Graduate students at both Yale and Columbia universities will be striking next week from April 18 through April 22 in the first simultaneous walkout in the history of the Ivy League.
This decision comes after both groups held votes at membership meetings and each received an overwhelming majority of support for the strikes.
"I'm really excited, and it's just amazing that people at both Yale and Columbia will be striking simultaneously," Yale Graduate Employees and Students Organization co-Chairwoman Mary Reynolds said.
Eighty-two percent of GESO members who currently teach voted for the strike, and 91 percent of the members who are not currently teaching supported the strike. Between 500 and 600 people voted.
At Columbia, 82 percent of the graduate student organization supported a strike on the New York campus.
"I expected this to go through at both schools, but definitely Columbia," Graduate Employees Together-University of Pennsylvania co-Chairwoman Sayumi Takahashi said.
She added that Penn will be indirectly involved with the effort by hosting a graduate student rally on Penn's campus on Tuesday to promote graduate student issues. She could not, however, provide further details.
GET-UP's own pursuit of union status was stalled by a National Labor Relations Board ruling in August that said that graduate students do not have the right to unionize.
Takahashi said that it was unsurprising that Columbia voted in favor of the measure because the graduate student organization there had a similar strike last spring.
The strikes will last all of next week, with special events on Monday, including visits by local political figures to Yale's campus. There will also be a march at Columbia on Wednesday, with several thousand expected to participate.
"I am disappointed that [Yale President Richard] Levin has put us in this situation, but I think the strike will definitely let us highlight these national issues facing graduate students," Reynolds said.
Some Penn students will also be involved in next week's activities.
"We will be sending some supporting members to both Yale and Columbia to help protest, and we will be standing in solidarity and supporting the two schools as much as we can," Takahashi said.
