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• 1 2020-02-26T19:30:18+00:00 What is the Free University? by Michael Grant 22 plain 2020-03-27T14:39:00+00:00

   

  
   

  
  
  
  

  This document serves as both an outline and statement of intent for the Free University of New York City; a coalition described as “an experiment in radical education” whose aim is to address and challenge the inequities presented by the existing university system in the United States. This document was most likely used as a tool to educate those who might not be aware of such inequities in hopes of acquiring new members to the organization; especially individuals in higher education, such as students and educators, who are privy to the pressures of the existing university system such as exponential tuition costs that have caused the student debt crisis to worsen. The Free University also seeks to reach out to those who are underrepresented or oppressed by the increasing commodification of universities and its impact on socio-economic hemispheres in the United States. Furthermore, evidence of this document’s function as a recruitment tool is its explanation of the CARE (Comfort/Art/Rest/Energy) Station; this was a designated meeting place where coalition members could gather to deliberate on what actions the Free University was making as well as provide an open and non-oppressive environment where people could share their experiences on various forms of inequity. 

  My group’s digital exhibit is framed around the theme of social movement spillover and I believe that this document serves as a good example of this phenomenon. Spillover, as described in chapter 7 of “Nevertheless, They Persisted”, is the process of different social movements influencing each other, specifically in regards to how the strategies and tactics of each movement are used to promote mass mobilization (pg. 115). The example this book uses is how feminists influence other social movements through “mechanisms of transmission” such as how feminist personnel of “not-explicitly-feminist” movements share their strategies with their collaborators in spaces such as activist community centers (pg. 116). This is very similar to the environment that is being described in the Free University document; in fact, the first 2 commitments under the statement of intention section labeled “We:” are examples of how this movement encouraged its members to share their experience with oppression, such as sexism, racism, and classism, in order to help other members understand oppression in its various forms. This exchange of perspectives provides a unique example of social movement spillover where many different forms of activism are used to envision a plan of action that the Free University might take to achieve its goals.

  The parallel between the definition of spillover discussed in “Nevertheless, They Persisted” and the nature of the Free University document is undoubtedly present, however, I believe that the community the Free University was attempting to foster is vastly different from the book’s description of what occurred within the Occupy movement. The spillover that occurred within the Free University movement was a result of their desire to embrace the differences between their members in an effort to create a stronger collective. The Occupy movement, on the other hand, was described as an environment where, “violence and silencing occurred with no consequence,” (pg. 120); sexism within the movement lead to the division of its members which led to the mobilization of other groups of feminist activists within Occupy such as Occupy Patriarchy that fostered a culture divergent from the male-dominated environment that had consumed the Occupy movement.