ASSÉ stands in solidarity with students at City College in NYC

As student and community activists fight to reopen the Guillermo Morales/Assata Shakur
Community and Student Center at City College of New York (CCNY), the Association pour une solidarité syndicale étudiante (ASSÉ) writes to express our support and solidarity from Québec.

ASSÉ's members across Québec (70,000 students) are keenly aware of the importance of autonomous spaces on campus as critical to both the organizing capacity of student movements struggling for accessible education, but also in ensuring safe spaces for students and community members facing the social violence of racism, sexism, homophobia, and other manifestations of oppression that thrive under the neo-liberal economics of austerity.

The CCNY administration's move to close the Guillermo Morales/Assata Shakur Community and Student Center without due process, within the context of a growing reality of militarization on your campus, clearly illustrates an effort to attack local activism. ASSÉ writes to express our solidarity for your organizing efforts at CCNY, one of the most diverse college/university campuses in the U.S. with a deep history of social activism.

ASSÉ's organizing toward the Québec student strike of 2012 against a massive tuition hike, which was struck down after months of protest, and our current campaign against austerity policies both take place with a spirit of international solidarity and an understanding that our struggles are your struggles, that the fight for free, public, and inclusive post-secondary education travels across borders.

As your struggles at CCNY continue, ASSÉ writes you from a few hours north in Québec
to extend our hand and also our spirit of support for your critically important organizing work.

In solidarity and struggle,
ASSÉ’s Executive Council