November was a good month for chutzpah. George W Bush sipped tea with the Queen while 150,000 people protested against his policies on the streets of London in a demonstration requiring one of the largest police actions in history. Upon his return to the states, he commented on the resistance in Congress to a Republican-backed energy bill that includes $31 billion in tax cuts for energy and oil corporations: For the sake of our national security and economic security, the Senate's got to pass this bill. National security depends on massive increases in corporate pork? Seems to us like enough chutzpah to easily out-power a hydrogen-fueled car.

But November’s gold medal chutzpah award would have to go to the chancellor of the City University of New York, Matthew Goldstein. According to an article published on November 19 in The Indypendent, the CUNY Board of Trustees voted on October 27 to approve a resolution granting Goldstein a raise of $100,000, bringing his yearly salary to $440,000. Other board members and top administrators will receive smaller pay increases.

You might be surprised to hear that such slimy Tammany Hall-style corruption goes on within the CUNY system that we all love and have learned to work within. But the sliminess factor gets worse: Chancellor Goldstein shamelessly elected to vote in such a salary increase even as a Campus Equity Week protest about adjunct poverty and exploitation was going on in the same building! Imagine walking past a line of adjuncts hoarsely picketing for minimum standards of salary, benefits and job security, only to vote yourself a $100,000 raise.

Now, that’s chutzpah.

The resolution’s text argues that in sum, the proposed increase in the chancellor’s compensation is richly deserved, necessary for CUNY to remain competitive and affordable. This is affordable, but basic health care and living wages for adjuncts are not? The CUNY board’s choice represents a moment of arrogance that all of us should ponder.

Sometimes it seems that students at the GC don't have much in common with people like Miguel Malo, who was allegedly beaten by campus police at Hostos Community College. The worst our security guards ever do is demand to see our ID cards. But with the GC remaining the only major research institution in the country without tuition remission for all teaching adjuncts, the pattern is clear enough. We may not get beaten in the halls, but the nightsticks are hiding just beneath our paychecks.

If Chancellor Goldstein's recent raise gets you miffed, there is something you can do about it. Charles Barron, Chair of the City Council's Higher Education Committee, has called for a public hearing to review the salary increases. It's very important that we keep the pressure on and spotlight the injustice of this decision. CUNY management has to understand that we won't allow the slurping of cream at the top of the institutional heap when those at the bottom are dying for a drop. To sign up to testify (bring a couple of copies of your testimony) contact Mary Ann Carlese at the PSC office mcarlese@psc-cuny.org or (212) 354-1252.