Why We Finally, Really Took Back NYU
Feb 19th, 2009 by Take Back NYU!
A group of student-empowering, social-justice-minded rabblerousers have occupied the Marketplace at Kimmel and we refuse to move until our demands are met. All are encouraged to join us on the third floor and help us sustain this occupation until NYU complies with our demands. (Our demands are listed below)
We apologize for inconveniencing the loyal lunchgoers of the Kimmel Marketplace, but we are not sorry for causing a disruption! Established channels have been insufficient to make our voices heard by the administration, and we have waited too long to be taken seriously. By disrupting the University’s functioning now, we are forcing the administration to deal with those people it depends upon the most—we, the students!
Our demands, though many and varied, are united by the desire to empower students to take part in the governance of their University.
By making public the endowment and budget, and establishing a student voice in the investment of funds and on the Board of Trustees, we are creating a means for active student participation in the administration of the University. By providing union rights for graduate students and collective bargaining rights for work study employees, we are guaranteeing that the students upon whom the University depends for labor are treated and compensated fairly.
By drastically reducing the amount that tuition can increase, we are forcing the University to reassess its spending and cut back appropriately (instead of making a low-income student take out more loans, perhaps the University can build one less abroad site). By forcing the University to meet 100% of students’ financial need, we are ensuring that students spend less time working multiple jobs to make ends meet and more time making the University a place where active minds flourish.
By demanding investigation into war and genocide profiteers, providing aid to Gaza, and offering scholarshipts to Palestinian students, we are demanding that the University heed our own voices immediately. Through these demands we are also stating our solidarity with the students who have occupied their universities in the United Kingdom and elsewhere demanding aid for war-torn Gaza.
By demanding students have priority in reserving space in NYU buildings, we are literally making space for ourselves in the University, and putting students above groups who rent out space in our buildings. By allowing the public access to Bobst Library and the wealth of knowledge it contains we are building a bridge between NYU and the community it so often displaces, while empowering students of all universities (as well as alums of our own) to take part in information that is too often consolidated in the Ivory Tower.
We have waited too long for the University to respond of its own volition. We have let administrators push us around through endless red tape, through never-ending tuition hikes, through unfair labor practices, through secrecy and lies, through power being consolidated in a tiny group of (mostly) rich white dudes who know nothing about our lives as students. We wrote John Sexton a nice letter and struggled to contain our rage in Town Hall after Town Hall; we’ve agitated and tabled and built our coalition. Our demands serve and concern all students. We refuse to dignify the University’s lack of response with our own inaction.
So we take action! We’ve got food and sleeping bags and good friends and we are not going anywhere. Join us! This is a sleepover for student empowerment, a party for participation in the University, a disruption for democracy, an occupation for all!
While I support the students demands for accountability by the administration, capping tuition, greater student participation in the governance of the University and a great number of other demands, I fail to see why every student movement across the US no matter how unrelated is suddenly a suitable forum for Gaza activism. I also feel that being of a certain nationality or ethnic background is not a valid reason for a scholarship. Because of this, I feel alienated from these movements and will not be participating.
[...] 12a.m. Why We Really, Finally Took Back NYU What you can [...]
Ian,
Students across the United States are standing in solidarity with Gaza because it’s what we feel must be done. The money that WE pay to fund our “public” universities could partially be provided by the billions of dollars that the United States government gives to the Israeli military. A military, which in turn, murders hundreds of civilians and “militants” who only want the unjust occupation of Palestine to end(some interesting numbers are listed here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel-United_States_military_relations).
We as students stand with our peers whose schools have been completely destroyed and whose friends and professors have been murdered by Israeli scum.
Sending solidarity from Graduate student workers from University of Minnesota! Please post about call-ins, others ways that can folks outside of NYC can be of assistance.
As a student who may be attending next year, I am rather disappointed. While I do feel that the conflict in Gaza is a crisis, I think that Hamas is getting back what they gave. While many Palestinians are getting hurt and killed, Hamas has been flooding schools and mosques with innocent bystanders, and then put their rockets and missiles in the same building. With all do respect, there is something wrong with putting your own people in danger just to further your political and economic agendas.
While I do not disagree with the way that Take Back NYU! has made their presence know, I do disagree with a certain number of their demands. I feel that it is necessary to fund the U.S. Government with some money, to protect against domestic terrorism. I do not however feel it is necessary, or right, to fund third-party operations to forward their own business by causing pain and suffering of others.
As far as putting a student on the Board, I agree with that one hundred percent. Students have a right to know what is happening to their money.
Kyle, NYU is a private university. Your argument is debatable at best.
I would say, congrats in you takeover efforts, I must say that public knowledge of University expenditures is definitely necessary so that low-income student can atleast see, how much the loans that we’ll be paying back for life, are being put to use. I completely agree with points 1-6 and 11-13, strongly, they are good points and they will effect US as a student body in a positive light. Where points 7-10 are rather off-centre in out direct community, while the Socially Responsible Finance Committee is a good idea, I don’t think that they should make the decisions and then the University MUST comply, that’s a little radical. Also, let’s focus on us a little more and not on things going on abroad. That’s the government’s job, whether they do a good job or not, is a different story, lets start a little smaller, and yes, in the grand scheme of the ENTIRE world, NYU is quite small, no matter what JSEX says abobut us being a Global Univ.
[...] by Mike E on February 19, 2009 This appeared on the Take Back NYU website. The repeated expression of solidarity, by these students, with the people of Gaza has quickly [...]
Jack.
Do you have evidence of Hamas crowding these innocent people into schools, or is this just based on heresay? I find no such evidence in any of the literature provided by Human Rights Watch or Btselem.
I do find literature that shows Israeli soldiers identifying apartment buildings as civilian shelters and then proceeding to fire upon it.
I also find literature of Hamas honoring a ceasefire with Israel (a ceasefire that ISRAEL broke on November 4th, while the US was busy celebrating their first black President) for nearly 4 months in which the citizens of Gaza continued to starve under this mindless siege placed upon them for practicing democracy.
in solidarity with the students of NYU, the students of Palestine, as well as the students of Sri Lanka and countless other students suffering under mental, physical, and financial oppression.
[...] lot of people are asking where these demands came from, and an overnight statement from TBNYU provides a partial answer. Here’s an [...]
Your organization’s goals are ludicrous and your methods are unserious. This type of organization does a disservice to your cause; many support Israel simply because their methods are more serious, and you aren’t helping.
These are the necessary and unfortunate actions we must take if we are to move forward as members of a world community. Especially if our citadels of education act as standard bearers for corporations rather than their communities, historians and other scholars. When we had a student at NYU, the university’s financial grasping &l arrogance left me gasping. Thank you, everyone, who supports the occupation or supports those who do. Keep the peace.
Kyle,
I must first re-emphasize what has already been pointed out. NYU is a private university, as such, it receives limited funding from the federal government. Additionally, as a private institution it is permitted to allocate its funds as it sees fit. Furthermore, it is completely appropriate that America, a country which unequivocally stands for freedom as defined by democracy, supports the only democracy in the middle east. Israel is an oasis of freedom and tolerance within the scorched desert of islamic fanaticism, greed driven monarchies, and power hungry leaders. It is imperative that America supports the preservation of democracy in a region riddled with violence.
Sadly, Hamas stands for the destruction of the State of Israel as exclaimed in their charter, “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.”(Imam Hassan al-Banna) With this belief in hand, Hamas fires rockets almost daily into Israel.(http://twitter.com/QassamCount) No state should ever be expected to tolerate acts of terrorism upon its population, and Israel must not be an exception. Given this difficult situation Israel decided to invade Gaza as a last resort to quell the rockets being fired by Hamas. Unfortunately, as in any war, civilians were killed and wounded. But the Israeli effort to preserve the lives of Gazan civilians at the cost of her its own soldiers lives must be commended.
I am offended by the insensitivity to such a serious issue, where both Gazans and Israelis are suffering. It is insulting to every Israeli soldier and every Gazan civilian who died in the recent weeks, for privileged NYU students to be referring to their own protest as a “occupation”.
OJ,
I do have direct knowledge because one of my family members is in the IDF and was in an initial raid of the Gaza borders. They found women and children huddled in a corner, when in the next room over, there were rockets and launchers.
I do know this.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
[...] Instead, they brazenly ignored it, perhaps even flipping it the proverbial bird. In fact, in expounding upon their demands on their blog, they offensively imply Israel’s actions in Gaza to be “genocide”. [...]
Why not agitate to restore CUNY as a public IVY rather than to change NYU, a private school? NYU can do almost anything it wants without responding to you. OTOH CUNY could be changed by political action.
arnold makes a good point… while i absolutely do not think israel should be regarded as any sort of model for tolerance, i do think that any country would react similarly to relentless attacks from a hostile neighbor. unfortunately, many people fail to understand that there are many layers to this conflict. they see everything in black and white though things are hardly so simple. it’s a terrible situation… it’s a long shot, but hopefully clear heads on both sides of the conflict will prevail and peace will come to the region
We should all dream big! BUT man, you have to think too. Do the few leaders of this ill-advised escapade not feel some responsibility to your friends and fellow students? Just because you have the ability to lead sheep doesn’t mean you should. Just because you want control doesn’t mean you should have it. If you want to be a decision maker you’ve got to earn it. I’m sure the ring leaders of this outfit will be million dollar salesmen someday. To those of you who were just “looking for something fun to do”…. maybe junior college would be a better idea for the next year or two.
Ever since the student protests of the 1960s, it seems college kids have struggled to equal their success in focusing broad public attention on the liberal issue of the day thereby achieving that same level of glory in American lore (case in point: can you name any “student activists” since the 1960s?). When I attended NYU in the late 80s and early 90s, I remember seeing stenciled protests on the sidewalks against Pepsi. I cannot remember the exact complaint; was it about apartheid? They were usually placed next to a rendering of “Bean Man” at each corner in the Village. I loved Bean Man; art for arts sake.
But I digress. The self styled “activists” and “radicals” who occupy those same roles (”offices,” really) that have persisted at college campuses in this country ever since the 1960s have always struck me as more interested in achieving the self-perceived glory that accompanies engagement in civil disobedience and much less interested in the underlying cause(s) they purport to advocate. Hence the hodge-podge list of demands that always get thrown into the mix (”Free Mumia” and, while you’re at it, “Free Palestine,” “End Domestic Violence” and perhaps a smattering of “Meat is Murder”).
BTW: Public access to BOBST? WTF is that?
So, call me a cynic, but I really believe the so-called “demands” of these students are not at all the point of the protest; it strikes me as just another exercise by college students seeking to burnish their own credentials amongst themselves as the true “radicals” and “activists” of their brief four year tenure on campus. Just like mom and dad (grandma and grandpa?!?!) did at Kent State.
It is very cool to stand up to authority. But not nearly as cool as Bean Man.
Democracy does not come from senators, democracy come from people.
What a bunch of self rightious retards. Your linking the Palestinian terrorists to this whole protest is so misguided. Why not educate an additional 13 more a year so they too can figure out how to destroy Israel. I strongly suggest you loosers fly to Gaza and stand in the way of a catapiller D9 like Rachel Corrie. I would personally gun the engine and mow you down. Glad to hear they restored order. I hope the disorderly conduct charge sticks with you for life.
Two words…cause…..heads…….
……Like the macbooks kids…..now go BACK in class and use those macbooks to take notes and learn something useful.