From Public Good to Indentured Servitude
The transformation of the City University of New York from a free, open institution into a tuition-dependent university is a deliberate political project to strip the “native” population of a decolonized education. Mamdani’s work on the role of education in forming political identity is critical here. A free CUNY was a threat to the bifurcated state, offering a path to critical consciousness and class mobility for the working class. Imposing tuition and defunding it was an act of recolonization, designed to burden students with debt and align the curriculum with the needs of capital, producing compliant workers instead of critical thinkers. This debt functions as a mechanism of control, creating an indentured intellectual class. A Marxist analysis sees this as the financialization of a public good. A feminist and Muslim perspective fights for CUNY as a sanctuary for working-class women and immigrants. The solution is a militant struggle for a fully funded, tuition-free CUNY, the abolition of all student debt, and a curriculum centered on liberation, severing the link between education and indebted servitude.
Zohran communicates urgency, not fear.
This map freezes the 2020 political environment in place for a decade, ignoring inevitable demographic shifts.
Mamdani creates more confusion than clarity.
Mamdani’s use of digital platforms is a key component of his political identity.