Seniors at Chicago State University now have their degrees after surviving a tumultuous year. The university was scheduled to close Friday because of the 10-month long state budget impasse. There was some funding this week but the university remains on the brink.
That was obvious at this week’s graduation. The event was not a solemn ceremony. Instead, it was a political rally for students capping a very political school year. Illinois Public Radio’s Tony Arnold reports.
Before the graduation ceremony - students in black robes and green sashes were running around backstage - finding the right place to line up. Eric Giddens was in the hall with his nursing school classmates.
ARNOLD: You got a job lined up?
GIDDENS: Well yeah. I had clinicals and some of the clinical sites, they told me I could come back afterwards and try so hopefully I’ll get in.
Giddens says he’s graduating in spite of everything else going on. Chicago State didn’t get any state money for 10 months because of the impasse at the Statehouse. Neither did any other Illinois public university. But Chicago State was the closest to closing. Administrators even canceled Spring Break - and moved up graduation just to make sure it’d have the money for seniors like Giddens to finish the semester.
GIDDENS: When we were going through school, everything got rushed up, all the deadlines got pushed up and it was like really stressful. But now that it’s over with, I’m just happy that we made it. And I feel for the classes that come after us because they’re gonna have it a lot harder than we did but hopefully everything gets resolved.
Right now - it’s up in the air whether everything will be resolved. Politicians at the statehouse approved 20 million dollars for Chicago State - which is only a portion of what the state usually sends the university. Meaning - there are still big questions about what happens in the Fall.
Before the ceremony even started it was clear that this was going to be a political event. One of the speakers was former Illinois Governor Pat Quinn. He took a shot at current Governor Bruce Rauner who’s reportedly worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
QUINN: There’s something wrong when in Illinois the millionaires have gotten in the past year over a half a billion dollars in tax cuts for themselves and they’ve cut higher education and MAP scholarships.
But other speakers didn’t bring up taxes or economics…They talked about civil.rights. Reverend Jesse Jackson was the main commencement speaker. He told students to stand up and kicked off his speech with a call and response that ended with a Prince reference.
JACKSON: Keep hope alive. Purple Rain, let me hear you scream.
Jackson said the state’s failure to fund higher education this year is just accelerating what’s already happening at predominantly black universities around the country. A dis-investment.
JACKSON: The school has become the rallying point for healing and liberation, dignity and consciousness. The lesson of CSU is strong minds break strong chains.
Jackson compared Chicago State students’ political organizing to desegregation and the Civil Rights movement. And complimented them for rallying, holding press conferences, getting in politicians’ faces, actually going to Springfield...because it worked. They got a little money for Chicago State.
And the fact that the lobbying worked was not lost on DeWitt Scott. The student speaker. Like the Reverend Jackson Scott defined the issues facing CSU students as being much bigger than just what’s on the campus on 95th Street. They’re issues facing black Chicagoans and black Americans. He told his fellow graduates they had to fight for funding for their school, and also Chicago Public Schools.
SCOTT: All this is connected. Many of us running into class at the last minute after we dropped the kid off at CPS or the babysitter, looking for something to eat, all we got is that Popeye’s on 95th. The food desert issue is connected to keeping CSU open which is connected to CPS which is connected to child care, health care. All that is connected.
Instead of telling his fellow students to achieve great things in their jobs and chosen fields, he told them they stay active in the political arena.
SCOTT: We send a message to Springfield that we ain’t going nowhere. We fighting hard. And you all have grown old in Springfield but we need you to grow up.
Scott’s larger life lesson to his fellow graduates, is that even in a place like Springfield where stubborn leaders have drawn hard lines in the sand, it’s been shown that getting active at the statehouse can move people.