Why I can't get behind the strike

I’m not normally one to close any doors.

I’ll say that my views about IU on Strike are still evolving, even though my politics probably inherently distance me from most of the movement’s supporters.

But the more I read about the strike, the less I like it.

First, I’ll give the strikers credit for what I think they have done well.

The strikers have built a strong community. A reasonably sized coalition of faculty and students support the strikers’ right to protest, even if they disagree with that protest.

I recognize some of the names on letters of support to the strike. They are students I know and professors I respect.

I will unequivocally support the strikers’ right to lawful, peaceful and spontaneous protest. I hope administrators will do likewise.

It doesn’t look good when, during a severe economic downturn, a public university president takes a 22 percent pay raise in two years while University support staff see 1.5 percent pay increases.

Or when state appointments dominate the Board of Trustees, even though the state provides less than a fifth of the University’s operating budget.

Or when that board’s public meetings do not contain a period for public comments or questions, which would at least allow students who care enough a chance to directly address the University’s decision makers.

I don’t doubt the frustrations behind the strike are real.

But frankly, I find it very difficult to sympathize with a movement that employs language like “Mass Assembly,” “Red Square” and other slogans that sound like they recently escaped from North Korea.

I also find it hard to sympathize with the strikers’ hyperbolic assertions, like labeling pay increases below the rate of inflation a “form of violence.”

Actually, I am troubled by the strikers’ willingness to alter the definition of “violence” to suit their purposes. If wage increases below the rate of inflation count as violence, what should we make of the intention to disrupt University operations and cause the University financial harm?

One article posted on the strike’s website suggested that pushing, shoving, interrupting classes, turning over desks and locking administrators in their offices is not violence.

Does IU on Strike advocate nonviolence? I don’t know. Does IU on Strike know?

I think back to 2011, when members of Occupy IU and Occupy Bloomington blockaded a J.P. Morgan recruiting event for students at the Kelley School of Business.

Will IU on Strike make the same mistake of inconveniencing and angering the people it claims to be standing up for?

I groan at the strikers’ infeasible and contradictory demands, like “Immediately reduce tuition and eliminate fees” and “Stop privatization and outsourcing.”

That “immediacy” aspect poses a problem, because tuition and fees have already been set and because falling state funding has caused IU to look to privatization so that it doesn’t have to keep increasing tuition.

I understand the demands are meant to “foster discussion” and “encourage action.”

But when a movement makes unrealistic demands, that movement loses credibility.

We feel less obligated to respond to it with positive discussion and action, because it doesn’t seem serious about finding plausible solutions to the problems it complains about.  

The astonishing rate of tuition inflation is no big secret.

It’s a nationwide problem with many contributing factors.

It affects public colleges and universities that receive state funding. It also affects private colleges and universities that do not.

Slowing or reversing tuition inflation and addressing the strikers’ other demands will require patience, dialogue and well-reasoned, sober solutions to clearly defined problems.

And I’m simply not seeing that from the strike itself.

­— danoconn@indiana.edu