Organizing at American University Needs to Change

by SuperNotNitin
Organizing at American University Needs to Change

At the start of this year, Sylvia Burwell decided to ban indoor protests after SJP demonstrated inside the SIS building with booming chants and thunderous support from students and faculty. The ban targeted SJP, but in the initial email, The protest by the Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA) in TDR for the dining workers union was mentioned, meaning all clubs and orgs that engage in activism are threatened through the ban. Following the restrictions, activist clubs continued to protest, but complied with the university rules, sometimes toeing the line by protesting indoors without any noise. In response to us following the rules, the AU Administration raised the restrictions by not allowing tents, loudspeakers, or protesting near buildings while also increasing the use of AUPD and even bringing up the possibility of arming our campus police force.

The university will not stop curbing our right to speak freely on a college campus until we are without any rights at all. Complying with these restrictions only grants more power to the university, implying that it is okay to quiet our voice when the university engages in horrific acts: supporting a genocide, disrespecting its workers, accepting money from the Koch Foundation, neglecting survivors of sexual violence, and much more. Complying with the restrictions means we think that these horrific actions are okay.

Although we must break these guidelines because the university's actions are not okay, we must break them in a safe but disruptive manner. Violating these guidelines when an official club creates an event on engage is not worth the risk. For example, one day in the spring of 2024, Sunrise did a small event on the quad where they tied posters to two trees and handed out pamphlets about how American University is supporting fossil fuels and the genocide in Gaza. After we were set up, AUPD came to tell us to bring it down because it violated the Code Of Conduct. At this moment we had a choice to escalate by organizing people on the quad to come and support a barricade of some sort to ensure AUPD did not take down the posters. The Sunrise organizers decided to not take that disruptive action because their names were on Engage and they would be singled out.

When this disruption was canceled, I, along with others, were upset and thought it was cowardly, but pondering upon this moment I see that it was the right call. Protests and mass actions work to spread out risk, strikes and unions work because the workers know not everyone can be fired, and the lonely man who protests is much more likely to be repressed than thousands, putting strains on police forces and jails. In order to spread out risk in the future of organizing at American University we must operate secretly. The most effective way for us to work in this fashion is to disaffiliate from the university.

Disaffiliation from the university would not just mean a couple organizing clubs to deregister. If YDSA were to disaffiliate by themselves they could be targeted while operating on campus, but if activist, diaspora, and culture clubs all decided to separate from AU it would be a grand statement, showing the administration that we no longer support their actions and despite the consequences we choose not to be associated with this horrific institution. The university would start to be worried and we could operate in secrecy. Disbanding from AU would pose many challenges to our clubs, which are the lifeblood of campus life. The events for our clubs should not cease upon the separation, but how could a club operate without booking rooms, tabling, or requesting funds?

For many of the organizing clubs on campus, budget requests are not much of a necessity, they bring people to events by having food, but clubs like YDSA do well with having potlucks that generate greater community as friends cook together and are excited to show their concoctions to the meetings. Diaspora clubs, on the other hand, would suffer without budget requests as they frequently host events where food is a necessity like MSA's Iftars, or a culture club's unique cuisine for a food night. They need massive amounts of money to maintain such events, and fundraising alone will not cut it. Instead, we can follow a strategy used by the Kenyan NGO SHOFCO, which I had the privilege and pleasure to intern at. They created a system of communal welfare where every month people gave 100 Shillings (<1 dollar) to a fund that acts as a bank in times of emergencies for hospital bills, school fees, or loans for business and education. A coalition of clubs that disaffiliate could use a similar strategy, if there are 20 clubs, with each club possessing at least a membership of 10 people with an e-board of around 10 people, all giving an average of 1 dollar a month would mean $400 a month. The structure would need to be built at the community level through meetings upon meetings, to ensure we could generate a fund with all the kinks worked out. If this community fund came to fruition it would be a huge investment in our AU community. Students would feel more inclined to attend events at other club's meetings because they would be a part of the payment process for the event. Students relying on one another in this unprecedented fashion will ultimately bring our clubs closer together.

Assuming this great community structure works, how could clubs book rooms? Although some clubs might look for open rooms when they do not have a booking or book a room in the library for small meetings, large-scale events would be impossible to coordinate in this insane impromptu style. There would need to be large-scale cooperation between the people who work in these vital buildings to tell the clubs what rooms will be available for a meeting. To carry out this plan it would be necessary to protect the student workers through organizing for a wall-to-wall student union. The greatest threat to student worker organizations would be mass layoffs. For GW they tried to unionize their RAs and the whole program was terminated. For unionization efforts to be successful students must not go public until an unfireable amount of student workers show their solidarity. Yes, the university could fire all the RAs, but could the university fire all the RAs, all the Bridge and Dav employees, student workers in the library, East Campus, LA Quad, SIS, CAS, SPA, MGC, the gyms, and tour guides?

Organizing for a student union would not only help raise wages but also the ability to strike for a list of demands that the university would be forced to comply with. Imagine a campus where student workers are on strike along with the staff union, dining hall workers, janitors, and facilities workers, with hundreds of unregistered clubs protesting for days on end! There would be nothing to stop that level of collective action. We must realize that the administration rules American University through fear, force, and violence. As their power is threatened, they try to raise their capacity for retribution through increasing disciplinary actions and arming AUPD. We, the students and staff, make the campus what it is, and we can govern each other through love and community instead of laws imposed on us through fear. I do not think this will be easy, nor do I think I have all the answers on organizing every department with student workers, nor do I have the perfect solution for how community welfare should work on campus. All I know is that I am ready to have these conversations… Are you?