The Free University of New York (FUNY) was an educational

social enterprise A social enterprise is an organization that applies commercial strategies to maximize improvements in financial, social and environmental well-being. This may include maximizing social impact alongside profits for co-owners. Social enterprises ca ...

initiated by

Allen Krebs Dr. Allen Krebs (born c.1934) was a Marxian economics professor who founded the Free University of New York (FUNY). Krebs was involved in the May 2nd Movement, a youth affiliate of the Progressive Labor Party. He set up FUNY after being sacked fro ...

Sharon Krebs Sharon ( he, שָׁרוֹן ''Šārôn'' "plain") is a given name as well as an Israeli surname. In English-speaking areas, Sharon is now predominantly a feminine given name. However, historically it was also used as a masculine given name. In I ...

and James Mellen in July 1965. as reproduced in FUNY began as a home for professors dismissed from local universities for protesting the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...

, or for holding socialist views. Course topics included: Black Liberation, Revolutionary Art and Ethics, Community Organization, The American Radical Tradition, Cuba and China, and Imperialism and Social Structure. FUNY opened on July 6, 1965 in a loft at 20 East 14th Street overlooking

Union Square Union commonly refers to: * Trade union, an organization of workers * Union (set theory), in mathematics, a fundamental operation on sets Union may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * Union (band), an American rock group ** ''Un ...

. FUNY began as an experimental school for the

New Left The New Left was a broad political movement mainly in the 1960s and 1970s consisting of activists in the Western world who campaigned for a broad range of social issues such as civil and political rights, environmentalism, feminism, gay rights, g ...

, built on models such as

Black Mountain College Black Mountain College was a private liberal arts college in Black Mountain, North Carolina. It was founded in 1933 by John Andrew Rice, Theodore Dreier, and several others. The college was ideologically organized around John Dewey's educational ...

(

North Carolina North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and So ...

), though it became closely aligned with the Maoist Progressive Labor Party. Tuition for the 10-week session was $24 for the first course, and $8 for each additional course; welfare recipients could attend for free.Poster for Fall Session of Free University of New York
accessed March 30, 2013 After the first year, many of the initial collaborators left or were forced to leave, and it shut down a few years later.
by Roy Lisker, accessed July 16, 2012

Notable participants

Herbert Aptheker Herbert Aptheker (July 31, 1915 – March 17, 2003) was an American Marxist historian and political activist. He wrote more than 50 books, mostly in the fields of African-American history and general U.S. history, most notably, ''American Negro ...

Stanley Aronowitz Stanley Aronowitz (January 6, 1933 – August 16, 2021) was a professor of sociology, cultural studies, and urban education at the CUNY Graduate Center. He was also a veteran political activist and cultural critic, an advocate for organized labo ...

Lee Baxandall Lee Raymond Baxandall (January 26, 1935 – November 28, 2008) was an American writer, translator, editor, and activist. He was first known for his New Left engagement with cultural topics and then as a leader of the naturist movement. Early ...

Charles R. Johnson Charles Richard Johnson (born April 23, 1948) is a scholar and the author of novels, short stories, screen-and-teleplays, and essays, most often with a philosophical orientation. Johnson has directly addressed the issues of black life in Am ...

Paul Krassner Paul Krassner (April 9, 1932 – July 21, 2019) was an American author, journalist, and comedian. He was the founder, editor, and a frequent contributor to the freethought magazine ''The Realist'', first published in 1958. Krassner became a key ...

Tuli Kupferberg Naphtali "Tuli" Kupferberg (September 28, 1923 – July 12, 2010) was an American counterculture poet, author, singer, cartoonist, publisher, and co-founder of the rock band The Fugs. Biography Naphtali Kupferberg was born into a Jewish, Yi ...

Leonard Liggio Leonard P. Liggio (July 5, 1933 – October 14, 2014) was a classical liberal author, research professor of law at George Mason University and executive vice president of the Atlas Network in Fairfax, Virginia. Career In 1965, Liggio gave lectu ...

* Staughton Lynd *

Bradford Lyttle Bradford Lyttle (born November 20, 1927) is an American pacifist and peace activist. He was an organizer with the Committee for Non-Violent Action of several major campaigns against militarism, including "Omaha Action", against land-based nuclear ...

Jackson Mac Low Jackson Mac Low (1922–2004) was an American poet, performance artist, composer and playwright, known to most readers of poetry as a practioneer of systematic chance operations and other non-intentional compositional methods in his work, whi ...

* Lyn Marcus *

David McReynolds David Ernest McReynolds (October 25, 1929 – August 17, 2018) was an American politician and social activist who was a prominent democratic socialist and pacifist activist. He described himself as "a peace movement bureaucrat" during his 40-yea ...

* Hugo Mujica *

Carolee Schneemann Carolee Schneemann (October 12, 1939 – March 6, 2019) was an American visual experimental artist, known for her multi-media works on the body, narrative, sexuality and gender. She received a B.A. in poetry and philosophy from Bard College and ...

* Susan Simensky Bietila *

Robert Anton Wilson Robert Anton Wilson (born Robert Edward Wilson; January 18, 1932 – January 11, 2007) was an American author, futurist, psychologist, and self-described agnostic mystic. Recognized within Discordianism as an Episkopos, pope and saint, Wilson ...

References

{{Authority control Educational institutions established in 1965 1965 establishments in New York City Free universities

Notable participants

See also

References