Usdan has been the center of much Brandeis talk lately. Every year, its hours seem to shrink more and more, leaving both students who live in upper campus and the workers at a disadvantage. This semester, Usdan is never open for breakfast or anytime on Fridays. A new organization, Red Youth Rising (RYR), has taken root at our institution with one of their goals to restore Usdan’s hours.
It is important to note that there are multiple reasons why this limiting hours is significant: first, to ensure that the students with specific dietary and nutritional needs have access to the nutrition they need, and that the staff has appropriate hours to work. One Fizz poster stated that a lot of LGBTQ freshmen live in North Quad and, because those people tend to be more likely to suffer from mental disorders, Brandeis is making their lives more difficult by closing Usdan on the weekends and making them go further for their food and change their weekday meal routines, which may create anxiety. Another individual said that, since they have arthritis, it is difficult and painful for them to walk down the hill to Sherman for breakfast. A common sentiment is that, given the amount of money a meal plan costs, they should get abundant access to breakfast, but it seems as though that is not the case anymore. These students decided enough was enough and held a protest on Oct. 19 starting in Upper Usdan to call attention to the issue.
A student speaker at this protest stated that Brandeis doesn’t care about its disabled students because Usdan is the only “disabled dining hall” and they have more allergy friendly options, as well as a pantry for people with severe allergies. After that speech, the leader of the group began reciting a variety of chants and marching through the area and around the main dining hall. I noticed a lot of people were staring at the protestors, but no one seemed terribly engaged. There were promotional flyers being handed out, which people seemed to garner some interest.
After walking around the dining hall, more speeches were made by the head of the group, citing the $3,000 increase to our tuition and how Brandeis had its best fiscal year, yet programs are being cut left and right and that this was “shameful.” He said that Brandeis’ profit model is to spend as little on us and make themselves the most money, but did not substantiate this statement. The speaker also began complaining about the Brandeis Police, saying that America is the only country where a private company can have arms and that the police are just a private military here, suggesting that if we can fund them, we can fund the dining halls more appropriately.
They then marched back to Upper Usdan, and then the protest continued for a long time, remaining in Usdan before going throughout the library and then down to Sherman. This was recounted to me in a very negative way, as it disrupted students who were studying for midterms and interrupted people’s meals and conversations.
I decided to collect public comment after the protest, with one student saying they didn’t really put their hearts into the protest. A number of others declined to comment, and it seemed like a lot of people either knew nothing about the protest, or thought it was silly and disruptive. Another student said she cared deeply about the workers and wished them the best, but didn’t know what she could do to help. A resident of Ziv told me she didn’t like Sherman’s breakfasts, and used to much prefer Usdan’s options.
