‘We can’t let uni management fuck us over’: students protest Gender and Cultural Studies merger

Fabian Robertson reports.

Approximately 70 students gathered on campus today to demonstrate against the proposed merger of the Gender and Cultural Studies (GCS) department into the School of Social and Political Sciences (SSPS). The proposal - part of a raft of planned changes under the controversial Future FASS scheme - would see GCS downgraded from a department to a discipline and moved from its current home at the soon-to-be-abolished School of Philosophical and Historical Inquiry.  

Protestors positioned the plan as a cost-cutting attack that would threaten the autonomy and cultural essence of the GCS department, leading to course mergers, staff cuts and restricted academic freedoms.

Ell Haber, organiser of the Hands Off GCS campaign, lauded the impassioned response of students in the ten days since the campaign launched, citing the accrual of over 200 signatures in an open letter condemning the proposal. Haber’s criticism targeted Deputy Vice-Chancellor and former Arts Dean, Professor Annamarie Jagose, who labelled June protestors using her first name in a chant “hermeneutically suspicious”. In response, Haber led today’s chant: “Annamarie, cutting our degrees, doing it her-me-neu-ti-cally”.

Misbah Ansari, third-year GCS student, reprehended USyd’s transformation into a “profit-making machine” with harmful restructuring “camouflaged under the guise of academic progressiveness”. Ansari posited that the proposal would undermine the integral role of GCS in USyd’s research and forecasted that casuals in the department “will suffer”.

Amelia Mertha, Wom*n’s Officer and GCS student, contextualised the proposal from an activist perspective. Mertha indicated that GCS’ belonging to the School of Philosophical and Historical Inquiry reflected the department’s rich history in “leftist and feminist organising”. According to Mertha, GCS equips students with the “inspiration and theoretical tools” for collective action and has “so much beautiful and radical potential”. “We can’t let uni management fuck us over,” Mertha concluded.

Tom Williams, Education Officer, sought largely to debunk Deputy Vice-Chancellor Jagose’s “lies” and “bureaucratic nonsense” used to justify the cuts at the heart of the Future FASS scheme. Williams framed the scheme as an “attack on education”, arguing that “you can’t dress up shit and pretend it’s gold”. Rather, Williams highlighted how the proposals sought to “extract astronomical profits” from FASS in preparation for a “speculative future crisis in profits”, despite the faculty reporting a projected $135 million surplus for 2021. Williams explained that the “real crisis is now, in education in GCS and arts”.

Rory Larkins, of the Save USyd Arts campaign, paid tribute to Alana Louise Bowden, who passed away on 4 October. Larkins acknowledged Bowden’s instrumental role in defending the Theatre and Performance Studies and Studies in Religion departments and called on students to “carry forward her dedication, her hope and her brilliance” in the fight against cuts.

Larkins positioned the fight against the GCS merger as part of the greater fight for USyd Arts, condemning USyd management’s obsession with profits at the cost of staff and students.

Scarlett Franks, GCS graduate and FASS staff, drew on personal experience to demonstrate the value of GCS. After facing poverty, homelessness and abuse, Franks’ education in GCS has informed an understanding of how “power asymmetry maintains marginalisation” and consequently shaped “research and activism for survivors of abuse”. Franks celebrated the capacity for GCS to equip students with the “critical theory to understand the world” with application to areas like “social oppression, mental health and sexual violence”.

As a graduate research assistant and academic, Franks asserted “I know you can do these things in GCS because I am doing them”, rejecting concerns regarding GCS graduates’ lack of employability. Franks argued GCS is “worthy of disciplinary autonomy” and highlighted that any merger would cause “irreparable loss to students and public knowledge discourse”.

Protestors marched from the Quadrangle and down Eastern Avenue, stopping to plaster the aforementioned open letter and messages of defiance on the exterior of the F23 building.

Hands Off GCS is supporting the Education Action Group’s Student General Meeting Against the Cuts, scheduled on Zoom at 4pm October 27 to oppose uni-wide cuts. To reach quorum, the meeting requires 200 student attendees and signatures.