Re: Yale TA strike and actions

[Patrick M Crowley <pcrowley@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sat, 13 Jan 1996 glevy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

> Patrick:
>
> To begin with (and most importantly): I salute the work you are doing at
> Yale. I have been involved with union organizing and bargaining in
> colleges and can appreciate both the bitterness of the struggle there and
> the uncommon militancy of the Yale TAs.
>
> > To frame it in such ways disturbs me, but from too many encounters,
> > academics (a class that includes some of my closest friends), follow the
> > money.  They are like the bank robber Willy Sutton, who when asked why he
> > robbed banks, gave the common sense answer "Thats where the money is."
>
> C'mon, Patrick. Couldn't the same be said for just about any worker,
> especially any member of a skilled trade or profession?
>
> > Leave the Harvards of
> > the worlds.  Teach at the Roxbury Community Colleges, The Fresno States, 
> > etc.
> > I am a product of a public education through and through- public elementry,
> > public hich school (Marshfield High), public college (Bridgewater
> > State).  It is a shame that the great progessive and radical teachers
> > hide themselves too often behind Ivy leaves.  Remember who radicalism is
> > to serve.
>
> Patrick, Patrick, Patrick. ... the overwhelming majority of academics,
> radical and otherwise, do not teach at Ivy League schools like Yale and
> Columbia. As for your suggestion that one should teach at community
> colleges (I teach at a community college, a labor college, and a private
> university), you seem to believe that progressive faculty will empower
> students and help to increase radicalization. I don't share that
> perspective, in general. The best place for academics _to be political_
> is _outside_ of academic life where they can be part of progressive
> movements just the same as everyone else (so long as they remember that
> they *are* just the same as everyone else!).
>
> Good luck. Let us know if there is a petition that faculty from other
> colleges can sign by e-mail. You could probably get a couple of hundred
> progressive economists from PEN-L alone to sign such a statement.
>
> In solidarity,
>
> Jerry
>
>
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>

To answer your first question.... No.

Second.  Three Patricks ? C'mon.

Third. Empowerment? Who said anything about Bill CLinton?

Fourth . Petitions?  Petions don't pay the rent.

Jerry,

I do not doubt your good intentions.  The reason I say people should
abondon the Harvards of the world is not to slight the labor academics at
the other schools across the country. Far from it.  I think I am saying
something a little bit more daring than that.  I am saying to the
professors who are at the Harvards and Yales, and Columbias that if they
want ot have an impact on the world- do something bold- hang out with
poor people instead of rich people. Could you imagine the headlines if
Cornel West( or someone other famous NAME (accent only on the name) said"
Harvard is simply a business- I am going to teach where teaching counts,
down the street in Roxbury (this is Boston lingo if you are not familiar).

This has nothing to do with empowerment.  Or actually, if anyone were to
be empowered it would be the academics.




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