i've been thinking about what abolition vs the university would look like bc I've been feeling like organizing against the university is futile. we're constantly being stalled by university tactics that bank on the fact that we'll have graduated before they need to take action

i have very little hope that monumental change is possible at a university that starves its own students and doesn't pay its workers. or at any university willing to tear gas its own students while hosting panels about the things they fight for... let's talk abolition. (2/10)

i def don't have the authority to talk about this LOL but the university and more particularly elite universities, are sites of violence and exploitation. the obvious is that they're built on stolen land, by stolen labor and produce the elite who do the same thing (3/10)

the university makes millions of dollars off its investments in fossil fuel and prison labor; invests it in platforming war criminals, all the while exploiting grad students and adjunct professors for their knowledge and labor. the university teaches us how to be thieves (4/10)

but punishes you if you're caught stealing from it. and I'm not even getting into abusers, student loan debt, anti-Blackness, mental health issues and all the other shit that plague campuses. this is a good point to plug the university and the undercommons. (5/10)

anyways tho abolition for me has always been about relationships and rethinking the ways we can build our society to center and uphold them. what would the university look like if we were all safe? how would the relationships between students, staff, community members change? 6/

the first thing is massive reparations to the communities that universities have stolen from. we're talking land repatriation, reparations to Black people, building affordable housing for workers and communities impacted by gentrification (7/10)

the second thing is culture work and shifting values/understandings. now this is where my imagination fails me, but the university as a place that puts people before profit and one that values community ties over donor obligations. (8/10)

the university as a place that heeds student organizers and their call to actions, that transforms for the better, for the community. the university that doesn't exploit its workers, that doesn't invest in destructive practices, that doesn't produce the next gen of evil ass elite

finally i think about the steps we need to get there and how we can build power through generations. like I believe student organizers need to constantly build off the work of those who came before us and build pathways for those after us to ensure our dreams don't die (10/10)

this thread is INCREDIBLY limited in scope and in vision but here are some good readings tho!
Critical University Studies and the Crisis Consensus
The University and the Undercommons
Higher Education and the Im/possibility of Transformative Justice
Ebony and Ivy