Student Hunger Strike, Day 3: Columbia University Leaving Students to Starve
PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 20, 2019
Student Hunger Strike, Day 3: Columbia University Leaving Students to Starve
Four Columbia students are on the third day of a hunger strike that started at 9 AM, Monday, November 18.
University representatives met with students without intention of responding to demands, leaving the students to continue their strike
Students risk health impacts from hunger strike, but state that the impacts of climate and ecological emergency will be far worse.
The strike will continue until Friday evening or until the university declares a climate emergency and publicly agrees to an immediate, community-led divestment from fossil fuels.
Photos, videos and background information: http://bit.ly/XRCU-hunger
New York, NY, 20 November 2019—After four days of a hunger strike, meeting with representatives from the university has left Extinction Rebellion Columbia University members feeling unheard.Their action is part of a global hunger strike of rebels from the international nonviolent direct- action movement Extinction Rebellion. More than 400 rebels in 27 countries joined the hunger strike Monday, demanding that their systems of power respond appropriately to the climate and ecological emergency.
“We knew going in to this meeting that we were not meeting with anyone that had the power to accept our demands. No one at the meeting ever asked us how they could end the strike, they only asked how long it would last,” said one of the participants in the strike who asked to remain anonymous. “This question made it clear to us that the administration is not on the same page as the hundreds of students, faculty, and staff who have passed by our camp in the library to express solidarity with our demands. In our classes we learn about reparations, inclusivity, and justice, but our calls for community-led action seemed to fall largely outside their paradigm of understanding. The Columbia community has spoken: these demands are obvious next steps for a university that claims to be a leader in the fight against climate change. Clearly, the administration is not yet willing to put their money where their mouth is.”
Hunger striking has been used as part of many previous nonviolent movements including women’s suffrage, Mahatma Gandhi’s struggle in India, and the students of Tiananmen Square. After three days of a hunger strike, the body begins using muscle protein to make glucose, a sugar that is needed for cell metabolism. Levels of important electrolytes, such as potassium, fall to dangerous levels and the body loses fat and muscle mass.
The strikers will continue refusing food until the university declares a climate and ecological emergency and publicly announces plans for a community-led divestment. Extinction Rebellion Columbia University is open to ending the strike when a meeting with proposed outcomes is scheduled, and looks forward to speaking with key members from the Earth Institute and from the Advisory Committee for Socially Responsible Investing.
Extinction Rebellion is an international movement framed within regenerative culture that uses nonviolent direct action to achieve radical change to reduce the risk of human extinction and ecological collapse. The four demands of Extinction Rebellion Columbia University are:
1. TELL THE TRUTH
The university must declare a climate and ecological emergency, acknowledging that its current plan is a lie of omission, erasing the hundreds of thousands already dead and the weight of the crises to come.
2. ACT NOW
The university must plan to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions—including complete divestment from fossil fuels—by 2025.
3. FORM A COMMUNITY ASSEMBLY
The university must create an assembly of community members, modeled on Citizens’ Assemblies, in order to deliver a binding resolution on the university’s path towards divestment and net-zero emissions.
4. ENACT A JUST TRANSITION
This assembly must include leaders from the surrounding communities, and foreground the voices of frontline populations, in addition to representative numbers from all stakeholders within the University (staff, students, faculty, and administrators alike).
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