On Day Four, Hunger Striker Ends a Protest
Four days into a hunger strike at Columbia University, a sophomore protesting changes to the core curriculum was rushed to St. Luke's Hospital Saturday night after passing out in the library.
The Barnard sophomore, Aretha Choi, 19, was one of five students who began a hunger strike Wednesday to protest what they say is the university's Eurocentric core curriculum and a climate of "institutionalized racism" on campus. The students are also protesting the university's Harlem expansion plan, and demanding that the school hire more faculty to run the Ethnic Studies center.
On Sunday, Ms. Choi said her body felt "jello-like" and that she was disappointed she could not continue. "I've gotten used to my life as a Hunger Striker," she wrote on a Web log documenting the hunger strike.
On Saturday evening, Ms. Choi, who said she suffered from low blood pressure, constant dizziness, and fatigue, was rushed to the hospital on a stretcher. "I will never be content with the four days because I wanted to see demands made into realities," Ms. Choi wrote on the blog, cu-strike.blogspot.com.
A senior at Columbia who is on strike, Bryan Mercer, 22, said last night that he was "fatigued and tired," but planned to hold out for more negotiations with school administrators.
In response to the strike, about 15 students have started a group called "Why We Act, Why We Eat," whose mission is to "eat against a group that seems not to care for the well-being of its students or itself." The group passed out flyers yesterday on campus. The strikers are receiving some support from faculty members.
On Thursday, a professor of Political Science at Barnard, Dennis Dalton, joined the strike. Mr. Dalton, 69, who studies Gandhi, said he would continue to teach classes while subsisting on orange juice and water, according to the student newspaper, the Columbia Spectator. "I want the core curriculum supplemented by writings on Gandhi, King, Malcolm X," he said.
