Our campus, our classrooms, our education: Education Action Group hold speakout and rally against education cuts
Emily Graetz reports.
The Education Action Group (EAG) led a staunch contingent of students and staff in protest of course and staff cuts outside of Fisher Library today. The rally, being EAG’s first in person event post-lockdown, was hosted by the newly elected 2022 Education Officers, Lia Perkins and Deaglan Godwin, and saw several speakers protest against the proposed changes to Arts, Business and Dentistry.
Speakers at the event denounced proposed cuts to university course work and staff jobs, particularly under the Future FASS plan, and lauded the success of last week’s Student General Meeting in demonstrating the power of student resistance.
Student gathered outside Fisher library.
Science student Ella Haid congratulated students for their commitment to the Student General Meeting before contextualising USyd’s cuts amongst broader changes happening in higher education in Australia, like at Macquarie university where over 300 professional staff jobs have been disestablished.
Haid bemoaned USyd management’s failure to prioritise student education and staff jobs stating that “they do not get the right to sit on top of their profits and cry poor whenever they want” and calling for collective opposition to the cuts.
“These are our campuses, these are our classrooms, this is our education and we have every right to demand we don’t cut it”, Haid concluded.
Dr Nick Riemer, a senior lecturer in the Department of English, activist and NTEU member followed, criticising the neoliberalisation of the university and hypocrisy of management who, he said, purport to care about social justice but only act in the interests of profit.
Reimer described the cuts as a “great neoliberal fist hovering over the faculty [FASS], waiting to strike”, claiming that Vice Chancellor Mark Scott, Deputy Vice Chancellor Annamarie Jagose and Dean of Arts Lisa Atkins are aiming to eliminate the kind of liberal education that “equips us to be free”.
Reimer concluded by reflecting on his own time as a student at the University of Sydney, calling for more students to get involved in activism and fights against the cuts.
“I look forward to linking arms with you in struggle as this goes on”.
Wom*n’s Collective Officer and Gender and Cultural Studies (GCS) student, Kimmy Dibben began by acknowledging the interconnectedness of First Nations justice and the fight against university cuts, calling for a commitment to “unwavering First Nations solidarity”.
Dibben reflected on her personal experience as a sexual assault and domestic violence survivor and the “game of catch up” that she has had to play as a working class student to keep up with private school kids.
“It is not me that is failing university, it is the university that is failing me”.
Dibben concluded by emphasising the necessary role of GCS, which is currently at risk of being merged, affirming its “unique kindness” and offering of a radical and liberatory education, particularly for marginalised students.
The group then marched to F23, what Deaglan Godwin dubbed the “panopticon mansion”. Godwin noted the current struggle for student unionism and organisation under an unfolding military coup in Sudan, claiming that “our struggle is connected to theirs because an attack on students anywhere is an attack on students everywhere”.
The contingent marched down to F23 to conclude the rally.
At F23, Arts/Law student Andy Park criticised the Future FASS proposal in light of the faculty’s predicted surplus of $135 million and rejected the need for departmental merges, such as that of GCS, which “not only reduces autonomy but undermines a radical faculty that pushes boundaries in the exact way a university should”.
Park condemned the University’s association with both the Ramsay Centre and the police, claiming that they appropriate “the ideals of education… to justify shit like bigotry and free speech in the ‘marketplace of ideas’”.
“It’s clear that we as students both believe in and will fight for our dream for the university… to show management that we’re in this fight not only to push against you but we’re in this fight to win”, Park concluded.
The speakout ended with the group presenting a gift for Jagose: a massive pair of cardboard scissors “so she can cut more courses, more jobs and more sections of the university”.
The cardboard scissors were unrwapped outside of F23.
You can keep up to date by following the Education Action Group and No USyd Cuts on Facebook. A full recording of today’s event can be found on the EAG page.
Photos provided by Maddie Clark.