which Cuomo slashed funds to CUNY, one of New York’s best resources for confronting the state's economic and social issues, by almost 5% since 2011, adjusted for inflation. Kathy Hochul, Cuomo’s former lieutenant, and now the first female governor in the state’s history, will have soon finished one month on the job. With Cuomo’s tight control of New York’s affairs over, many of those working towards a free and fully funded CUNY are interested to see if the state legislature will take the lead for a change.
Émilia Decaudin, a former CCNY student and current Democratic District Leader and State Committee Member from Queens, has been looking forward to this moment, asserting;
Cuomo governed primarily using intimidation, coercion, and the empowerment of Republican/conservatives in the State Senate. He benefited from creating situations in which he was the only person in a position to solve it (e.g. negotiating compromises between the Democratic Assembly and the Republican + IDC controlled State Senate) [The IDC being the Independent Democratic Conference of State Senators who voted to elect Republicans as the leaders of the chamber, which Cuomo has been convincingly alleged to have supported.] For example, Cuomo refused to support any meaningful legislation to increase aid to CUNY students (such as closing the TAP gap), and instead strong-armed legislative leaders into supporting his Excelsior Scholarship, a half-baked, demonstrably ineffective program that served one purpose: to make Cuomo look good.
She continued, saying,
I am hopeful that now that we are without a Governor with a desperate need to take credit for every poorly envisioned and executed State project, the legislature will be able to legislate more confidently and authentically, without having to walk on eggshells around the 2nd Floor. That doesn't mean that every project that Cuomo held up, like the New Deal for CUNY, will suddenly pass. The culture of austerity extends beyond Cuomo, and actors like Governor Hochul and Speaker Heastie will need to be held to their past rhetoric around CUNY. Actions speak louder than words.
After making gains in recent years, progressives are pushing to see new public investment in health care, a transition to sustainable public energy, housing, transportation, education, and more. For CUNY, Cuomo’s resignation means the possibility of an end to a decade of austerity. With no love lost recently between the Cuomo-selected Board of Trustees and administration on the one hand, and the faculty and staff on the other, new funding would be a boon to a system teetering on the brink. Decaudin adds,
While my education at CCNY and at CUNY (as a CUNY BA student, I often took classes at other campuses) was positive, enriching, and irreplaceable, the signs of disinvestment and austerity were clear. From broken facilities, a high ratio of adjuncts to tenure-track professors, the dissolution or defunding of programs like African American Studies, etc., it was transparent to me as a student that funding for CUNY was not a priority of those in charge of budgeting the State's tax revenue.
Those in the movement for a free and fully funded CUNY have highlighted the New Deal for CUNY legislation as an improvement necessary to afford a quality higher education to all New Yorkers, regardless of their income, as well as a solid investment into one of the country's largest engines of social mobility.
Labiba Chowdhury, CUNY organizer for The CUNY Rising Alliance, a coalition of community, student, and labor organizations fighting for a free and fully funded CUNY, is working on a campaign to help pass the legislation. “The New Deal for CUNY is state legislation that would make CUNY free again and make CUNY function for its students, staff, and faculty. The New Deal for CUNY has four components: free tuition for all CUNY undergrads, more full time faculty and better compensation for CUNY professors, more investment in CUNY buildings, and more academic and mental health advisors.” Chowdhury stated.
If a budget is a “moral document,” as Martin Luther King Jr. once said, Andrew Cuomo’s relentless privatization of CUNY, even as state revenue grew, calls into question the ex-governor’s concern with New York’s poor and working class students. Asked if she could explain Cuomo’s disdain for public college, Decaudin examined the evidence;
While measuring a public official’s "disdain" for an institution when they continuously tout how great that institution is difficult, it gets easier when you stop looking at their rhetoric and start looking at their actions. Cuomo's appointees on the CUNY Board of Trustees mirrored the approach that Cuomo himself took to CUNY and it's financial health—divestment. And given the fact that CUNY was subject to austerity cuts when other State agencies were not, one can only conclude that Cuomo was, at best, apathetic about the state of public higher education in New York.
Decaudin and Chowdhury both believe that the change CUNY needs can only be achieved through further struggle. Chowdhury commented,
CUNY was free before 1976 and can be free again. It would cost about $6.67 billion over the course of 5 years to implement the New Deal for CUNY and build the CUNY that working class students deserve. We’ve passed more expensive progressive legislation, like the excluded workers fund which cost $2.1 billion this year. We can win a New Deal for CUNY, but we need CUNY students from across NYC to work together and organize. Join CUNY Rising Alliance to stay updated on our New Deal for CUNY campaign: bit.ly/join-cra.
A new dawn may be rising for CUNY and the city and state it serves, but not without doing away with Albany’s culture of austerity for good. Without Andrew Cuomo in the way, this goal has become less of a dream than it once seemed.
