Within the article, “Realizing the Dream of a Liberation University,” by Conor Tomás Reed, it discussed the time period around 1978 up until 1992 where the City University of New York had changed from a free tuition university to one that required tuition, sparking many outrages and complaints within the city. The Retrenchment period was the time where CUNY started charging tuition for students, no longer being a free university, that resulted in people fighting back against their decision. The state and city budget for the University started decreasing, and there were less and less adjunct professors teaching at the University. It is similar and even compared to the Covid-19 Pandemic within the article itself, in which the most Covid-19 deaths occurred at CUNY across all universities within the entire country. Reed had stated that, “In 2020, a re-emerging movement to “resist this death” of CUNY faces a compounded crisis…The global Covid-19 pandemic has killed more people at our university than any other in the country…” The pandemic sparked up the idea of a “death,” a death of free education, and a death of the lives within the university itself. The Retrenchment period and the Pandemic were compared to signify a sense of loss within different aspects of people either interested in attending CUNY or the ones that already do. There is an implication of a lack of security and necessary action that needs to be done in order for the people of CUNY to be at their best, including free tuition and safety. This leads into Reed’s usage of the term, “death cult,” a heavy and meaningful metaphor that signifies how CUNY and the city of New York seems to metaphorically and literally allow loss into it’s sphere. The many lives lost at CUNY, the lives of those wishing to get a great college education to accomplish their hopes and dreams who unfortunately cannot due to their circumstances and confront a death of those aspirations, imply a “death cult,” a group of people or orchestrators that willingly and allow the situation of charging college tuition to occur, as if it is for the better of the city and for the City University of New York. Reed’s context of a “death cult,” was to imply that CUNY is allowing people to suffer and lose their sense of direction due to privatization and non free college tuition. The anti-racist and anti-austerity groups at CUNY were suggested by Reed to combine their efforts with the PSC Union who presented ten demands for CUNY to, “Save Lives, Save Jobs, Save CUNY,” which excluded the anti-racist demands and other demands from the multiple groups within CUNY. If all of the groups demands’ were combined, it would unite the issues together instead of dividing them and classifying them separately which would make them more integrated. It could also create massive change and innovation within CUNY and create a new and improved college experience that benefits everyone.
