Over 100 New School part-time faculty, full-time faculty, students, and staff marched from the University Center to Alvin Johnson/J.M. Kaplan Hall to hand-deliver a letter signed by over 1,000 supporters and community members “against unilateral restructuring” to University President Joel Towers on Wednesday, March 4.

The demonstration was organized by The New School Chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP-TNS), UAW Local 7902, which represents part-time faculty, student workers, and health service employees, and the New School Full-Time Faculty Union (FTF). It was the fourth protest this academic year against the restructuring efforts. 

The letter — which had over 1,600 signatures and was over 10 feet long when printed out — was carried by about ten people during the march. Some of the letter’s signers include award-winning journalist and social justice author Naomi Klein, queer historian Sarah Schulman, world-renowned queer gender theorist Judith Butler, and many others.

The letter states that the restructuring goes against the university’s student-oriented aim promised by President Towers, and is “a targeted effort to shed unionized workers … [which] hurts the entire New School community.”

Demonstrators gathered outside the UC around 2:30 p.m. to deliver the letter to President Towers’ office, located on the eighth floor of Alvin Johnson/J.M. Kaplan Hall. After a quick picket outside the UC, the assembled crowd marched toward 66 W. 12th St. 

Chants such as “Education is under attack! What do we do? Stand up fight back!” and “Chop from the top!” filled the streets as the crowd moved. Posters read, “Power to the people, not the Provost,” and “No Joel, No Austerity.” 

The demonstration came amid historic university restructuring meant to stabilize a budget deficit last projected by administrators to be $48 million. Restructuring changes began last November and include cancelling classes, cutting majors and minors, the “two college model”, and reducing faculty and staff. Community members demonstrated twice in November and again in December.

The letter requests New School administrators to “meet [the New School community] at the table.”

“I feel like [restructuring] was railroaded through without considering what we really want as The New School community,” John Holland said, an environmental policy major at The New School for Social Research and march attendee. “I don’t think [administrators] took in enough community input into what the budget should go into and their potential sources for the budget.”

After the crowd arrived at Alvin Johnson/J.M. Kaplan Hall after 3 p.m., organizers rolled up the letter, left the assembled crowd, entered the 12th St. building, and delivered it to two representatives for university administrators. 

The representatives met organizers in the building’s lobby before entering the stairwell next to the security desk and making their way upstairs. 

With the crowd still gathered outside, the rally began. Speakers included members of the New School Full-Time Faculty Union, the Part-Time Faculty Union at the New School, and Student Employees of the New School (SENS-UAW). Members of NYU Contract Faculty United were also present.  

“This is the first step of many steps to take. Are you ready to escalate?” Union organizer and part-time lecturer Raha Rafii said to the crowd.

Following other speakers, the crowd began to break up around 3:25 p.m., in time for 4:00 p.m. classes. 

“We’ve talked to students who are despondent about what’s happening,” Rafii told the New School Free Press at the demonstration. 

Rafii currently teaches Islamic Mysticism at Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts. She said her department, religious studies, has “been directed by the provost’s office to only offer four courses per semester. … Now [students] might not even get one per year, which I think is an embarrassment to New York, to people who are here to get education in New York City, when we have our first Muslim mayor, when we’re within five feet of Muslim communities at any point. That’s a huge disservice not just to the Muslim communities here but the students as well.” 

The administration’s aim “is to make all the jobs at the university — Full-time Faculty, Part-Time Faculty, Student Workers, and Staff — less secure,” UAW Local 7902 President Jaclyn Lovelle said in a press release about the rally sent to the New School Free Press on Tuesday, March 3.

The demonstration came a day after an email sent on March 3 by Towers, providing updates on the restructuring and responding to criticisms by the community. 

“I understand this desire [to go slower]” Towers said in the email, but “after three consecutive years of significant structural deficits and for the [immediate] impact on our liquidity, we must act now.”

“The current austerity plan is reckless and cruel,” Jeremy Varon, professor of history at NSSR and president of The New School’s AAUP Chapter, said in the press release. 

“It threatens additional mass firing of dedicated faculty and staff and an end to the world class education in the social sciences and humanities that our students expect,” Varon said. “You can’t save The New School by destroying it.”