Portside

Reader Comments: Worker Strike Wave, John Deere; Dismantle Missile Systems; Democratic Primary Winner India Walton Sabotaged by Dems; Socialists and 50s Civil Rights Movement; CUNY’s Alleged Wrong Doings; Black and Puerto Rican History In Action;

“The unprecedented and unjustified seizure of Professor Wilson’s entire collection of books, letters, computers, research and lectures, openly violated state law, CUNY’s own policies and the US Constitution”

Trump’s appeal in Miami and Brooklyn, and election reflections from Thomas Frank and Henry Giroux

Reader Comments: Saving the Planet - Youth Climate Strike; White Nationalism Deep Roots; New Zealand - How a Government Should Respond; Setting the Record Straight - Prof. Joseph Wilson; lots of resources and announcements...

The struggle to save Worker Education continues. This battle is an integral part of the defense against the class warfare waged on unions, public education and institutions, the working class and those who work toward a democratic society, and human rights and opportunity for the oppressed, not hedge funders and warmongers. We have deeply disturbing developments to report about management's recent actions.

Reader Comments - Black Future Month, Vanishing Black Professors, Black-Brown Unity, Lynching; Selma, Civil Rights, LBJ; Vietnam War; Immigration: ISIS, Charlie Hebdo; Labor's Bigger Tent, Adjunct Profs and Right-to-Work (for less); Science; Greece, Spain and the EU; Educational Testing; South African women against big coal; movie feedback; Announcements - Malcolm X; Spain; Cuba Embargo; Labor and the Police; Black Men Speak; Debra E. Bernhardt Labor Journalism Prize

The film Selma and the murders in Ferguson and New York have re-focused much discussion on civil rights and equality or lack of. Affirmative action programs - a victory from the civil rights movement - have largely been dismantled by judicial rulings. Today there is the attempt to de-fund the historically Black Colleges. In Brooklyn, the largest African American community in the country, there are new reports of 'vanishing African American professors' at Brooklyn College

On May Day, activist and scholar Angela Davis speaks out. "The recent tragic destruction of the Graduate Center for Worker Education and the wholesale purging of progressive faculty, staff and graduate students is an unconscionable assault on an invaluable urban working class institution. Brooklyn College also ended its support for the Center's esteemed peer review journal "Working USA"."

Brooklyn College's plan to dramatically scale back the Graduate Center for Worker Education is one of the latest efforts to curtail examination of working class issues done in a way designed to provide students with activist skills.

Today Portside is posting another comment on Brooklyn College plans for the Graduate Center for Worker Education. This response comes from Manny Ness to his BC colleague Robin Corey's statement, posted yesterday. The focus for the debate on what is the nature of workers' education programs, who is admitted to them, and how they are run, is at Brooklyn College. However the issues have ramifications for the broader education and labor movement.