Rutgers AAUP-AFT is bringing back Freedom School in the tradition of Ella Baker, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and the 1960s civil rights movement. The pandemic has disrupted both our ordinary lives and how we connect to each other as a union. We want Freedom School to be a virtual classroom and discussion space for union members, students, and the community to develop leadership and political consciousness for a new generation.
Join us for regular Thursday-night discussions featuring speakers from the labor and social movements, as well as the Rutgers community and our Coalition unions, to discuss the themes that inform our current struggles for economic, racial, and social justice. You can watch past sessions on YouTube. Please subscribe to our YouTube channel so you don’t miss other union videos!
PAST SESSIONS
Thursday, November 3, 2022
Elite Capture and Our Fight for Solidarity in Higher Ed, featuring Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò, acclaimed author of Elite Capture: How the Powerful Took Over Identity Politics (And Everything Else), in conversation with Rutgers faculty and graduate workers, hosted by Donna Murch and Todd Wolfson.
Watch this Session on YouTube
Syllabus for this session:
- Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò, “Identity Politics and Elite Capture,” Boston Review
- Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò, Elite Capture: How the Powerful Took Over Identity Politics (And Everything Else), Haymarket Books
- Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò, Reconsidering Reparations, Oxford University Press
Monday, May 9, 2022
Supreme Injustice: Defending Our Rights Against Minority Rule, a discussion to strategize our collective response as a union and a Rutgers community to the leaked Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade. Featured speakers include: Timothy Stewart-Winter, Daria Roithmayr, Hetty Rosenstein, Lori Minnite, Donna Murch, and Ian Gavigan.
Watch this session on YouTube
Thursday, April 21, 2022
Newark Matters: Neoliberalism’s Diversity Ruse, featuring Newark-based professors, students, and alumni, including Manu Chander, Soili Smith, Margaret Stephens, Sarah Alaeddin, and Nuhu Osman Attah.
Watch this session on YouTube
Monday, February 21, 2022
Camden Matters: The Fight for Reparation and Racial Equity, featuring Davarian Baldwin, Donna Murch, Keith Green, Jim Brown, Tania Martinez, Ma’isha Aziz, Ayinde Merrill, and Reet Starwind.
Watch this session on YouTube
Syllabus for this session:
- Rutgers AAUP-AFT report, “Rutgers-Camden Deserves Equity and Respect”
Thursday, September 2, 2021
Seizing the Moment: Budget Reconciliation and Higher Ed Now, featuring higher ed union activists from Rutgers and institutions around the country.
Watch this session on YouTube
Thursday, April 15, 2021
No More Cages in New Jersey: Labor, Mass Incarceration, and Immigrant Detention, featuring activists from the prison abolition and immigrant rights movement.
Watch this session on YouTube
Syllabus for this session:
- Mary Rizzo and Whitney Strub, “New Jersey’s Unique Political Contours Make Challenging Immigrant Detention Hard,” Washington Post
- Carla Gomez, Hena Mansori, and Sophia Gurulé, “Biden Has a Chance to End the Jail-to-Deportation Pipeline,” The Nation
Thursday, February 25, 2021
A New Deal for Higher Education, with Jennifer Mittelstadt, Eleni Schirmer, and Richelle Wilson
Watch this session on YouTube
Syllabus for this session:
- Eleni Schirmer, “It’s Not Just Students Drowning in Debt. Colleges Are Too”
- Panel discussion for the launch of the AFT- and AAUP-led initiative for “A New Deal for Higher Education”
Thursday, February 4, 2021
Why R Budget Matters: RCM and Campus Austerity, with Jim Brown, Ian Gavigan, David Hughes, Felicia Kornbluh, Angela Lawrence, Christine O’Connell, and Helen Scott
Watch this session on YouTube
Syllabus for this session:
- Chenjerai Kumanyika, “What Is RCM and Why Does It Matter?”
- Rutgers AAUP-AFT, “The Rutgers Budget Swindle”
Thursday, December 10, 2020
Analyzing the Racial Politics of the 2020 Election: A Discussion of the Black and Brown Vote, with Juan González and Melanye Price
Watch this session on YouTube
Thursday, November 12, 2020
Annelise Orleck on “We Are All Fast-Food Workers Now”: The Global Uprising against Poverty Wages
Watch this session on YouTube
Freedom School is the successor to our Union Fireside Chats. To see the speakers and topics taken up at these chats, click here.