I’ve been thinking a fair amount this week about Monday’s revelation that the Cooper Union administration reneged on one of the core commitments to emerge from this summer’s admin building occupation — the promise to place an elected student on the college’s Board of Trustees.
As I said in my previous post, the Cooper trustees and administration have an obligation to honor their prior agreement. If they fail to do so, however, the students of Cooper Union have leverage they can bring to bear to make a democratic result more likely.
First, the full results of the consultative “election” that will produce the three final candidates for student trustee should be released. The Cooper community has a right to know which candidate was the students’ choice for trustee and by what margin, so that they can judge whether the trustees’ selection reflects the will of the student body. Since the student trustee balloting will be conducted by the Joint Student Council, the students’ representatives have
