We Can Win! Your Involvement is Crucial! – CCNY Student Strikes
Item
We can win!Your involvement is crucial!
Governor Cuomo and his administration’s proposed $500 tuition increase, $96 million’ in
budget cuts, $400 cuts in TAP and faculty and staff layoffs will have a devastating effect on
CUNY. At the same time that funds are being cut for education, the same politicians are
willing to spend billions fighting wars abroad.
If we allow them to pass this proposal, thousands of students will be forced out of a higher
education. Access to education will be denied to African Americans, Latinos and working
people; education will become a privilege. for the wealthy few in coming generations rather
than a right for all people.
We have no choice bui to fight and win! If we don’t speak out now attacks on education
will continue in the future!
Despite efforts to confine the movement from CUNY and government administrators, our
movement is growing and getting stronger. We are already in the third week of the struggle
and will continue until they meet our demands: no increases, no cuts, no layoffs!
Your involvement and participation is crucial. It is your struggle. We need more support to
obtain our objectives sooney than later. We need your creativity and your suggestions.
Daily mass general assemblies are taking place in CCNY every day at
6:00 p.m. in which we discuss and resolve the situation in the CUNY °
system and make collective decisions in activity, our strategy and tactics
and on which way forward will fight and win.
Your support and participation at the assemblies is crucial to win our just struggle! Your
involvement in a long term fight to regain free education at CUNY it is also very important!
JOIN THE STRUGGLE NOW!
NO INCREASES! NO CUTS! NO LAYC®FFS! TAX THE RICH!
CCNY STRIKE STUDENTS
Governor Cuomo and his administration’s proposed $500 tuition increase, $96 million’ in
budget cuts, $400 cuts in TAP and faculty and staff layoffs will have a devastating effect on
CUNY. At the same time that funds are being cut for education, the same politicians are
willing to spend billions fighting wars abroad.
If we allow them to pass this proposal, thousands of students will be forced out of a higher
education. Access to education will be denied to African Americans, Latinos and working
people; education will become a privilege. for the wealthy few in coming generations rather
than a right for all people.
We have no choice bui to fight and win! If we don’t speak out now attacks on education
will continue in the future!
Despite efforts to confine the movement from CUNY and government administrators, our
movement is growing and getting stronger. We are already in the third week of the struggle
and will continue until they meet our demands: no increases, no cuts, no layoffs!
Your involvement and participation is crucial. It is your struggle. We need more support to
obtain our objectives sooney than later. We need your creativity and your suggestions.
Daily mass general assemblies are taking place in CCNY every day at
6:00 p.m. in which we discuss and resolve the situation in the CUNY °
system and make collective decisions in activity, our strategy and tactics
and on which way forward will fight and win.
Your support and participation at the assemblies is crucial to win our just struggle! Your
involvement in a long term fight to regain free education at CUNY it is also very important!
JOIN THE STRUGGLE NOW!
NO INCREASES! NO CUTS! NO LAYC®FFS! TAX THE RICH!
CCNY STRIKE STUDENTS
Title
We Can Win! Your Involvement is Crucial! – CCNY Student Strikes
Description
Written three weeks into the City University of New York (CUNY) strikes of 1991, this flyer, signed CCNY STRIKE STUDENTS (City College of New York), urged students to support the movement and attend general assemblies. Daily mass general assemblies took place every day at 6 PM at CCNY, in which collective decisions in activity, strategy, and tactics were discussed. The flyer argued that if the tuition increased, budgets cut, and faculty layoffs were implemented, thousands of students would be forced out of higher education, and the attacks on education would continue.
The 1991 CUNY strikes were part of the larger story of austerity measures imposed on New York City and the community efforts to resist those measures. On April 16th, students mainly from the Graduate Center Anthropology PhD program occupied the Graduate Center in solidarity with a broader undergraduate mobilization across CUNY against the threat of steep tuition hikes, massive budget cuts, and faculty layoffs. What began as a one-day strike turned into a ten-day take-over in which students and faculty practiced forms of participatory democracy, discussed the root causes of the austerity problems being faced, and debated actions for change. Students often drew on CUNY’s history as the premier urban, public institution of higher education in the United States to argue that education was a right and that the proposed measures threatened working-class New Yorkers' ability to receive an education.
Contributor
McCaffrey, Katherine
Creator
CCNY STRIKE STUDENTS
Date
1991 (Circa)
Language
English
Rights
Copyrighted
Source
McCaffrey, Katherine
Original Format
Pamphlet / Petition
CCNY STRIKE STUDENTS. Letter. 1991. “We Can Win! Your Involvement Is Crucial! – CCNY Student Strikes”, 1991, CUNY DIGITAL HISTORY ARCHIVE, accessed March 12, 2026, https://stephenz.tailc22a4b.ts.net/s/cdha/item/1721