Campaign to Stop Racism at NYU

- by Elizabeth Wrigley-Field

Two weeks after a racist, sexist anti-affirmative action “bake sale” resulted in a spontaneous protest at New York University (NYU), students again showed their opposition with a second protest of well over 100 students on April 20.

The protest began as a rally and wound up including an unplanned, chanting march around NYU’s campus. Although some of the organizers said the protest was only against the College Republicans’ having violated NYU’s rules by charging different cookie prices based on students’ race and gender, many of the protesters opposed the racism at NYU more broadly – with posters defending affirmative action, chants like “We hate tuition too!”, and student speeches against an administrative proposal that many students believe will threaten the hard-won Africana and Latino Studies departments.

Pointing out that NYU has a history of racist incidents just as the schoolyear is ending, students are determined to keep up the struggle even as the semester draws to a close. The next step will be a debate about affirmative action against the College Republicans. Originally, students had planned to demand that College Democrats debate College Republicans on the issue. But after one speech at the rally pointed out that, “We are often disenfranchised by Republicans and Democrats, and we should represent ourselves,” students decided that the protesters themselves would take on the Republicans. 84 students signed up to help organize this debate.

This protest, and the willingness of so many students to keep organizing even as finals approach, indicate that racism on campus won’t go unchallenged.

Elizabeth Wrigley-Field is a student at New York University, where she is a member of the Campus Antiwar Network and the International Socialist Organization. She is the coauthor, with Aaron Hess, of "Civil Rights Betrayed" in the International Socialist Review. You can email her at wrigleyfield@nyu.edu.