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Six anonymous students at Columbia University have gone on a hunger strike to protest the administration's attitude and position on a number of issues, including Columbia's plans for West Harlem/Manhatanville, a series of hate crimes on campus and lack of an ethnic studies program.
You can see the full list of demands at the strikers website, as well as explanations for questions like "Why now?"
The recent acts of hate on this campus have lent urgency to a long-existing effort to address this university’s climate of marginalization. Furthermore, we coordinate our efforts around the City Planning’s decision on Columbia’s rezoning proposal for West Harlem, which is due in less than two months. Lastly, we act in solidarity with the students that recently mobilized around the Jena Six case, which we see as a larger struggle against racism and injustice.One of the strikers spoke to Bwog and noted the Columbia president Lee Bollinger has "walked out on meetings with students. He has rolled eyes at students. It is really quite disgusting." However, one Bwog commenter raised an interesting point, "Anonymity is giving this a level of abstraction that really isn't helping the strikers, especially since a hunger strike uses literal, physical debilitation as a means of making a statement." But the strikers have made themselves known to Columbia's health services, who will be checking on them everyday.
And last night, Bollinger discussed the controversial Manhattanville plans at a Municipal Arts Society event. When Bollinger acknowledged the plans "have a long way to go," the Columbia Spectator reported a heckler yelled, "A long, long way to go!”
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oh, poor babies, they are being forced to go to Columbia University.
Man! It's like they're totally in Darfur, except with nice coats and cooler weather!
Good for them for caring, but sheesh. I know it's better that they do something than nothing, but I hope they at least realize how good their lives have been (or most likely will be) since they have the ability to get a college education.
3% of the world has that ability, and I've no clue what percentage then goes to an Ivy. Good for them on trying to stop overdevelopment, but the whole idea that they notified the Columbia health center, the media, and anyone who'll listen to them seems so smarmy and self-centered--like they subconsciously are more interested in getting noticed than changing anything.
A hunger strike is all about getting noticed. It's like what Dr. Strangeglove said about a doosday machine -- it only works if people know about it.
I say we find out where these little brats live and have a barbeque right under their living room window.
if my hunch is accurate, we'd better make sure it's all free range and organic--these trustafarians can smell the difference, you know.
i need to lose a few pounds too! can anyone join their diet club? i'm going to check out their website right away. thanksgiving is right around the corner.
I am of the opinion that doing something positive (go volunteer somewhere, why don't you?)probably effects more good in the world than all of the hunger strikes and critical mass-hole demonstrations put together. Does anyone care about Bobby Sands anymore? does anyone even remember who he IS anymore?
Who's bringing Tofurkey?!
"lack of an ethnic studies program"
Life stinks.
Cocaine binges don't count as hunger strikes, people.
In places like Belfast and Derry they revere Bobby Sands and all the hunger strikers as national heroes, saints even. I've been in pubs in West Belfast where they had portraits of Bobby Sands painted on the walls.
Come to think of it, maybe we should offer that as an inducement for these little brats to go all the way and starve themselves to death. Paint their portraits on the walls of Low Library with the caption, "In memory of the little trust fund brats who died because they were offended that Lee Bollinger rolled his eyes at them".
Old joke (late '70's).
Up in heaven, Elvis sitting by himself in the living room of a non-descript house.
Where is everyone Elvis?
"They've all left - party's over, Bobby Sands ate all the sandwiches".
What a bunch of clowns. Hopefully they stave themselves to death.
When I was at Columbia, a group of hunger strikers protesting the treatment of HIV-positive detainees at Guantanamo Bay planted themselves on the steps of Low Library. The Young Republicans set up a barbecue right beside them. I'm no republican, but damn, that was funny.
they won't be starving themselves to 'death,' trust me.
I know the hunger strikers, all of your comments are right on, except they're not that rich.
Good for them on trying to stop overdevelopment
Huh?
@Eastriver
They're protesting the manhattanville rezoning, correct?
Hence overdevelopment: to redesign a neighborhood in a harmful way, far too quickly
How about instead of going huh , you take the split second to think about it and/or google unfamiliar terms (or, unfortunately in this case, buzzwords)
Hmmm -- Columbia wants to redevelop a former meat-packing district, so they go on a hunger strike. Must be vegans!
I'm hunger striking too, but not only will I not tell you who I am, I'm going so far as to not even say WHY. So take that, all you people maybe in my crosshairs.
I sure hope those kids are still going to class and keeping their grades up. Otherwise they will fail and live in those same projects they are trying to protect.
But then again I can't imagine being in an art history class with the lights down low hearing a professor drone on about the nuances of late Mannerist chiaroscuro painting techniques while in the background the ongoing howl of stomach acid yearning for food.
bxbrian, I was saying "huh" to the believe that anything in New York can be considered "overdeveloped". If what Columbia wants to do is considered "overdevelopment" I wonder what they would call the rest of Manhattan. Or Brooklyn. We live in the most densely populated part of the country and I thought we usually patted ourselves on the back for our lower footprint. And I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that the protesters are probably against sprawl and for public transportation over automobiles. I suppose they would prefer if Columbia built their new labs on virgin forests in New Jersey and shuttled everyone back and forth in fume spewing diesel buses?
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/shitty_neighborhood_rallies
My son's baseball team use to do winter workouts at the highschool on the top end of this proposed expansion area and I must say the neighborhood totally sucks. There is not a hell of lot to save in that blighted area. Give all the residents a hundred dollar bill and I'm sure they would be happy to move.
columbia should be kicked out of the ivy league. what an embarrassment of a university. while uofc is producing nobel prize winning economists, this is the best columbia can come up with?
don't get me wrong i think improving a neighborhood is a great thing--but i worry that the place would have a majority of luxury housing and nothing for average schmucks like me trying to get by on a publishing salary. when i say overdevelopment i mean planning without considering environmental/economic factors
Yeah, the whole thing about the neighborhood up there is a holdup. The residents getting displaced want a better deal, so they rant and rave. If they don't want to get displaced, they should. What's up there? Car washes, autobody shops, some crappy housing projects, not a neighborhood.
As to the kids, last I heard, nobody forced anyone to go to college, let alone any particular college. If they don't like the curriculum, why are they starving themselves over it. Just transfer to Vassar and get the dumbing down of your education over with without all the poor health side effects of a hunger strike.
Maybe if they at least had a direct reason and goal this wouldn't be so completely laughable, but as it is, it basically sounds like first, they decided they wanted to make a dramatically, revolutionary move, and then, sometime afterward, grasped at every possible straw of a reason to do so, and then couldn't even decide on a single one, so there you have, protesting against a mostly vague clusterfuck of complaints about life in Columbia.
I find the criticism of the protesters on this board to be, well, sort of laughable. Your 9 to 5 desk job (or your life in general) makes you apathetic; disinterested in what's happening in your own community (assuming you live in New York); and bitter at others for caring. So you launch your predictable attacks against the students, and you condescend out of ignorance.
My view is that at least the students care about what Columbia's doing to the community. Students actually some say within the University to affect what Columbia does.
I find the people who come on Gothamist and make generalizations about other posters to be, well, laughable. No ignorance here -- my wife works for Columbia and I read the students' stupid blog post about why they're doing it. They're retards.
Hey JenChungsBra - you are a gothamist troll. your wife's office job doesn't make you qualified to speak.
Oh, and don't hate just because you couldn't get into columbia.