Students on Strike

STUDENTS ON STRIKE COVID-19 has sparked a new wave of activism.

BY LEXI MCMENAMIN

GABBY ESTLUND

From public institutions like the University of Iowa and the University of Massachusetts Boston, to private ones like the University of Chicago and Rice University, students across the country are coalescing around a novel idea: a tuition strike.

The massive mismanagement of the coronavirus pandemic has forced college students to question the cost of their education, as schools that charge tens of thousands of dollars in tuition per year transition to online instruction.

“Students are really angry at the way that we’re being treated right now,” says Dulce Escorcia, a senior at the University of Iowa and a member of Iowa Student Action. “We were already being taken advantage of by rising tuition costs.” And now, there’s the pandemic, which forced students back into classrooms or into spaces where COVID-19 protocols aren’t followed. “It all comes together into all the energy that’s buzzing around campuses right now.”

“American students pay so much money,” says Miranda Dotson, a senior at American University in Washington, D.C., and an organizer with the nascent national organization United Student Front. “If they withhold their dollars, there are a lot of universities that are tuition-dependent [which] would be forced to listen to, or in a position to negotiate with, students who strike en masse.”

Broiling in the background is the rise of labor activism in education, including campaigns for unionization within university graduate departments as well as the #Red4Ed strikes of K-12 educators that made headlines throughout 2018 and 2019. The push for tuition strikes has also drawn strength from the mo-

Iowa City, Iowa: Student Action members protesting the Iowa Board of Regents decision to reopen campuses in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Lexi McMenamin (@lexmcmenamin) is a reporter from Philadelphia who writes about politics, identity, and activist movements.

bilization for the Black Lives Matter movement that The University of Chicago fundraised $5 billion in has brought tens of thousands of people to the streets 2019, on top of its $14 billion investment portfolio that around the country. includes an $8.2 billion endowment. Advocates see

Early this year, Americans hit a record-breaking this as evidence of the university’s ability to provide total of $1.6 trillion in student debt. While the coro- relief for its student body. navirus pandemic has led to some loan relief, this “A bunch of people were being thrown into really has not solved the problem but merely held it at bay. volatile situations, either with their family back home

The goals of the tuition strike vary depending on or with just trying to figure out what the hell is going each school’s unique issues, but all of the organizers on here in Chicago, and we just saw the university I spoke to see a clear connection between the move- doing very little to support students,” recalls Rubio. ment for racial justice and the fight against student “That was really frustrating. I mean, for myself, I needdebt and college costs. ed resources from the university that [it] didn’t give

“If I’m fighting for other people, I really am fighting me. And that was the situation for thousands of stufor myself,” says Luis Rubio, a junior at the University dents across campus.” of Chicago and member of UChicago for Fair Tuition. More than 1,800 students and UChicago commu“I am really convinced that that is one of the most nity members signed a petition backing the 50 percent powerful ways to make change in this world, to see tuition cut. By mid-April, the university committed to other people’s struggles as your own, in a way.” a tuition freeze for the undergraduate college and at

The organizers of the United Student Front are least one graduate program, without addressing the focused on leveraging a student strike to push universities to acquiesce to student demands around racial justice, such as targeting campus police budgets. “If I’m fighting for other people, I really am “Not paying tuition because I’m not getting the service that I was promised is one thing, but not paying fighting for myself.” tuition because my money in some way is going to the subsidization of one of the most lethal institutions in the country is a different thing,” says Charles H.F. other demands. Campaign organizers rallied students Davis III, assistant professor of higher education at around withholding their tuition payments due at the University of Michigan. “There’s something there the end of April. Ultimately, more than 200 students that has to be understood about what all these rela- withheld their payments. tionships are, when we think about not just how the A similar tactic paid off in Iowa, where Iowa Stuuniversity makes money, but what it spends its money dent Action, a chapter of the national Student Action on and why.” network, spent nearly two years prior to the onset

Villanova University education professor Jerusha of the pandemic fighting against planned statewide Conner, whose book The New Student Activists was tuition hikes. released in February 2020, ties this into the increased “Student Action nationally is building the movesocial awareness of current and incoming college stu- ment for free college for all,” says Sara Castro, a senior dents. Across her research, racial justice was the top at Grinnell College, a private college in Iowa. “A stuissue area in which student organizers were engaged. dent movement, and the way that is related to the work

“In my book, the data for which was collected in that we do in Iowa, is really challenging the decision 2015 and 2016, I found that nearly half of the students makers in Iowa, specifically around education.” who saw themselves as activists in college had arrived Iowa’s three public universities—University of on campus with that identity well-formed,” Conner Iowa, Iowa State University, and the University of says. “I am certain that number has only grown since.” Northern Iowa—are controlled by the state’s Board of Regents. Iowa Student Action consistently held di-

The first student strike actions took place early in rect actions protesting the tuition hikes, most recently the pandemic. In April, at the University of Chi- in February. cago, student organizers brought together existing “[Tuition hikes] definitely hurt students and their student groups to form the coalition UChicago for families,” Castro says, adding that “when tuition goes Fair Tuition. up, campuses get wealthier and whiter. [They get]

Initially, the campaign demanded a 50 percent re- more dangerous for working class folks, and queer duction in tuition expenses for the spring semester, a folks, and Black and brown people. There’s a real cost tuition freeze, increased transparency about university and a danger to that, too.” budgeting, and cost adjustments for graduate students. The campaign was sustaining momentum when

the coronavirus pandemic struck. Student workers university administrators alike have blamed young on campus, who relied on their university jobs to get people for new cases, insinuating that they aren’t by, were suddenly laid off, leaving them scrambling doing their part to stop the spread. to pay rent and stay safe. On May 1, Iowa Student “We’ve literally never let students determine policy. Action released a list of demands, calling for tuition Ever. And all of a sudden you’re going to leave it up reductions throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, a to people who we already know are going to do what five-year tuition freeze, and a 50 percent refund for they’re going to do?” asks Davis of the University of the spring 2020 semester. Michigan. “People are underage drinking. They’re A few days later, the Board of Regents announced engaging in, you know, various activities without the a tuition freeze for the fall 2020 semester, replacing a use of protection, they’re just doing all of these things planned increase; the plan was approved at a Board that people do, and you’re gonna say a pandemic is of Regents meeting in early June. left up to students wearing masks?” As Davis observes, those very colleges now struggling to transition to online learning spent years de“There’s a certain understanding by folks that meaning online education and valorizing the “campus experience.” There was an obvious financial incentive being a college student or having a bachelor’s to do so, but now they’re struggling to maintain that degree isn’t going to save you from the economic set-up without risking lives. At best, campuses are assuming some modicum of injustices of the world.” risk: As I reported for The Progressive earlier this fall, Cornell University relied on a “science-based model” that assumed a percentage of the university commuOne strength for college organizers, notes Con- nity would become infected. ner, who wrote the book on student activism, is their Left out of this conversation is the fact that no tech literacy. As shutdowns drove students to organize college truly exists in isolation. “It’d be different if we online, “the pivot to digital organizing was seamless; all lived on these islands of universities and it was a indeed, many groups were already meeting online,” bubble,” says Davis. Citing his own campus, he says, using platforms like Slack and Instagram to stay con- “You’ve got folks from all across the state of Michigan nected, she says. coming to and from campus however they so choose Online organizing also created space to connect any given weekend.” Even if the campuses shut down, across geographic areas, students interviewed for this “Ann Arbor will still be here, Ypsilanti will still be here, article said. But the work didn’t happen only online; Detroit, for people that are going for their cultural throughout the summer, students joined in the Black excursion from the university, will still be here.” Lives Matter protests against police brutality. Several campaigns, including at Rice University, “Campus-based organizing suffered some setbacks sought to prioritize the surrounding community’s last spring when schools closed, particularly in places safety. “People understand that something like camlike [University of California] Santa Cruz, where grad pus police isn’t just about how it affects the students students were picketing, and Syracuse [University], that are on campus, but it affects a lot of the communiwhere #NotAgainSU students were in the midst of an ties within which they’re situated,” Davis says. “There’s occupation and negotiations with administrators over a certain understanding by folks that being a college their demands,” Conner says. “However, [the tuition student or having a bachelor’s degree isn’t going to strikes] have shown the power of student activists to save you from the injustices of the world.” adapt to the constraints of the current circumstances.” “Maybe it makes more sense to be in the right relationship with people that are outside those campus

While the spring brought a rash of immediate re- walls, because in essence you’re fighting for the same actions to the pandemic and changes to school- thing, because the same thing is fighting you.” ing, the summer and fall have brought new conflicts American University student Miranda Dotson and concerns to students nationwide. Schools spent started observing these developments from far away: August and September handling messy in-person re- When COVID-19 began, she was studying abroad opening processes, many going remote soon after due in Paris, France, and ended up staying there to ride to COVID-19 outbreaks. out the pandemic. While in Paris, she witnessed the

As a part of this transition, universities have placed national strike over President Emmanuel Macron’s a ridiculous burden on students to avoid the spread of proposed pension reform plan, which began in DeCOVID-19 on campuses. Government officials and cember 2019 and continued into 2020. Simultaneously,

France’s university system experienced student strikes in solidarity with professors and researchers.

“[Striking] was in the air in France,” Dotson says. “What was really mobilizing and empowering was to see the level, the extent to which strikers were able to mobilize as a united front, and have demands, and choke the system for a period of time.”

Between the winter strikes, spring quarantine, and the United States’ summer of unrest (that she was forced to witness from a distance), Dotson began thinking about how a student strike could transfer back home. At American University, conversations about racial justice were linked to those about sexual assault on campus, and movements around both had brewed for years. Over the summer, she created a survey to suss out others’ interest in the idea.

“Every university is different: I know that there are some universities [that] don’t have deep endowments, and there are universities who are like, Harvard, who have $40 billion,” Dotson says. Throughout the fall, the group that coalesced around this idea, now the United Student Front, has been working to spread into as many campuses as possible.

The goals of individual campus campaigns have many common themes, Dotson notes. These include wanting to abolish police from campuses, and reinvest those funds into student and staff wellness on campus. As she puts it, “There’s a lot of idea sharing and resource sharing that’s going on right now as a growing student network.”

Throughout 2020, campaigns popped up at campuses all over, such as Duke University. The spread of the idea is ongoing. On a mid-October evening, organizers at UMass Boston invited Dotson to a meeting to discuss pursuing such a tactic. I was able to attend.

“As students who pay tuition, we’re stakeholders in our universities, much more than our administrations would like us to believe that we are,” stated Dotson, addressing the group. “One of the biggest calls to action this year is divestment from police, and anything attached to policing, including prison and surveillance systems. So for our universities to continue to invest in prisons or industries that have links to prisons is in direct contradiction with any claims to anti-racism that the university has.”

Participants including facilitator Izabel Depina, an organizer with PHENOM, a Massachusetts statewide group organizing for free college, expressed excitement at the idea. In the meeting, organizers strategized how best to address their immediate concerns, like union organizing at UMass Amherst, and also considered how and when they could feasibly roll out a tuition strike. For Depina, the urgency was palpable.

“There’s a lot of things that need to be happening because systematic racism exists, and our Black and brown students are suffering the most,” Depina said in the meeting. The group agreed to keep talking.

The student tuition strike movement is growing, and growing fast—but also trying to grow smartly.

“The striking tactic is most effective when there is a critical enough mass participating that it grinds business-as-usual to a halt,” Conner says. “The question for organizers to grapple with is whether they can mobilize a large enough base with the identity-based approach, or whether they need to erect a broader tent that includes all those affected, as well as their allies, in order to effectively disrupt the system and challenge the taken-for-granted assumptions of those in positions of power.”

Davis speculates that the pandemic has created an opening for intersectional, identity-based organizing that is united for racial justice, with a tuition strike as one tactic. “[COVID-19] has so much cross-cutting impact that it forces folks to think about the things they have in common, more so than the things they have that are different,” he says. “You get a clear understanding of how class dynamics intersect with issues of race, how that also intersects with issues of gender [and] who the essential workers are in a variety of spaces.

“That revelation presents more opportunities for the coalition building, which I think we’re seeing.” ◆

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