The Radical Student Union appears as a mysterious entity—showing up at certain events and not being listed on the university’s homepage. Members surface during events like protests, especially those regarding the university, and fliers plaster the campus with a bold RSU headlining. Their influence is swelling to CUNY schools, as well as SUNY schools such as Albany and Binghamton, where they team up with other RSU members and combine all their power against a state government.
The RSU first organized protests back in February, with its main subject being cuts to higher education. These days it has expanded and joined other clubs with whom it shares interests in causes, ranging from rallying against the building of a hotel on campus to raising awareness of bullying towards gays and lesbians.
The group bestowed upon themselves the title “Radical Student Union” this past October but are not officially recognized on campus. Its logic behind remaining sovereign from the administration is to maintain their freedom by not having any financial obligations.
With this freedom, the activists participate in numerous events with organizations like the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Alliance, or LGBTA, and THiNK Magazine, two advocacy groups on campus. These organizations pool together their efforts and act as helping hands for one another, and also participate in each others’ events.
The RSU doesn’t have an executive board to lead these events, but rather a trio of core members: Mike Carley, Zandy Homer and Jes Rybak, all of whom are Stony Brook University students.
“Access to quality education empowers those who were not born into wealth or privilege, and our capacity to collaborate with one another empowers us to fight for our public universities,” Homer said.
“Our main objective is to protect our university from political, private and administrative interests that consider education secondary at best,” the RSU core members wrote in a joint email. “Principally, that means fighting privatization efforts and cuts to the budget. Our organization exists to organize and empower the students to achieve this goal.”
A common denominator all the SUNY schools have is the blood-pumping vitality of funding. Protecting the school from outside influences that would put education second to funds is the RSU’s purpose. Along with the other RSUs at other SUNY schools, they are strategizing to find the best way in confronting this dilemma as well as organizing and empowering an army of devout students to approach it.
“Cuts to education are symptomatic of a political system that ignores the interests of the poor and working class in order to protect the interests of the wealthiest corporations and financiers,” Carley said. “The only way to save public education is to correct the power imbalance in our political system by organizing the students, faculty and working class to fight for their interests.”
Aside from partaking in Stony Brook or SUNY-related protests, some RSU members have been a part of demonstrations outside of an academic environment. They’ve rallied against Rep. Peter King, (R-Seaford) who supports the School of the Americas, which trains thousands of Latin American military personnel in what opponents claim are techniques of torture to be used against their home countries. RSU activists organized at his district office because King was the only Long Island representative who supported the School of the Americas.
