Transcript: Mayor de Blasio Delivers Remarks at the CUNY Caucus Luncheon

February 16, 2019

CUNY Chancellor Felix Rodriguez: Day-in, day-out, in his current role as the Mayor of New York City, but someone who in his days at the City Council, in this days as the Public Advocate, was always fighting for higher education, but he also understand that long arc of education. That for us to be able to do a great job in higher-ed, there needs to be a robust K-12 system and there needs to be also an investment in early childhood and he has given national leadership for what – his work with the Pre-K program. Also we’ve had the student who gave testimony before about how the ASAP program had been transformational in his life and this mayor has put additional resources in the budget so that we can expand that phenomenal program and as always, working very, very hard to make sure that the Department of Education, all the City agencies are working in conjunction with CUNY so that we can do the right thing for our students. A real champion for the City University of New York, a real champion for our students and equity – let’s give a big, big round of applause to our Mayor, Bill de Blasio.

[Applause]

Thank you so much.

Mayor Bill de Blasio: Thank you. Alright, thank you.

Chancellor Rodriguez: [Inaudible] we have a presentation to give to the Mayor on behalf of the students.

Mayor: Sure.

Unknown: Mayor, on behalf of the [inaudible] we’d like to give you a scarf that says “Invest in CUNY”

Mayor: Ah –

[Applause]

Unknown: And we hope you do so. Even more.

Mayor: Let’s get this right. I’m going to wear my “Invest in CUNY” scarf.

Unknown: Oh, okay.

[Cheers]

Mayor: You know, it’s Fashion Week in New York City.

[Laughter]

Here’s what I think is fashion.

[Cheers]

You know, this is like a lot of soccer teams have this kind of thing, but they don’t have a specific funding message attached.

[Laughter]

So I really want to say CUNY is innovating over here. This is the latest – somehow I just feel like in investing in CUNY now that I put this on.

[Cheers]

I don’t know.

[Cheers]

I mean, I felt it—

Audience: CUNY, CUNY, CUNY!

Mayor: I felt it – I felt it before I came in the room but now I really feel like investing in something special.

Okay, thank you, and I just have to say, everyone, there is such beautiful energy in this room because you are doing something righteous. CUNY – when you think of CUNY, you think of a righteous mission. You think of a vision that goes back generations of uplifting everyone. Not excluding. Not stratifying. Not saying education is for some and not for others but CUNY, the beautiful ideal of CUNY was that everyone had it in them to be great if you just gave them the opportunity and if they could just afford it – that’s what CUNY always was about. So, it’s so important that we take that idea and make it go farther today than ever before because of the times we are living in.

[Applause]

And I’m going to speak to that, but first I have to say I am so happy that you have this new chancellor to lead the way, Felix, congratulations.

[Cheers]

This is someone who knows and loves our city deeply, who has shown his ability to reach young people and transform their lives in so many ways, is exactly the kind of leader we needed. Now, I want to talk for a moment, what we call “real talk,” about CUNY at this moment, because we all are unfortunately the inheritors of a history of inequality, income inequality, racial inequality, we are the inheritors of something that does not resemble the values that this nation was supposed to represent. And we cannot achieve a fair and just society if we don’t go right at institutional racism, structural economic inequality, and those two things are hand in hand.

[Applause]

But more and more people, thank God, are understanding that. And when people start to see the problem and talk about the problem and acknowledge it openly, there’s a possibility of change. But at the same time, we should be afraid. And I’m not just talking about Washington D.C. or any specific occupant of any specific shiny, white building in Washington D.C. I am talking about something much deeper, because this has become a society that’s gotten so unequal that it is in danger of losing its meaning, losing its way, losing its cohesion – our social fabric is starting to be torn, because this kind of concentration of power in the hands of the very, very few, the one percent, and now it’s even fewer than the one percent, increasingly have all the money and power. But everyone else is working very hard. People are working plenty hard. I don’t know anyone who’s saying to me, “oh I’m working less hard than I used to, the modern age is so great.” No, we’re all working longer than we ever used to. God bless technology, but unfortunately it has us chained to our work. People are working one job, two jobs, they’re struggling and they don’t have time for themselves. But then they watch as very, very few people profit and benefit from their hard-earned labor. And something’s wrong, you cannot sustain that very long my friends.

So why am I saying this in the context of CUNY? Because CUNY is one of the things that actually would be the antidote to that problem.

[Applause]

CUNY has proven that if you give people an affordable education, then all things are possible in their lives. If you help them to achieve what they are capable of – and this is why we invest in the ASAP program, because it helps people achieve what they are capable of.

[Cheers]

ASAP doesn’t say we’re going to somehow make you able to do things you can’t do. ASAP says we’re going to strip away the unfairness that you came up with. We’re going to give you the confidence that you deserve to have. We’re going to give you the support you didn’t get because your schools weren’t invested in. We’re going to make things right so you can be that which you were meant to be. It is not a giveaway or a handout. It is an investment in our future.

[Applause]

And the same with the investments this city is making in two-year STEM degrees. We did that – no one made us do it, we didn’t have to do it, there wasn’t a law making us do it. We said “hey, the future for so many young people will be in tech. If we credential them, they cannot just get a job, they can get a career. Their whole family will benefit. But they can only benefit if we make the opportunity available.” We know the tech community, historically, has had a problem with diversity. Know what I’m talking about?

Audience: Yes.

Mayor: And so, we’re going to call to question, by ensuring a whole new generation of young people of New York who represent every part of this world are credentialed to work in the tech community and will realize their dreams. That’s what we’re committed to.

So look, I just want to say this. We know that CUNY must get stronger for this city to get stronger, for the state to get stronger. We know that we in New York City owe it to CUNY to prepare our young people for that handoff. And I’m going to bring up the Chancellor in a moment and I want to say he gets it. He gets it, and he knows if we give every child pre-K, if we give every child 3-K which is coming on strong now, if every young person who is ready to take an advanced placement course actually has one in their high school, they will get ready for college.

[Applause]

We will do more and more to get our young people ready to get into CUNY and thrive in CUNY – by the way, paying for the admission fee was a good start, don’t you think?

[Cheers]

Free SAT courses are a good start, don’t you think?

[Applause]

And free SAT tests. So this is what has really opened up opportunity, we’re seeing it [inaudible] we’re going to keep making these schools better, and I’m going to tell you something, and I believe it in my heart. For Richard Carranza and me [inaudible] accountable, we have to be held accountable. We have to have the power to make decisions and make changes in our schools. We have that power with mayoral control. Some call it mayoral accountability, I think that’s a great phrase but that – I’m accountable, right here. If you see something that needs to change in our schools, needs to better, I’m right here, he’s right there, we are responsible. That has been the magic formula to making big changes. We’ve got to protect it. We’ve got to protect it so we can keep making progress, so we can keep fighting inequality. So we can give CUNY the kind of well-prepared students that will allow CUNY to go higher and higher and higher. CUNY, the sky is the limit.

[Applause]

And with that, I going to say something from the bottom of my heart, it is a true statement. When I was interviewing this man at Gracie Mansion, Chirlane and I were there and we were coming down to that pivotal moment when you decide whether someone should have the opportunity to run the largest school system in America, the number one, most important education job in America, 1.1 million kids’ lives will be affected every single year. It is a very sacred, somber moment. And right in the middle of that conversation, Richard Carranza says “you need to understand something about me” and he took a risk. He was not approaching this in a cautious way [inaudible] work on social justice, period.

[Applause]

And that is how he has lived his life, and that is how he’s approached this work of Chancellor, and this school system is thriving under his leadership. Ladies and gentlemen, Chancellor Richard Carranza.

[Cheers]