#like cuny schools

[eltonjohndenver]

found out not everyone sees csny and mentally pronounces it “sizz-nee”😔

[barstoolblues]

americans when you tell them that millions of international students don't go to, and don't want to go to university in the US, and that plenty of other countries outside of the west have internationally prestigious universities that people would rather go to over the US

[gastromancer]

[ID: Photograph of the front page of a ‘New York Post’ newspaper. Titled in large bold white letters it says: CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS CLAP?

The caption beneath it reads: “CUNY (City University of New York) deans applaud anti-cop, anti-Israel remarks that own Trustees label ‘hate speech’”. /End ID]

Spotted in a grocery. Lmao. Threatening me with a good fucking time.

[roseband]

The defunding of public colleges was also very racial. With Nixon’s education secretary complaining that there were too many diverse and poor students there. It’s suspicious that tuition was added just as numbers of black/hispanic students were growing

There’s an advertising push to show how “bad” public colleges are,

I’ve literally had coworkers say I went to a school “not as good as theirs” in earlier jobs right out of college (CCNY alumn), but nearly all of my adjunct professors in art/design/marketing/web design classess also taught at SVA, Pratt, and the New School. We also were literally at the same job, and at some I was higher paid, and had no loans cause well, I went to CUNY. So I had the same education as coworkers, even sometimes having the exact same professors and curriculum as them, be at the same job, but because someone spent a premium amount of money for the same thing, they’d look down on it. 

(also CUNY/SUNY are free for first undergrad degree for NYS residents making under 125k again and people don’t know about it!!!)

The vast majority of my coworkers in my (pretty visible and don’t want to self dox) apparel job are CUNY/SUNY grads (mostly SUNY FIT), and people still have the “if it costs more it must be better” brainrot when choosing schools

[nolongerexistingsadcatface]

my goddddd non native new yorkers on the internet LOVEEEE to drag that they go to school in nyc… every video starts with “this is my homework for my college in nyc” or “this is my final project for grad school in nyc” or “this is my outfit for school in nyc” like ok….. ? what is that adding to the video 😭

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

by Jonathan S. Tobin

But the agreement between the Department of Education and CUNY that was published last week did none of those things. While the government verified the claims of those Jewish individuals who had complained of discriminatory conduct, its response to the now-documented instances in which the school had allowed these violations to occur and took no steps to defend its Jewish students was minimal. In what can barely be described as even a slap on the wrist, CUNY was left off with warnings and orders to conduct more investigations and report further developments to Washington; provide more employee and campus security officer training; and issue a “climate survey” to students.

The administration of CUNY or any of the many other schools under investigation because of complaints brought against them for antisemitism could be forgiven for responding to this ruling with laughter.

It should be remembered that the Department of Education has enormous leverage over virtually every American college and university since all but a few of them rely on federal funds for their existence. Some of the richest of universities with enormous endowments—Columbia’s is valued at an impressive $13.6 billion, Penn’s a healthy $21 billion, MIT’s $23 billion and Harvard’s is worth a staggering $50.7 billion—might survive without the steady flow of money from Washington to sustain themselves. But most could not.

Yet in the 60 years since Congress passed the Civil Rights Act, no school has ever faced the most severe punishment for violating the law by permitting forms of discrimination on the basis of race, color or national origin. That’s largely because the revolution in civil rights that occurred in the 1960s convinced American colleges and universities to take the law seriously. If any federally funded institution was shown to have tolerated racism against African Americans, Hispanics or Asians in the manner that CUNY did with Jews, there’s no doubt that the Education Department would come down on them like a ton of bricks with the most severe penalties.

Yet the OCR has treated the CUNY case with the sort of light treatment that sends the exact opposite message than the one many in the Jewish community wanted, including those groups and public-interest groups dedicated to bringing such cases to the attention of the government.

To make it even worse, the secretary of education accompanied the announcement of the settlement with CUNY, as well as a similar one with the University of Michigan, with the sort of self-congratulatory statement that indicated he was convinced that all that was required of his department was an acknowledgment of the problem without having to do anything serious about it.

“The Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights continues to hold schools accountable for compliance with civil rights standards, including by investigating allegations of discrimination or harassment based on shared Jewish ancestry and shared Palestinian or Muslim ancestry,” said Miguel Cardona.

That he combined this investigation with one about the largely non-existent problem of Islamophobia added insult to injury for the Jewish community, as well as indicated that even when pressed to do something about the dangerous surge in antisemitism, the Biden administration has been more concerned about sending a signal to Muslim-Americans and left-wing Democrats behind the Jew-hatred that their interests are equally as important. Indeed, as Rabbi Asher Lopatin, director of community relations at the Jewish Federation of Greater Ann Arbor, told JNS, combining the two claims is an “‘All Lives Matter’ thing. This is a time to say Jewish lives matter.”

[eretzyisrael]

BY EMILY BENEDEK

Bratman teaches his Jewish students to adopt a different approach to the world—one anchored in tradition, learning, and the study of Jewish texts. At the dinner in the 23rd Street synagogue, he invited the students to let him know if they’d like to join him in studying Pirkei Avot in honor of IDF soldiers called up for duty. He also has a club of about 80 boys who are laying tefillin every day.

Bratman told me that, in spite of the recent stresses, he’s not worried about his Jewish students. “Ninety-nine point nine percent of them are rational people who go out and get jobs, they get married and I go to their weddings and brises.”

But there is something terribly wrong with the others, he believes. “A lot of these students, they’re nice, they’re wonderful people, right? But they look at me as a Jew, and say, ‘well, you know, because you’re supportive of this Israel story and Israel narrative, you kind of stand with the oppressor, you know, and I’m Hispanic or Black and I have to stand with the oppressed. Or I’m gay and I have to stand with the oppressed.”

Bratman’s worry is that these students, by adopting a worldview of grievance, are keeping themselves down with imaginary obstacles and denying their own volition. “What they don’t understand is that [these invented obstacles] are all surmountable. It’s my mission to uplift and empower these young people to actually strive for the opportunities that exist and to dispel the false and limiting idea that it’s all impossible.”

Bratman told me he had a student at John Jay whom he will never forget, a student struggling mightily at school. “I had many conversations with him,” Bratman said. “I’d say, ‘come, come on, keep going, keep going.’ And he said, ‘No, I’m thinking of dropping out.’”

“And I’m like, no, no, get through this class. I got you. I got you. And I carried him through this course. And on the last day he came to see me, and he said, ‘I dropped out of all the classes except for yours. Everybody in my family, including my mother and my grandparents—I don’t know my father—my uncles and everybody said, ‘What are you doing? Why are you going to college? You can get a job now for $20 an hour, and when you graduate, you’re gonna get a job for $20 an hour. What’s the purpose?’”

Bratman seemed genuinely sad—not angry or offended, just sad—about what he heard next. “No one ever believed in me,” the student said. “I can’t believe that the first and only person who’s ever believed in me is a white Jew.”

[klaineccfanficlibrary]

Some fave multichapter with angst and fluff?

We recently listed some favorite longer fics here.

Check out Lynne's list of recommended fics here.

Some of my favorite longshots - often with more than one part as well. These weren't mentioned in previous list drawn up above as they are all before 2020. ~Jen

The Symphony Verse by Shandyalls

Blaine has spent most of his life feeling like the only thing people notice about him is that he stutters. He’s working hard to overcome his (mostly self created) roadblocks when he meets Kurt in an online class the summer after his freshman year of college.

~~~~~

Love Song by andiheardeverything

A hate crime leaves Blaine damaged and Kurt refuses to let it bring them down.

~~~~~

100 days by @borogroves

Kurt and Blaine have been best friends (and nothing more) since the age of six. Now 22-year-old college graduates, they take a roadtrip around the USA, visiting every state in 100 days. Fifty states. Two boys. One love story.

~~~~~

The Empty Nest series by @coffeegleek

Burt Hummel was an empty nester who discovered a teenager sleeping under his porch. Kurt was just trying to survive in a world that was against everything he was. This is their story.

~~~~~

Westerville Abbey by @hkvoyage

Blaine is the second son of the earl of Westerville, and is considered the spare heir. After his 18th birthday, he attends the London Season to fulfill his duty of finding a wife. He soon realizes he is more attracted to the new footman. Kurt, who has just arrived at Westerville Abbey to work alongside his father, becomes equally as smitten with the earl’s youngest son. Will Blaine and Kurt be able to overcome their class differences in 1910s England? Will their forbidden love survive WW1? A Downton Abbey inspired historical Klaine AU.

and Life in the Big Apple by @hkvoyage

Sequel to Westerville Abbey. Kurt and Blaine are reunited, but their happily ever after comes with a whole new set of challenges: relationship hiccups, jealousy, sabotage, war memories, and family troubles. Yet with love and perseverance, they can make it through. A Klaine historical AU set in the 1920s.

~~~~

Gilded Cage by @canarian

In the winter of 1895, Blaine Anderson, the son of a wealthy doctor, and Kurt Hummel, the son of a middle class mechanic, cross paths at a luxury hotel in the quiet seaside town of St. Augustine, Florida. With everyone and everything working to keep them apart, can they find a way to be together?

~~~~~

Sweet DREAMers by @perryavenue

Blaine Anderson is a business major at Baruch College of the City University of New York (CUNY). Blaine came to the United States from the Philippines on a tourist visa with his mom when he was three years old and since then, has lived in Woodside, Queens with his mom and cousin Marco. As a gay, undocumented student, he has the questionable good fortune to belong to two marginalized populations. One day, while at his part-time job at a book store, Blaine meets Kurt Hummel, a theatre major from Ohio attending New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, and begins a tentative friendship. Before it has the chance to bloom into more, Blaine’s immigration status is revealed, creating issues for both of them.

[catdotjpeg]

In recent weeks, hundreds of people, the vast majority of them students, have been arrested by the NYPD as part of the police crackdown on pro-Palestinian protesters at campuses across the city. NYPD officers have pepper-sprayed protesters, slammed and pushed people to the ground, and beaten students to the point they had to be taken to the hospital. 

The NYPD's indiscriminate mass arrests have also targeted bystanders. That's what happened to 51-year-old Omar R. on the evening of April 30. Omar was walking his family's dog Neptune, a perky Pomeranian, on their usual route by City College when they encountered a swarm of NYPD officers about to raid the CUNY campus. Quickly surrounded by NYPD officers in riot gear and with Neptune in his arms, Omar barely managed to hand her off to a stranger nearby before being handcuffed on the ground and taken to One Police Plaza, where he was charged with disorderly conduct. 

We spoke with Omar about what happened that night—and how he and his family got Neptune back. Spoiler alert—it was the protesters and their supporters, not the NYPD, who mobilized to reunite Neptune and her family.

Hell Gate: Let's start with the night of April 30—what were you doing that evening?  Omar R.: I live about five blocks away from City College, and we walk to City College every day. I had been taking Neptune on that walk regularly and seen the protest and the encampment. And it was very peaceful and very cool and chill. And I actually had spoken to people there, I felt very supportive of it. I had actually helped a friend of mine drop off some ice one day, like a big cooler of ice.  On that particular day, I walked out of my house, and when I got up the hill, and I got toward City College, I could see that now there was a big police presence, and they had City College blocked off. There were a lot of people in the street, and now, instead of CUNY police, it was the NYPD around.  But I didn't think that the vibe seemed chaotic or violent. It was many people chanting, carrying signs, and beating drums; for the most part, I mean, it was just people exercising their right to free speech in the street. And there were some police around, and the police that I saw seemed pretty nonplussed, just kind of saying to people, "Look, you can't get to the school." And then a few moments later, a van or a bus came by and dropped off a whole contingent of police in riot gear and helmets. And at that moment, there was a part of me thinking, I should witness what's happening, what is going on in my community, and the school. I really enjoy City College, my grandfather went there. We refer to it as Hogwarts, right? It's just a really cool place to spend part of your day. And so I just felt like I needed to kind of bear witness and see what's happening.  There was another part of me that said, things look like they're going to go down. I didn't want to stay too close, so I started walking away.

[...]

And I think the police may have felt like they were losing some control, because then suddenly they started with their own PA system, which was very loud, and they stated that everyone should get off the street onto the sidewalk. And so they started pushing, and I could see that people were starting to get jostled a bit.  I'm on the sidewalk and I've got my back pressed up against the building, and I'm thinking to myself, all right, I'm far enough away where I shouldn't be considered the epicenter if anything goes down. I don't feel like I'm too close. I feel far enough away, and I'm not bothering anyone.  I remember at that moment seeing someone in a motorized wheelchair, a young person in the street. And I remember the police following them, but they weren't going fast enough, and they were kind of pushing this person in the wheelchair, and then suddenly out of nowhere, there was like a phalanx of police coming up the sidewalk, like four people abreast. And they're just screaming to people and yelling, "Move, move, fucking move." 

[...]

I just stood there and they pushed me, and I guess I didn't move fast enough, and they just took me as a threat. That whole time, I'm holding my dog in my arms, and next thing I know, I'm surrounded. And I'm like, "All right, I'll go." They were like, "No, no, no, no. That's too late. You're going down." And I'm holding my dog, and they're all over me, and I'm screaming for people, I'm trying to get attention, because I don't know what to do with my puppy. I've got so many people around me, I can't put her down. And there's no officer saying to me, like, "Hey, we'll take your dog. You're under arrest. We'll take your puppy." They're grabbing me and telling me, "You're going down. Don't resist. You're going down." It's just, you know, "Put your hands behind your back," and I can't do that. I'm holding her. If I put her down, she's gonna get killed, or run away. I remember the officers trying to kick my feet out from underneath me.  I was thinking, too, if I resist being arrested, there's a chance I could get killed. I could be suffocated, I was thinking of George Floyd. I mean, I'm not in the best shape right now. I don't feel really unhealthy, but I'm 51 years old. I don't know what I would do if I was down on the sidewalk with, like, people like sitting on me. 

[...]

So I'm going down on the sidewalk, and I saw a woman in front of me. I yelled at her, like, "Take my dog." [laughs] She's like, "What?" I handed her my dog, and she said, like, "What do I do?" And I yelled, I gave her my address and my apartment number, and she gave me her name, but I couldn't remember it. And at the moment, I was just thinking, "I'm gonna probably never see my dog again," and I was hoping this was the right thing to do. How was Neptune handling all of this? She didn't seem too jostled or frightened or anything. She's a New York dog, so she knows the sounds. But when people were trying to get at me, she was stressed out. I heard her squeal, because she was getting pressed.  I gave that woman the dog, and I knew that she had her. Then I let go. She put her own neck out. It was the most fortunate thing to happen, that she was there at that moment. 

[...]

Then I got home, and then early that morning, there were people that were pinging me, saying, "Omar, your wife is on her way to Queens, and she's gonna pick up the dog." The legal team at One Police Plaza, they connected my wife and the woman who had Neptune over Signal. 

When you take a step back and look at what happened that night, to you and to Neptune and also to other people who were there, has it changed anything about the way that you think about the NYPD?

We's so heavily policed here in New York City. You see police constantly. They're just all around you. I think my overall pedestrian view of the police in New York has been generally, for the most part, you know, if you're law-abiding, you're staying out of trouble, there shouldn't be any cause for alarm or getting beaten up or pushed to the ground.  I think my takeaway was that when these cops came back with the helmets and all the gear that they put on, it definitely kind of transformed them a bit—how I looked at them, how the people reacted, and how they perceived themselves. They weren't just your neighborhood patrol officers who are kind of like, you know, a little schlubby or whatever. This is a paramilitary group willing to push out students.  You never see the police pushing into a right-wing crowd. Here they are, pushing around women, young people, people with drums and signs. I have a fear that this is kind of like another normal, of what people are willing to accept, that police would barricade our colleges. It was a little dystopian.  At the same time, I have really good feelings about the state of youth right now. I have a lot of faith in people, young people. They're highly organized and serious, not just about what their movement is doing, but they got Neptune back—they figured the whole thing out, how to reunite a guy and his dog.

-- From "A New Yorker and His Dog Were Swept Up in the Violent Arrests at the City College Protest" by Esther Wang for Hell Gate, 9 May 2024 1:49 PM EDT

[stuckincoolsville]

7/23/24: what's my name?

i absolutely hate these things. 

intros, blogs; it's all stupid, really. it's not even worth the effort of capitalizing, let alone proper grammar. 

who's gonna read this? who's gonna care about some random weirdo teenager moving to some random weirdo town? in OHIO, of all places. the meme is writing itself and dying as we speak.

but my therapist says this will help me. somehow. he says we don't meet enough, so he has no way of knowing how i'm truly doing or feeling. starting a little blog will, supposedly, help me get my feelings out.

i feel it's just another way for him to keep tabs on me, but whatever.

don't worry, i'm not dumb enough to reveal my actual name. just call me V. 

i recently graduated from a high school in New York. yes, i lived near bodegas. yes, i'd rather attend NYU, or a CUNY, or anywhere else besides Coolsville Community College. yes, i walk wherever and whenever i fucking want. yes, i miss the bagels. and the pizza. and the water.

so, that being said, what am i doing in Coolsville, Ohio? 

moving into the house i inherited from my mom. who i have not seen since i was...twelve? yeah, about twelve. i still have this vague memory of watching her pack up her car with all her stuff. her mouth, pressed closed. how she kept refusing to look at me, at my dad. and then walking back in the rain so she can get in her car and drive out of our lives.

yeah, that's rather grim...but it's also relevant. 

surprisingly, she's not the main reason i'm in therapy at the moment. well, not because she left. children are abandoned by parents all the time. most divorces are the result of a parent walking out on a family. i'm not special because i'm another statistic.

i'm in therapy 'cause of the other thing.

anyway, the relevance of this is that i haven't seen my mom in six years. no one seemed to know where she went. it was like she literally dropped off the face of the earth. and yet, a few months ago, my dad and i got a visit from a lawyer. my mother's lawyer.

he said my mother died of a tragic...accident (spoilers: i don't think it was an accident), and that the ownership of the house she lived in recently transferred to me. a house in Coolsville, OH.

if this was last year, i would have slammed the door closed in the man's face. or had my friend Johnny do a prank call and scam the guy out of his money. or maybe had Marcy

...

i think you get the idea.

but this year...it was like the guy handed me the solution to all my problems on a silver platter. after everything that had happened this year, all i wanted was to disappear. to go to a place where no one knew my name or who i was. 

you'd think that'd be easy in New York, a city of several million people on its own. but when you've gone through what i've gone through, when your picture has been published in enough NYC newspapers or blogs or anything with readership, it becomes difficult to be invisible again. 

i had to argue about it with my dad, but it was weak on his part. i think everything was starting to strain on him too.

so with a few bags packed and a rather emotional goodbye with dad & the few friends i have left, i hopped in my car and headed for Ohio.

took me a little bit to find this place. Coolsville is pretty obscure, even by most small town standards. if you can get past the sense of dread you get from Toledo—with all its emptiness and boarded up houses & buildings—you're already on the right track. 

go past the long highway. head east, towards where the trees gather most. down that long, long road that seems to be an entrance to another realm. towards the faint sound of rushing water flowing from a place you can't see yet. and suddenly, you're there. in a town stuck in time, struggling to embrace modernity as we understand it. a place that is just outside the border of the area considered to be part of Appalachia. 

it's like i walked right into the 1960s...or maybe early '70s. every house is painted in bright colors, the grass never seems to brown; and the flowers are always in bloom. and all the people seemed to dress like they go thrifting on the regular, their clothes are so...retro? vintage? any of those words work? and they always seem to have a smile on their faces. typical welcoming committee, wholesome small town edition, i suppose.

i was a bit wary at first. still am. but it's been a couple weeks since i moved in. no one's asked the questions i've expected yet. no mob is calling for my blasphemous head. everything and everyone i speak to actually exists, which is a relief. so things are okay. 

for now.

no idea what the future holds, but i recently registered for classes at the community college here. it's much more affordable than the schools in NY, even for a newcomer like me. (guess enrollment must be pretty low over here.) no friends, but the few neighbors i've met seem friendly. there seem to still be teens my age over here, so that gives me some comfort. the house my mome left me is already paid for and has all the furniture and appliances i need. i just need to pay for utilities and maintain the house.

that's why i got the job at the bookstore. it's pretty cool, run by this weird old lady who likes to cackle and rant about the new age occult scene. says my generation doesn't know how to properly communicate with the Old Ones, and that will lead to our ultimate downfall. 

things like that. 

she has a lot of weird takes, now that i think about it, but i'm not gonna argue logic and reason with the crazy lady signing my paychecks.

not much else to say at the moment. i mean, there's more but. this was just supposed to be an intro. i don't wanna vomit out everything in my head. not yet. 

(Dr. Dimaggio, if you're seeing this, you already know. so there's really no point anyway.)

so i guess i'll be signing off. i'll update this when something happens or if there's something i wanna get off my chest.

later.

signed,

V.D.

[directedbywomen]

Celebrating Yoruba Richen! "In her documentary films, Yoruba Richen unites African-American, feminist and LGBTQ voices in a renewed cry for civil rights for all." Read more on Richen's TED profile.

The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks (2022) directed with Johanna Hamilton "Perhaps foremost, “Mrs. Rosa Parks” highlights the selflessness of its subject and seeks to provide a detailed portrait of a woman who, through the vagaries of history, was frequently reduced to a symbol." Read more on CNN Entertainment.

How It Feels to Be Free (2021) '“How It Feels to Be Free” is a documentary, at once sobering and enchanting, that interweaves portraits of six legendary stars, all of them Black women (Lena Horne, Abbey Lincoln, Nina Simone, Diahann Carroll, Cicely Tyson, and Pam Grier), telling the story of the trails they blazed, the ceilings they broke, the doors they kicked open, the splendor they achieved, and the wounds they endured.' Read more about the film in Variety's ‘How It Feels to Be Free’ Review: A Captivating Documentary Salute to Cicely Tyson, Lena Horne, Nina Simone, and Other Black Female Stars Who Blazed the Trail.

The Sit-In: Harry Belafonte hosts the Tonight Show (2020)

"Belafonte became the first Black person to host a late-night TV show — even if it was only for a week, as Richard Nixon’s problematic and controversial presidency loomed ominously on the horizon. His guests also included notable African Americans of the day like Lena Horne, Nipsey Russell, Bill Cosby, and others, all engaged in searing, in-depth interviews, taking place in an America that was forced to really contend with itself as a country on the verge of radical change."

Read more in IndieWire's ‘The Sit-In’: Revisit the ‘Lost’ Week in 1968 When Harry Belafonte Hosted ‘The Tonight Show’.

The New Black (2013)

"Laid-back yet incisive, “The New Black” examines the complexity of black attitudes toward same-sex marriage, which the mainstream media tend to oversimplify as church-dominated and uniformly negative." Read more in Variety's review.

Read more about Richen on her CUNY Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism profile.

Explore her filmography on MUBI:

[aceduchessdragoness]

Uploaded on Instagram by harvxrdpsc on April 24, 2024.

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[id: photo text

1st:

Harvard joins Columbia, MIT, Emerson, Tufts, University of Michigan, University of Minnesota, University of Pittsburgh, University of Maryland, Berkeley, Cuny, The New School, Washington University in Saint Louis, UNC Chapel Hill and more as it establishes Liberated Zone

The bold text makes it look like ‘HARVARD ESTABLISHES LIBERATED ZONE’

2nd:

Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine Coalition: Who We Are.

3rd:

We, the Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine Coalition, are a group of students and student workers at Harvard University committed to Palestinian liberation. We are part of a rich tradition of students who stood up to U.S. imperialism in Vietnam and Iraq, rallied against apartheid in South Africa, fought for Black liberation in the United Staes, and built national living wage campaigns on university campuses. We understand that all of our historic movements for freedom and justice are intertwined. The Palestinian cause if not for Palestinians alone – it is a cause for people of conscience, concerned with humanity, freedom, and justice.

We have established this Liberated Zone to call for an end to Harvard’s moral and material complicity in the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people.

Over the past seven months, we have witnessed Israel and the United States unleash unimaginable cruelty in Gaza. As we write this, Israel has murdered more than 34,000 Palestinians, including 14,000 children. Every day brings more horrifying images than the last: families facing starvation, people undergoing amputation without anesthesia, newly discovered mass graves, entire neighborhoods reduced to rubble.

4th:

These atrocities are not new. Since the original Nakba – Arabic for catastrophe – of 1948, when 750,000 Palestinians were ethnically cleansed from their land, Palestinians have been dispossessed and fragmented by a pernicious apartheid regime, a brutal military occupation, and a suffocating blockade. Zionism, the political project rationalizing this violence, requires the subjugation of Palestinian life and the continued colonialization of Palestinian land. There can be no equivocation: Palestine is occupied from Gaza to the Galilee, from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.

This oppression is co-signed and co-sponsored by the United States government and its institutions. The U.S. continues to sustain the Zionist colonial regime with billions of dollars in military funding. Since its founding, Israel has been the largest cumulative recipient of U.S. foreign aid, receiving approximately $300 billion in economic and military assistance.

5th:

As we walk the halls of Harvard, study in its libraries, and sleep in its dormitories, we are acutely aware that there are no universities remaining in the Gaza Strip. Israel has robbed Palestinians of their rights to education by systematically destroying academic infrastructures and communities. Professors, teachers, students, and academic workers have been targeted and killed along with the rest of Gaza’s population. As students, educators, and graduate workers, we have a duty to fight against this genocide.

Palestine is not only a moral issue. It is an issue that affects our campus, one that fundamentally implicates Harvard University. As of 2019, Harvard had invested at least $200 million in companies with ties to illegal Israeli settlements, a flagrant violation of international human rights law, and at least $86,625 worth of investments in the Israeli military. Today, the Harvard Management Company, which oversees the world’s largest university endowment of $51 billion, discloses no information about the scale of natures of its investments in Israel.

6th

On its campus, we have witnessed the university relentlessly suppress voices in its community speaking out against the actions of the Israeli state and for the rights of the Palestinian people. Time and time again, we have seen Harvard pioneer and affirm the “Palestine exception to free speech,” silencing professors and students when they speak out about Palestine or include Palestinian liberation in their ethic of social justice. The university is also failing to protect its community from violent and racist anti-Palestinian harassment. Just this week, Harvard has unilaterally suspended the Palestine Solidarity Committee after months of administrative persecution and discriminatory measures.

Enough is enough. In the past seven months, our protests against the intensifying genocidal campaign in Gaza have been met with repression, administrative targeting, willfully racist attacks (including from politicians and faculty members), and arbitrary policy changes designed to silence our voices. We will not be deterred. By launching this demonstration, we renew our commitment to protest Harvard’s moral, institutional, and financial complicity in the genocide of Palestinians.

7th:

As student governments in schools across Harvard pass resolutions for divestment, the University must contend with the facts that its students will not tolerate its support for genocide, violence, and apartheid. In doing so, we proudly continue Harvard’s legacy of anti-war, anti-racist student organizing, from the mock “shanty towns” established in Harvard Yard in 1986 to protest apartheid in South Africa, to the 1969 University Hall occupation protesting against the war on Vietnam.

Our movement is one part of the tapestry of liberation movements. Harvard itself is a product of land theft and indigenous erasure: the initial funds to establish this university were used for the ‘education and conversion’ of indigenous people. By creating this Liberated Zone, we hope to begin the work of building the world we want to inhabit: a world free of the shackles of colonialism.

8th:

The Palestinian people, like all oppressed peoples, have a right to resist their annihilation. We hold this to be a precondition for Palestinian liberation, as we do the inalienable right of return, a fundamental value that challenges and denaturalizes the colonial fragmentation of the Palestinian community. Our act of civil disobedience here at Harvard is grounded in Palestinian values of sumoud – Arabic for steadfastness – and love for life.

We are driven by the belief that a better world is possible: a world free of racism, white supremacy, cishetero-patriarchy. Ableism, antisemitism, Islamophobia, and all forms of hatred. It is for this reason that we are compelled to take action.

9th:

Our demands: Following the lead of our brave comrades on campuses across the country, this Liberated Zone is a demonstration of our love of justice, our hope for a free Palestine, and our dream of a liberated future for all. We see our institution’s complicity as one link among many that must be severed on the path to liberation.

As such, we demand that Harvard University:

1. Disclose any and all investments – both institutional and financial – in Israel, the ongoing genocide in Gaza, and the occupation of Palestine.

2. Divest from all such investments, and reinvest resources in Palestinian academic initiatives, communities, and culture.

3. Drop all charges against students for their organizing and activism, and commit to ending the weaponization of disciplinary policy.

The whole world is watching a genocide unfold before its eyes. We raise our voices to join the chorus of millions demanding an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza, an end to the occupation, and a free Palestine from the river to the sea. /id]

[sugarchains]

yall i totally forgot i was going back to school this fall LMAOO

I got an email from cuny like ayo activiate your accounts again and i was like ??????????

EXCUSE ME?

this is very funny who signed me up for this????/

[finishinglinepress]

FLP CHAPBOOK OF THE DAY: Dropping Sunrises in a Jar by Melinda Thomsen

On SALE now! Pre-order Price Guarantee:

https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/dropping-sunrises-in-a-jar-by-melinda-thomsen/

Each poem in Dropping Sunrises in a Jar began as a way to understand why #birds appear so happy at sunrise. Written from notes spanning over twenty years, Dropping Sunrises in a Jar glimpses nature’s inner workings of joy. In free verse and form poems, sunrises from across the globe are depicted in a variety of awakening colors and sounds. #Poems recount the morning opera from locations like a sleeping car on a train going to Beijing to construction crane noise in Prague, the cooing of doves in North Carolina, and canyon towhees in Arizona. By organizing the poems into three sections: I’ll tell you how the Sun rose, A Ribbon at a time, and The Steeples swam in Amethyst, the readers ultimately find themselves gently released back into their world with signs of hope. #nature #poems #birds #chapbook #FLP

Melinda Thomsen’s Armature from Hermit Feathers Press (2021) was a finalist for the 2022 Eric Hoffer da Vinci Eye award and an honorable mention in the 2019 Lena Shull Poetry Contest from NC Poetry Society. Her books Field Rations (2011) and Naming Rights (2007) are also from Finishing Line Press, and her latest poems can be found in Salamander Magazine, Artemis Journal, THEMA, The Ekphrastic Review, Poetry Miscellany, The New York Quarterly, and Poetry Quarterly, among others. A 2023 Randall Jarrell Poetry Contest Honorable Mention, 2019 Pushcart Nominee from The Comstock Review, and a Semi-Finalist in the 2004 “Discovery” / The Nation poetry contest, she’s an advisory editor for Tar River Poetry and current Vice President of Programming for the North Carolina Poetry Society. A graduate of Mount Holyoke College, she received her MA in English from The City College, CUNY, and MFA in Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. She is the Writing Center Coordinator for the John Paul II Catholic School and lives in North Carolina with her husband Hunt, two cats, and one chicken.

PRAISE FOR Dropping Sunrises in a Jar by Melinda Thomsen

I love that poet-philosopher Melinda Thomsen has turned her wise but uncynical eye and voice towards the tragedy of climate change. Thomsen writes, “I wake to the sky’s daily burning/in these—my sunset—years to collect sunrises…like candles gathered from my forgiving earth… But this burning keeps flushing out the birds…” Thomsen writes extensively of birds, those things with feathers, to give us what I love best in eco poetry, hope-punk. But, sad and knowing as her poems often are, Thomsen can’t help but bring her child-like wonder to the world, and for that I am grateful.

–ELIZABETH J. COLEMAN, editor of Here: Poems for the Planet, Copper Canyon Press, 2019

In Dropping Sunrises in a Jar, Thomsen skillfully highlights and juxtaposes the cyclical nature and beauty of sunrises and the corresponding splendor and chaos of local fauna, flora, as well as man made technologies. From mynas in Maui, bridges in New York City, construction in Prague, to warblers in Maine, Thomsen’s celebration of origins and beginnings cleverly serves as an homage to rebirth, routine, and hope.

–JOSE HERNANDEZ DIAZ, author of The Fire Eater, Bad Mexican, Bad American, and The Parachutist

Please share/please repost #flpauthor #preorder #AwesomeCoverArt #poetry #chapbook #read #poems

[schraubd]

Four Thoughts on the CUNY Law Affair

Yes, I've heard about "that" graduation speech at CUNY Law. I'm not interested in parsing it; I have better things to do with my time. But I do want to share four thoughts about some of the broader issues in play and the (expectedly less-than-stellar) metacommentary.

First, CUNY's board of trustees has come out with a statement averring that "Hate speech ... should not be confused with free speech" and declaring that the graduation remarks fall into the latter category. Face palm. In the context of a public university, which CUNY is, "hate speech" most certainly is free speech, and retains all constitutional protections assigned to the latter. It astounds me that we still see statements like this on controversies like this when the constitutional rules are so clear. There is absolutely no cause to argue that the speaker's remarks are anything other than speech protected by the First Amendment, no matter how hateful one does or does not deem them to be.

Second, CUNY Law, probably more than any law school in the country (including Berkeley), is a citadel of the hard left. Its student body and, to a slightly lesser extent, faculty is very much self-selected to fit within this well-to-the-left-of-the-Democratic-Party-median mold. Is that a problem? This raises the classic question of diversity within institutions versus diversity across institutions -- it's okay, or perhaps event valuable, that there exist some law schools that are self-consciously hard left in orientation, so long as it is one option on a larger menu. Maybe CUNY Law is just the Regent University or Liberty University Law School of the left. You want a self-consciously conservative Christian experience, you go to Liberty. You want a self-consciously left-wing activist experience, you go to CUNY. Other schools offer different choices. There is a long and proud tradition of the "liberal" education that tries to draw from as wide a range of views and perspectives as possible; but there's an equally long and proud tradition of an education that is intentionally imbricated within a deep and specific intellectual and ideological framework (a religious college is the most prominent example). At the very least, it is not self-evident that we think the latter sort of initiative is always wrong -- at least so long as the prospective law school applicant has other choices.

Is this actually good? Does it matter that CUNY is a public law school? Does it matter that it's a public law school in a generally liberal city? Does it matter that, even in the context of a generally liberal city, CUNY Law is far off to the left of the mainstream? Open questions, as far as I'm concerned.

Third, CUNY Law's Jewish Law Student Association has strongly come out in defense of the graduate speaker and against the public backlash. This is in accord with the CUNY JLSA's larger orientation on issues like this (anti-Zionist, pro-BDS, and so on), and it seems reasonably clear that it represents the consensus view of Jewish students at CUNY Law (which again, is a very particular and self-selecting bunch). Given this, it is fair to note that there is something very odd about people racing to "protect" Jewish students from "antisemitism" that the students themselves not only don't identify as antisemitic, but actively support. Who exactly is being helped here?

One could answer that by referencing the potential Jewish students who would be interested in a CUNY Law experience but are deterred or forced out because they do find the environment to be unbearable (I am aware of at least some Jewish students leaving CUNY Law, or not applying in the first place, for precisely that reason).* In such a situation, the rump remainder of Jewish students who are perfectly happy with that environment will be all that remains, but the resultant "consensus" is not really characterized as innocent. Again, this could be reframed as a diversity-within-versus-across-institutions issue, though: maybe it's good that there is one school where anti-Zionist Jews are the dominant Jewish faction; so long as the Zionist Jewish majority has other options. Or maybe not. I do think the core puzzle of "opposing antisemitism" at a given institution over and against the objection of the Jews who are actually present there is at the very least an oddity that people need to wrestle with.

Fourth, many people are contending that the harshly critical response to the speaker constitutes "Islamophobia." For any individual remark or "criticism", that will of course depend on its content. But insofar as we're talking about, e.g., Rep. Ritchie Torres ("Imagine being so crazed by hatred for Israel as a Jewish State that you make it the subject of your commencement speech at a law school graduation. Anti-Israel derangement syndrome at work.") or Mayor Eric Adams ("I was proud to offer a different message at this year’s CUNY law commencement ceremony — one that celebrates the progress of our city and country, and one that honors those who fight to keep us safe and protect our freedoms.... We cannot allow words of negativity and divisiveness to be the only ones our students hear."), it's really hard to warrant the charge of Islamophobia unless you're willing to endorse a (dare I say it?) IHRA-style understanding of what "discrimination" is.

There's little in the way of evidence that Adams or Torres object to what the speaker said because she's a Muslim (and would have been fine with it if she was Christian). And one can of course already hear the classic retorts, remixed: "Criticism of anti-Israelism is not Islamophobia!" "Don't conflate opposition to Israel with Islam!" Given that, the warrant for the Islamophobia claim, it seems, has to be some version or combination of arguments like (a) taken as a whole, the intensity and vitriol of the blowback are disproportionate to a degree that they can be held to function in practice as a form of anti-Muslim hostility; and/or (b) pro-Palestinian sentiments are sufficiently tied to many Muslims sense of religious identity so as to make attempts at silencing or degrading said views tantamount to silencing an important facet of this speaker's Muslim identity; and/or (c) public "criticism" of this sort is part of a pattern or practice of social conditions which practically speaking operate as policing mechanisms that limit Muslim public participation and license their anti-Muslim harassment and discrimination.

Those arguments may well have purchase. But they're exactly the sorts of arguments which, in the context of IHRA and related debates over antisemitism, are alleged to be "censorial", "conflating", "chilling", and otherwise inappropriate in their alleged failure to distinguish between "criticism of Israel" (whether warranted or not) and "antisemitism." Here, the same failure could be alleged: failing to distinguish between "criticism of anti-Israel" (whether warranted or not) and "Islamophobia". And that alleged "failure" could similarly be met with a rejoinder that this too-pat response overlooks the realities of the situation and the practical impact this sort of speech and conduct has a means of impeding the equal public status and standing of Muslims, just as that rejoinder is leveled in the antisemitism case.

To be clear: this is a classic "everyone is a hypocrite" complaint. The anti-IHRA people, when the topic is Islamophobia, are happy to make claims that in the antisemitism context they'd label "chilling", "silencing", or "conflating". And the pro-IHRA people just as suddenly are unwilling to accept logic like this to the extent that it might require seriously reckoning with the prospect that their own speech or conduct can be labeled Islamophobic. If we understand why this speaker could interpret the backlash as Islamophobic, we should be able to understand how Jewish speakers might interpret certain vitriolically anti-Israel speech as antisemitic, and vice versa. For my part, I've long held that it's entirely possible for "dueling" discrimination charges to both be at least in part justified (see this post, and pages 161-63 of "The Epistemic Dimension of Antisemitism" for discussion), and so -- without commenting on the merits of either charge in this case -- it is fully possible in concept both that the way the speaker spoke was antisemitic AND that the way the broader community responded to the speech was Islamophobic (or that neither claim is sustainable, or that only one is).

* When I was on the job market, I did submit an application to CUNY Law in a year where they were looking to hire a constitutional law professor. I did not receive an interview, and, in retrospect, I think CUNY Law would have been a very uncomfortable place for me given my identity and the research that I engage in.

via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/gxmVN6Q

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

With much fanfare, the Biden Administration recently unveiled a plan that supposedly aims to counter anti-Semitism in America. Several “mainstream” American Jewish organizations fell over each other, racing to be first to distribute their press statements praising the Biden paper. I differ.

I live in various worlds including those of the secular legal profession, opinion journalism, and academia. I also know the American Jewish organizational universe from the inside. Among the many in that alphabet universe of ADL’s and AJC’s and XYZ’s, each has its own publicists, and they all race to get their press release out before “the competition” does. Their dream: maybe, if they are fast enough and say the words coveted by the leftist mainstream media, their organization’s name will be cited and their leader will be quoted, wistfully in the New York Times. Or at least in some left-wing “Jewish” outlet like the JTA, the TOI, or Haaretz.

So they all rushed out their praise for Biden’s Balderdash.

In truth, the Biden document on confronting anti-Semitism is a sham, a fraud, and the first insult came in its timing. The day it was published, traditional Jews hurriedly were absorbed in their last-minute preparations to observe the Biblical holy festival of Shavuot, which began that evening. American Jewish mainstream organizations exposed their own inadequacies by their prioritizing praising Biden’s 60-page document that they barely had read when Jewish priorities instead demanded they focus on welcoming that evening’s Shavuot festival. While I was awake all night learning Torah and munching on cheesecake, they were awake all night waiting with bated breath for the next day’s newspapers: would they be quoted?

Even deeper, I was disgusted once I did read the paper and saw how little Biden really offered in his plan to “combat anti-Semitism.” Two main points:

Black and White

The Democrats and their mainstream media, academia, and other “progressives” — the Woke — absolutely refuse to speak the truth about Black anti-Semitism and Muslim anti-Semitism in America. Perhaps the overwhelming majority of American Blacks and even some American Muslims like Jews. If so, that’s nice. We all should like each other. I like them. But there is no question that a great many Black opinion makers are toxic, poisonous Jew-haters: Ilhan Omar, Alice Walker, Louis Farrakhan, Kanye West — and all of “Black Lives Matter.” Plenty, plenty of others.

As for Muslims, Jew-hatred on college campuses stems greatly from campus Muslim groups and their self-hating J Street-type allies. In New York City, the keynote student speech at the CUNY Law School graduation was a pastiche of venom, lies, and hate. Yet the Biden document assigns chief blame for anti-Semitism in America on White Supremacists.

When Democrats and The Woke manipulate anti-Semitism to beat up on their preferred targets, they insult Jews and all other Americans of conscience. Anti-Semitism is not a White problem. Yes, disgusting haters do exist among discrete pockets of Caucasians, but they are summarily rejected. Condemnation of White Supremacist anti-Semitism has meaning only when it also acknowledges the breadth and depth of Black Jew-hatred in America. Jews who identify openly and proudly as Jews know Black anti-Semitism first-hand. They are its targets not only in the public sphere but in the inner cities because they easily are spotted by their more distinctly Jewish garb — yarmulkas, tzitzit, black fedoras, Hasidic attire, modest dress, and the like.

The liberals and “progressives” who raced to praise Biden on Shavuot Eve for his “Sop to the Jews” do not live among People of Color. They live in lily-White neighborhoods with the Gavin Newsoms and Nancy Pelosis, and they send their children to lily-White secular private schools to keep them away from the BIPOC minorities (except Asians) over whom they preen with their “charitable” virtue signaling.

The Jonathan Greenblatts who head the likes of ADL are more interested in bolstering Obama Democrats and defending despicably wicked evil mongers like George Soros than they are in fighting the defamation of Jews.

The ADL’s Greenblatt was an Obama White House official. When Obama’s eight years expired, Greenblatt was imported into ADL to bring the Obama Agenda into an organization that had been founded to defend Jews a century earlier as Leo Frank was being lynched in Marietta, Georgia. Meanwhile, the new head of the American Jewish Committee, Ted Deutch, is a partisan lifelong professional Democrat and was a Democrat Congressman for twelve years from 2010-2022. Before that, he served four years as a Democrat Florida State Senator. Now he speaks for the AJC in praise of Biden. That is the mindset of such “Jewish” organizations.

And don’t ever forget: Between 30-40 percent of the people in America who say they are “Jews” in fact are not Jews but are the children of intermarried non-Jewish mothers who express their “Jewishness” by putting a Jewish star on their Christmas trees and boycotting Israel.

The paradox is that, behind the curtain, these secular “progressive” Jewish groups and their leaders are in chaos. Their children are marrying out of the faith in droves and rearing non-Jewish grandchildren. Donald Trump has more Jewish grandchildren than most of them do. They have lost almost all their influence — as Jews. As a result, those Jewish groups watch as anti-Semitism grows more severe in their own political backyard among the Left, pervades university campuses they once attended and still moronically support as alumni, and now even becomes institutionalized in the Left’s latest authoritarian putsch: DEI — “Diversity, Equity, Inclusiveness” — under which less qualified but politically correct chosen intersectionalist groups are pushed to the front of the line while Jews are cast aside.

Biden’s paper does not address any of this.

As a result, colleges and graduate schools are admitting fewer Jews than ever before. Not since the 1930’s-1950’s have so many Jewish applicants to colleges been turned away because their identity failed to comport with the prevailing race-based admissions quotas. Jewish students who get admitted face ubiquitous anti-Semitism, as American campuses curiously have converted the country of Israel to a surrogate for Apartheid South Africa. If the “N-word” once was the noun of bigoted hate, today it is the “Z- word”: Zionism.

Today’s Campus Woke harbor no complaints about human rights in China, Russia, North Korea, Cuba, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and various parts of Africa. Only Israel is their bane: her Western freedoms and democratic institutions, her technological successes, her survival surrounded by a sea of Muslim terrorists who lose more ground every time they launch a war against Jews.

Biden’s words offer no meaningful plan to stop the Jew-hatred on campuses. His special advisor on anti-Semitism, Deborah Lipstadt, has proven useless. No promises to defund campuses that normalize Jew hatred. No forthright condemnation of the “BDS” scheme of Jew hatred. For that, it falls on White Christians in Arkansas to take the lead in supporting Israel.

And that brings us to the document’s second major glaring failure: the very definition of anti-Semitism.

The Definition

Today’s Left has embraced the subterfuge of attacking “Israel” and “Zionism” instead of “Jews.” So if someone Woke says “That guy is a cheap, miserly, hook-nosed Zionist,” he-she-they-it-whatever then follows with “I am not against Jews, just against Zionists.”

Uh-huh.

As a result, a simple definition of Jew-hatred was drafted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) that actually is quite inadequate. But it includes useful examples of Jew-hatred. Some of them make the point that it is anti-Semitic when someone attacks Israel and Zionism based on a standard not applied to any other country. Think of the likes of George Soros and Squad types like Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, and Ocasio Cortes. Think of Ben & Jerry and Betty McCollum and Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.

Biden was implored by all the Jewish groups to adopt that IHRA definition. He balked. Instead, his 60-page paper acknowledges three different definitions of anti-Semitism, two of which allow for Jew-hatred disguised as “anti-Zionism.” It is a joke.

So he promises to expand Holocaust education? Has anyone noticed that the more Holocaust education there is in America, the more anti-Semitism there is? When bad people are educated that Jews are easy to murder in the millions, maybe that is not so effective. Better to educate them on what Israel did in 1967 and still does every so often when they decide to eliminate six terror leaders in a week.

There is no better way to gauge Biden’s words than by his actions. The Democrats had been enamored with Israel through her first thirty years when Israel was governed by coalitions of Labor Party socialist Marxists like David Ben-Gurion, Yitzchak Rabin, Moshe Dayan, Golda Meir, and Shimon Peres. Those days are over. Menachem Begin’s election in 1977 as Israeli prime minister heralded a political earthquake, and the country now is majority center-right. Several polls predict the socialist Marxist Labor Party may disappear in the next elections. As Israel has moved from socialism to capitalism, and from left-wing woke policies to greater respect for conservative family values and religious tradition, Democrats have abandoned Israel in many significant ways, while Republican conservatives and Christians have embraced her.

So the same Joe Biden who issues a paper on anti-Semitism amid fanfare on Shavuot eve simultaneously has found other opportunities to single out the country’s two most vile Jew-haters in Congress — Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar — for praise whenever the opportunity arises. His paper even massages the Jew-hatred of CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, making those Jew haters seem like allies in the fight against anti-Semitism. He continues negotiating a deal with Iran. He interferes with Israel’s internal debate over judicial reform. He tells Israel they may not build a yeshiva in Chomesh. He won’t meet with Bibi until Bibi genuflects to his orders. George Soros’s son has visited the Biden White House at least seventeen times.

Ever since the emergence of Donald Trump on the American political scene, anti-Semitism has been wielded by the Left as a cynical tool with which to club political opponents, often shamefully and dishonestly. Thus, they had the audacity to tar the most pro-Israel president in American history, Donald Trump, as an anti-Semite, while they make excuses for George Soros, Bernie Sanders, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, and the rest of The Squad.

Biden’s insulting release of his paper is not worth the paper it is written on. Amid all its highfalutin’ publicity, it does absolutely nothing. It is a sop and an insult to American Jews. And the ridiculous race to praise this meaningless document further apprises the Jewish community of the state of the “American Jewish leadership” that speaks in its name.