Don’t tell me we’ve already lost. We haven’t given this a real go yet.
I find this inspirational
15 Matching Annotations
- Jan 2026
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robinderosa.net robinderosa.net
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If every public college and university– all of our librarians, all of our faculty, all of our administrators– committed to this and worked on it for a year, we’d simply do it
I'm noticing this concept appearing multiple times in this "call to action" section of the talk -- we would simply do it, if we committed to it
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I am going to suggest that we need to start building evidence and a vocabulary for the value of our public work. It’s ridiculous to assume that it’s not a case that we can effectively make. Even in purely economic terms, there is substantial evidence that when taxpayers invest in public higher education, the financial rewards that are returned directly to them far outweigh their costs.
Yes. I would rather see good-faith efforts to demonstrate that tax dollars are being re-invested, put to public uses, and managed for a variety of public interests. Public trust is something built and maintained over time.
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I shuddered again to think that the best option I could imagine for CUNY was that a rich philanthropist would decide it was politically expedient for him to donate money to support the school.
I've been thinking a lot lately about how the solutions we imagine to our problems can say a lot about our desire for ease / rescue, and how many stories are out there where matters of public importance were solved slowly, complexly, over time, in ways that were less immediately obvious or glamorous
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RideAustin is a public version of an Uber-type system, but it has critical differences. Part of its stated mission is “doing right by drivers, ensuring a fair wage, doing right by the community.” And RideAustin leadership states that they “want to make transportation more accessible for everyone in the Austin area.” RideAustin donates to local charities as part of its structural operations, offers free rides for doctor visits for those in needs, abides by city regulations, and (in stark contrast to Uber) makes its operational data public.
Fascinating model!
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regardless of what you think about the effect on teaching and learning, the other dirty little fact is that privatizing doesn’t even fix the myopic problems it seeks to solve.
Privatization as distraction?
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we solve these problems by asking industry what it needs to feel better. But what industry needs and what our students and communities need may not always be the same thing.
bolding this for myself for emphasis
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“Workforce partnerships,” where local industries help fund facilities and curriculum development in high-need labor markets, are designed to meet needs for both the markets and for students who will be graduating into them and who hope to be employed (not incidentally, so they can pay off their student loans). It’s another of the win-wins. But what is the long game here, from a public good perspective?
Great questions to be asking
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“We must change our perspective of being a pure public university, one that is supported mostly by the state, to a university that is privatized,” said Bob Davies, Former President of Murray State University, “Yes, we are a public university, yes we hold public university values and ideas, but we are becoming privatized.”
Must we?
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privatization often involves the systematic elimination of human rights protections and further marginalization of the interests of low-income earners and those living in poverty.
I think, when I'm considering privatization, I return to questions about "what services are available and provided to meet the basic, essential needs -- water, food, clothing, housing/shelter, healthcare -- of those who CANNOT afford to pay themselves for options that private entities sell"? And from that lens, thinking of how to insist that fundamental human needs be de-commodified.
If a community receives clean water only when it's bottled, that strikes me as a less sustainable, less human-rights-oriented approach than investing in and maintaining public water treatment facilities, or ensuring that water is kept clear of pollution and commodified extraction in the first place
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It’s about environmental racism and which problems get attended to by those with the power and money to fix them.
Yes. An up-and-coming problem of environmental racism is which communities have 'data centers' built in or near them and why
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The privatization of our communication channels and the privatization of our prisons are related phenomena that subjugate both humanity and the public good to profit.
Read as: dehumanizing
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ailing infrastructure would mean radical tax hikes if the public were to fund the up-front costs of improving technical structures that need to be kept current
this makes me think about housing as well -- private homeowners expected to be able to renovate / maintain / upgrade critical aspects of their home infrastructure. For renters, that responsibility falls to a landlord, who in theory should be structuring rent such that they're able to put rental fees back into the properties. Does that happen without pressure (legal consequences possible)? I don't think so.
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If they prefer to not have a smartphone that’s the life they choose to live.
This strikes me as an equity problem framed as personal or individual choice. I'm thinking also about the proliferation of "free public washrooms" springing up around downtown where I live; in theory, these single-stall locking bathrooms improve access. In practice, you must have a smartphone to unlock the bathroom by way of a QR code. Where does this leave unhoused and more vulnerable populations who would likely benefit the most from safe, reliable, accessible bathroom access?
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So I get concerned when we call Uber-based transit partnerships “public.” As Uber extracts its profits and riders are conveniently served, we may be willing to accept this deal as a win-win. But even a winning arrangement is not the same as public infrastructure, so the misleading rhetoric obscures the erosion of a public way of operating.
I feel like this is getting at something really interesting rhetorically -- the question of accountability, responsibility, liability, and duty-owed. Public infrastructure as something shared, maintained, supported, repaired etc collectively, through structured arrangements. I'm thinking about agreements and arrangements, less about 'ownership'.
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