3am Update: Still a Dance Party
Feb 20th, 2009 by Take Back NYU!
We are writing to you from inside NYU. There are still hundreds of dancing masses swelling at the exterior of the building. Morale is high. We are sticking this out.
The administration’s negotiation consisted of repeating the same ultimatum over and over. They proposed probation (not amnesty in the slightest) for all students involved in the occupation, a disbanding of the occupation and the ability to meet with only two administrators in order to meet to discuss the demands. So… basically they offered to blacklist us, end the occupation and we get 5 minutes in a room with Lynne Brown (Senior Vice President for University Relations and Public Affairs) and Linda Mills (Senior Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education and University Life). This is not negotiation, this is mandate with no room for bargaining.
The crowd’s energy is high. They overtook the streets several hours ago, and are maintaining their position along West 4th St. They are shouting, dancing and having a good time. At a certain point in time, the crowd began to push against police barricades in front of the Kimmel entrance. There was one confirmed arrest, who was told informally that he was charged with assaulting an officer. These claims are not fully confirmed.
We’re all busy blogging, napping noshing and chanting to the crowds. We appreciate your support, and are open to negotiation at all times. Contact your professors, contact administrators, contact your parents. All we ask is a seat at the negotiations table. We don’t need to bargain to negotiate. We don’t need to plead to talk. We will be heard.
This is for the students who work three jobs to attend the school of their dreams. This is for the students in Gaza, whose university is destroyed and can no longer study. This is for workers in Abu Dhabi building our facilities with no human rights to speak of. We are a global university and our actions are connected to world events, whether we like it or not. It is our responsibility. We have voices. Let’s use them.
Hope you’re playing some good music. . . not to sound too contrived and cliched, but you better play Bella Ciao at least once. . .
never knock linda mills, she’s the nicest person ever
As a Palestinian, I very much appreciate your hard work, especially with the demands about Gaza and Palestine!
I came to show support yesterday, and I will be back again!
We are all Palestinians!
hold the fort people!
i know this is pretty late, but if you all have organizers outside in that crowed, but the police are making it impossible for new folks to get in. call the organizers on the outside and encourage the crowed to march into a new building. two occupied buildings are better than one and triples the power of the students
The longer, the better! You will only draw bigger crowds tomorrow, and media attention will only multiply!
If you get bigger (and you will), the administration will have to answer to more people and will give you their best offers!
Hello to all sitting in and to those in support,
My name is Nikhil Kothegal and I am one of the students who sat-in at Washington University in St. Louis in 2005. We sought a living wage for our workers, better benefits, and the WRC. Although I never would have expected, it took us 19 days of occupying the undergraduate admissions office for us to finally negotiate a signed contract with the administration. Be wary, the administrators are far more cunning than they seem and will stop at nothing to turn you all against one another. They will tell you to give up your position and then they will negotiate. Of course, you must never submit. If you are arrested, the University will have to face all the negative press associated with disrespecting, exploiting, and harming its own students.
Following my sit-in at WashU, I was also fortunate enough to study abroad in Toulouse, France when students and workers across the country protested an unjust labor law. At several universities in my city, and a majority of the universities across France, students occupied the entire campus, shutting them down for over two months. The key here is to unite workers (the unions) with the students. The call for a general strike by the unions, held in solidarity with the striking students, will cripple the government, in your case, the administration. At WashU, we had full solidarity of workers in St. Louis and I wholeheartedly believe that we could not have accomplished our goals if they had not been present at our rallies and putting pressure on the University Administration.
Anyway, I hope you read this and will take my advice. I have contacted some of my friends from the sit-in who live in NYC and I’m hoping that they pay you a visit. Please keep in touch and feel free to contact me at kothegaln@gmail.com
In solidarity,
Nikhil Kothegal
THE WHOLE WORLD IS WATCHING!
STAY STRONG WE SUPPORT YOU ALL THE WAY!
Your actions and those of the students in the UK, the New School, Rochester and Hampshire inspire us to start our occupation.
If you win we all win because the wave of occupations will begin. So that is your task at the moment. If you guys hold out your victory will change the course of history in this country.
Long Live Palestine! Long Live TBNYU!
Go! Go! Go! from a troubled Middle East I say…you are heard…
Thanks for the “free speech” my post earlier criticizing your effort was deleted. THANKS, get a life
What you are doing is amazing…but I can’t say it enough: control the media. Control the comments against you; control the bad publicity coming out. This isn’t about transparency; this is about building a movement (internal transparency and democracy yes, but not with those actively fighting against you).
You are losing the publicity front and that is going to destroy any bargaining power you have!!
I’m sure you have a lot more support than what one can read on the net!
Good luck people…and stand your ground! Wish we could be there with you.
you guys look like fools up there. so much for a peaceful protest. your demands are ridiculous. and i hope you know that most of the people who were out there b/t 12 and 2 were AGAINST you. didn’t you hear everyone screaming about how they didn’t get their quesedillas?
yea, we care more about our food than what you have to say. we think it’s a joke. knowing where my money goes would be GREAT, but seriously, everything else on your demands list is just unreasonable. you guys are acting like infants.
anyone not willing to dance for a cause should probably be ignored. thus, don’t worry about those people in the back, there are a lot of us that support you in new york city and elsewhere, and i’ll be back in the morning or afternoon
i agree with #5.
reach out directly to groups who would support you.
communicate from the inside directly with those on the ground outside.
liberate a PA system and let the neighborhood hear your voices loud and clear.
This post is unfortunately a great example of why this demonstration is unlikely to be taken seriously, and thus to achieve much. It’s a shame, because there’s much good it could accomplish otherwise.
Your demands include answers to perceived grievances (making the budget transparent, etc., probably the most legitimate demands), and charity (Gaza U, scholarships for Palestinian students, making Bobst public) - i.e. “nice-to-haves” (regardless of your opinion on the situations involved), because they are not redressing injustices nor preventing harm, but asking for the University to go further in a noble direction.
The latter especially demands come at a VERY significant cost to NYU. Regardless of anyone’s opinions on what the “correct” usage of this private institution’s money are, the fact remains that they have no practical reasons to fulfill them. The protesters here cannot threaten them with anything, nor can they offer anything that the University could not get on their own. The Grad Students’ union, with all its bargaining power and support, couldn’t bend the administration. What makes these protesters think that a dance party and some chanting in WSQ park will do the trick?
Regardless of how admirable your intentions, it sends a very poor message about you when you demand NYU spend money to rebuild foreign campuses while the group making these demands is holed up in the nicest building on the nicest campus, hosting a party and blogging away. If you came to any other protest organization’s website and saw “Still a Dance Party” on top of the homepage, how seriously would you take them, if you were an adult businessman?
To consider what the other side sees: Your first demand is amnesty from any consequences of your protest. What clearer statement could there be, of the fact that the protesters aren’t willing to risk much of anything for their beliefs?
The sad reality is that you DO need to bargain to negotiate, and you DO need to plead to be heard, because NYU has all the cards. Ethics do not override pragmatics, and regardless of how you think negotiations should go, and regardless of how many students agree with you, one needs to give NYU a good reason to conduct them that way, or they won’t - and you won’t achieve anything.
This isn’t a statement of armchair criticism; I may agree in principle with many of your demands. But the reality is that the lack of organization and grounded planning shows - to the students, to the non-students, and to the administration - and much as I’d like to see some of these demands realized, from the way things look now they almost certainly won’t. Rather than an “Oh well, you might as well give up,” this is a “You’re not being as effective as you could or should be, and most likely won’t succeed if you follow this path.”
I wonder if this post will be removed from your blog or not. I hope it’s not. I hope discussion is in the spirit of TBNYU. And I hope the organization of this demonstration improves swiftly, for the sake of all involved, and their various demands.
Solidarity is power, not to dominate or defeat but to defend what’s just and achieve liberation. May love and the universe be with us!
In Solidarity,
A Fellow Universite
you guys are awesome… i’ll be by in the morning to show my support.
please ignore the assholes that were holding up idiot signs of, “we want our quesadillas.” these people obviously do not have a brain, and like to make light of other people’s struggles.
the majority of the people that were out there were standing in solidarity with YOU. i took photos of all the punks who boo’ed you, and will be sure to add their lovely mugs to a wall of shame.
while you guys are occupying kimmel, students around the world are occupying their schools too, for similar demands, and to stand in solidarity with Gaza. you guys are brave, and you are my heroes.
FREE FREE PALESTINE!!!!!!!
Guys, keep it up! I’m proud to be an NYU Violet today, since you’re standing for something that makes us all strong. I was late in hearing about this, or you better be sure I’d be right there with you!
finally some constructive discussion.
i definitely agree that you list of demands needs to be reworked, re-though, and re-ordered.
this can be bigger than you and more inclusive and socially relevant if you organize better.
please consider it.
As an European, I have just been blogging about why people in America do not protest no matter what absurdities their government is up to. Here in Europe we protest (even if we already have universal health case, free education, universal access to the internet, lots and lots of money, and so on), and for the simple reason that it is understood by everybody that the only real change there is going to be can come from the people, not from the government, whether it’s about the state or university. Just look at the history of your own country, Europe today, or the countries that you have attempted to occupy very recently. It’s the people who make things change everywhere. The elite governments will just basically suck your wealth and freedom as long as you let them.
This is why I follow events like this with great curiosity. I am not the only one here hoping that people there would raise their hands. But it will require a massive and meaningful undertaking. I hope this event is one step into that direction.
Democracy Insurgent and the Demilitarize UW Coalition send our solidarity from the University of Washington in Seattle. We are inspired by your actions and are working toward similar goals. We are pushing for divestment from and boycott of Israeli apartheid and are organizing to kick the CIA and military recruiters off campus. The struggle for solidarity with Palestine is inseparable from the struggle for democracy on campus - you have shown this once again.
You are all a bunch of idiots. I hope the police arrest you all, and you all get expelled. Get a life losers.
You guys are terrorists! Free Gaza and give them resources? Why, so they can cause more drama and more bombings? Than what? Have Israel invade Gaza again and have you clowns get outraged? You people are ridiculous. You will get arrested, and you will get prosecuted if you don’t back the fuck down, rest assured.
And here I am thinking people who attend NYU are actually smart….
You guys are idiots. The budget is already a public document, for one thing, and for another, I think it’s hilarious that you’re disrupting people’s work and then demanding the employer still pay them. How about YOU pay them for interrupting their work?
Don’t listen to the nay-sayers,
the flamers and the cynics..
what you are doing is important,
continue to struggle, many
across the globe are with you!
VIVA PALESTINA!!
Hey just saw the report on the morning news, I 100% agree with what you guy are doing. I’m not a student but I understand your pain and frustrations with the powers that be. I belive what ya’ll are doing is the best way to make your voices heard. Us, as people, as a society need to wake up and realize “REAL POWER IS PEOPLE”
FREE PALESTINE……
P.S. don’t play Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power” the cops don’t like that song to much….
The vast majority of students does not agree with your list of demands, nor with your tactics. If you were truly “democratic”, you would respect the wishes of the majority and get out.
And now your main demand is amnesty. What a bunch of wimps. Take responsibility for your actions. You are stealing private property (the ability of the student body to use these facilities), grow up and get out.
http://www.nypost.com/seven/02202009/news/columnists/nyus_snit_in_156068.htm
This is insane. Negotiate a way out of there without being prosecuted and cut your losses. While you may not agree with the University’s policies, there are proper avenues for that expression. Barricading yourself in a building is illegal and eventually the police will take the building by force. You all need to grow up and end this madness before people get hurt!
As a Greek I am sending you our solidarity. Greek universities were under occupation a couple of months ago (for another but yet very important reason). We have organised a couple of big marches to support Palestinians. I can tell you only one thing….
Let’s Go Greek, Let’s Go Wild!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCRtPgXLjbw
As someone sympathetic with your scattered demands, I’m wondering why you aren’t just asking for free beer too while you’re at it.
This protest is doomed. You have no focus, just a wide basket of vague and far-flung “demands.” Saul Alinsky is rolling over in his grave in embarrassment. (Have you ever even heard of Saul Alinsky?)
When you’ve all drifted back to your dorms, please consider reading “Rules for Radicals” and learning how to put on a properly effective protest movement. An effective protest is about tactics, not how good it makes you feel. It’s so sad that kids today have to relearn what their grandparents already knew.
Ignore the mean comments. What you are doing is wonderful, and an inspiration to students everywhere. You have my full support and solidarity.
Pacon al vi,
Nick
Dear Students: When I was an undergraduate at NYU, Professor Sidney Hook was teaching philosophy. His courses were a great highlight of my studies there. Ethics and moral integrity DO MATTER! NYU should shine as an example of TRUTH, where students must have an integral part of the university’s base and direction. Where the money comes from, for endowment and costs, does matter. The money cannot come from BLOOD! If anyone on the current board has any ties to the horrors on 11 Sept. 2001 (and I believe they do), then everything follows from that. We are living in extrordinary times, where eithcs, morality, and any kind of good behaviour is out the proverbial door. If people now in charge are part of the current disaster, that has been deliberately caused to bring our country down, they do not belong as part of university life or in any kind of leadership capacity. you are blessed with having economics Prof. Nouriel Roubini on your faculty. If the government had listened to him (see his website: http://www.rgemonitor.com), we would not be facing the catastrophic economic nightmare in which we currently find ourselves. But he is not an insider. Stand your ground. Demand accountability. If we do not have an ethical base (and now there is no one in charge in DC who does), then what kind of standing in the world do we have?
Integrity and moral backbone are the stairs to TRUTH.
still a dance party? that’s cool. definitely the right way to get people to take you seriously! well, that along with the fact that you have freshmen commenting to reporters that they don’t really care/know much about the cause, they just wanted to do a sit-in.
If you are a student somewhere else, Take a building on your campus. Spread the resistance. If not now when?
If you want to see real waste of student money, visit the law school. We have a bunch of overpaid know-nothings. NYU faculty and administration forget who they work for. Remember NYU - you wouldn’t have your precious U.S. News & World Report ranking without the students who CHOOSE to attend this place.
I support your effort.
And by the way, why is this about Gaza. Give me a %$&%(*& break.
You’d be better off if you at least looked like you believed in the power of your convictions. The preemptive demand for amnesty means you aren’t willing to go to any kind of mat for what you want. It shows the administration that you just want to make a lot of noise, occupy a building, and then go on your way with no consequences. Being willing to pay consequences in defense of your beliefs is the only real show of conviction, kids.
Wow…..a bunch of overpriveleged, bratty suburbanites protesting for fun…
I wonder if daddy is going to pay your tuition forever…..
What is your preoccupation with Gaza? What about sending those excess supplies to poor Latin American universities?
What losers! If you are really part of the proletariat, go to a CUNY school where tuition is more affordable….
I am the parent of an NYU undergraduate. I lived through the protest movement in the late 60’s and early 70’s, when I went to college. We fought racism, imperialism, sexism, and the collusion of our universities with the larger society that was fostering those evils. We learned that the only way real change occurs is when people, like you, take to the streets, and organize mass support. We ended the Vietnam War not because the politicians saw it was wrong but because millions of people scared the shit out of them into capitulating to our demands. Keep up your fight, but remember you have to always be reaching out to those around you to build a real movement for change.
You are morons and nobody cares about your dumb protest. Oh yeah….and Obama sucks!
I hope you all realize that the majority of the NYU population could truly care less about what you’re doing and that we all think you’re delusional idiots.
I URGE you to focus your demands on the core of what you stand for: transparency in NYU administration, tuition, endowment. That is the most important request and the one you all need to focus on. That is the request that most NYU students agree with. Since you are doing this for NYU students please heed this and focus on the core. Using a very polarizing topic — Palestine and Gaza — will not get you want you demand. You will turn NYU supporters away. FOCUS FOCUS FOCUS. and stay strong.
Please post links to TBNYU blogs.
Free Palestine? Idealism & radical change are wonderful things… when properly & realistically executed.
Much of this seems like a publicity stunt.
The demands are joke. Who do you think is going to benefit from scholarship money thrown at the Gaza Strip? The privileged kids, much like yourselves, in the Gaza Strip. You’re not going to create some heart-warming story of a slum dog reaching his always mocked dream of being a top doctor. And redirecting funds to the Gaza Strip is going to raise tuition, something highly against your demands.
NYU isn’t a charity. It’s a business. They’re not going to reduce their personal salaries to beautify the Middle East.
Also, the departments are underfunded enough. Yet NYU will throw money into some cruel vivisection research that really hasn’t been getting significant data. When you want to take action, you start LOCAL.
Come on, some of you counter-culture circle-A-tattooed kids have to know that Gogol Bordello song, “Think Locally, Fuck Globally!”
Making Bobst public would be a disaster. I assume people want the most out of their insane tuition. How long have you guys been in New York for? What do you think a 24 hour public library in West Village would look like? Well for one you wouldn’t be able to leave your new macbooks at the desk while you go pee. Oh, and that bathroom isn’t going to be so nice looking either.
I’m born & raised here, and I love my city to death, and I’ve always resented NYU & Columbia for importing tons of big-spending out of state kids, crushing neighborhoods and turning them into teen hang outs.
You want to make a demand to give back to New York? How about giving scholarship money to inner city locals. Or making the library accessible to all NYC High School students. Or increasing food donations from what’s wasted in the cafeterias (I know there is some group doing that already, that’s a solid, feasible cause that makes a difference).
“This is not negotiation, this is mandate with no room for bargaining.” This is so hypocritical considering this was organized STUDENTS who I’m assuming pay, or parent’s pay, all that tuition. Money talks, especially at NYU.
You obviously have numbers in supporters- use that wisely. Flashing boobs & demanding quesadillas & refusing to negotiate looks insanely childish, and it is completely counter-productive to your cause. If you really have a true idea of your cause to begin with…
There are hundreds of dancing masses, huh? You should see a doctor about that.
it’s nearing 9:30am Friday morning. can we get an update about what’s going on?
I think you guys rock. I saw your video on the least likeliest of places, but nonetheless I saw it and I think it’s right to fight for something that you believe in. Please don’t pay attention to the people who mean no good to your in this post or where ever because people have been downing protests since whenever and when it was some that was deserved to fight for, justice (or at least some signs of it) was received.
Jena 6
Million Man March
March from Selma to Wash DC
Riots in Oakland because of the New Year’s Day Execution
Sean Bell in NY
The Tainted Milk In China
The list goes on and on. Please keep your head up. I don’t expect to get national wide attention, but I hope it does. I hope at least some of your demands get met if not all. I don’t have any advice on tactics, but just to not give up. I mean your going to get expelled for pulling this stunt off, you might as well go all the way. You have nothing to lose so pull out all the stops.
Btw, barricading the cafeteria was probably one of the smartest things ever. At least you don’t have to worry about starving. Good luck and I will expect to see much more videos.
i live in sacramento california nd im inspired by your guys courage. respect! you guys are doing a great thing. their gonna have to listen one way or another!
FREE PALISTINE!!
good morning!
i am glad to see that you aren’t being swayed by NYU’s scare tactics. i hope that your negotiations, however, are more focused and reasonable than the impression you conveyed at the outset of this action.
be smart! you are a minority group who has taken it upon themselves to speak for all of us at nyu, please keep that in mind as you negotiate (or rather, negotiate towards more legitimate negotiations).
the longer you keep this going, the more we on the outside start to notice your dedication and think “maybe they AREN’T just spoiled brats”– that’s a good thing. however, all of our concerns about your execution still stand. please don’t let theatrics get in the way of rationality!
(because this shit is important and you’ve got people watching)
Stop giving NYU students a bad name. This is childish and immature. Get over your upper-middle class white guilt and give the students back the 3rd floor.
Hi All- it would have been considerate of you to warn us commuters who have lockers in Kimmel of your occupation ahead of time. We can’t get in to get our books/notes/flashdrives- and I have an exam this afternoon. It’s no fun (& not terribly effective) to study without notes!!! It is disapponting that you aren’t organized enough to give us a heads up. We are all here first and foremost to learn. Thanks for hearing me out.
Gehirnesser and James Andrew Hodges have extremely good points, and I hope you will consider them. The list of your demands starts with asking forgiveness for protesting. If that’s your number one goal, the logical response seems to be… don’t protest.
Instead, order it by your priorities, and be careful about what those are. NYU is not going to solve Palestine’s problems; it has neither the leverage nor the incentive to do so.
Be careful about how you are presenting yourself. If this blog is the number 1 way for people to find out what’s going on inside (for people like me, but also for the press), you should understand that you are the face of this protest. Labeling it a dance party is not going to get anyone to take you seriously. In all honesty, it makes you look like brats who have nothing better to do or lemmings who have gotten caught up in the fervor.
I know it probably doesn’t sound like it, but I am on your side just as I supported my school’s occupation two months ago. I am not asking you to back down or even to compromise (yet). Just be careful about fighting for what are actually your rights as students versus what are frivolous demands that actually distract from your intent.
just a thought or two, coming from yet another student who supports your cause but not necessarily your actions. now that you have the attention of the administration, the students, and the people of New York City, it’s time for you to really hone down on a few “demands” that you believe can be feasibly achieved by NYU and would be widely supported by NYU’s students. the ones i would choose to support personally, among the hodgepodge of other requests, would be transparency of nyu’s budget and financial aid, tuition not rising past inflation, and the bargaining power of t.a.’s. your 11 loosely related demands cause you to look like children making a haphazard wishlist. polarizing people is not going to achieve anything except bitterness or ridicule from others who don’t already support you. i believe that with more organization, more tact, and a little humbleness, you would receive much more positive attention from those around you and you would succeed in making NYU’s administrators look a lot worse in the eyes of the press and the students for refusing to really negotiate with you. people like me are trying to give you advice and help you, simply based on what the average person would respond positively to. don’t take what i am saying for granted and continue with faux-sixties manners of the weather underground when most people are not reacting positively to that sort of attitude. i agree that a semi-radical method (of taking over the kimmel center) was probably necessary, but what i think is deplorable is that you, a minority group who claims to stand for the whole student body, is NOT listening to most of the students. this is a rare opportunity so take care not to waste it. although you might not believe it, radical politics and a professional manner of conducting yourself can really speak to others and spark real change. just look at noam chomsky or mark c. miller.
You guys knew that NYU was an expensive school to begin with, now deal with the tuition hike!
So you’re protesting occupation of Palestine by occupying cafeteria. Or wait, you’re protesting the food quality at the cafeteria? … or is it the tuition increase … no wait, it’s the Abu Dhabi’s workers that you really care about!! No? Hmm … you want to give money to Islamic University of Gaza, because they don’t happen to have a Secular University of Gaza or University of Gaza for Democracy and Peace.
I am confused what do you want?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQsjmgwKQ1I
THIS is your reality… idiots…
Yes for showing solidarity with students in Gaza!
Let’s also show solidarity with students at Ben Gurion U who can’t go to school either because of rockets to Beer Sheva
They cut internet in Kimmel…this just goes to show you that the establishment is trying to control the media…I hope you read this at some point and think of this one fatal flaw…you needed and still need to control the flow of information. The negative comments on this page are not constructive and should be deleted…you should be controlling the voice of what is going on!!!
Come on people…this action could really work!
Listen, you students are ungrateful. I had an exam yesterday and I could not get to the commuter lockers which had my books in it. thanks a lot, idiots
What a bunch of typical, stupid, rich, spoiled, NYU brats. Get out of the cafeteria so other people can eat. If you honestly can’t pay the tuition, which we all know you richies can, why not enroll at a public school? There are plenty of decent public universities that cost 10 to 20 per cent of what NYU does. It’s not even that good of a school anymore anyway. Get with the program, you NYU trust fund brats. Obviously this shows that none of suburban transplants have jobs you need to be at, seeing as how you can hole yourselves up in a cafeteria and eat other people’s food for several days at a time. You should all be expelled and jailed.
You guys make me embarrassed to be an NYU student. You are acting like children and have no sense of how to get what you want. Your demands are completely unrelated and will never be taken seriously and you have just about zero organization. Why would you want to open Bobst to the public? You complain about our high tuition, but then want to open the library we pay for to other people? Yeah…that makes a whole lot of sense. And the reason that University of Gaza is destroyed is because they were responsible for bombing Israel over and over and over again. Think about that and all the Israelis who have been killed when all they want to do is share land. I hope you all get suspended.
The only reason you have so many support comments is because most of the people reading this sight are other crazys like you. The rest of us either don’t know this site exists or we just don’t take you seriously.
my comment was deleted. so glad you know you like to show the views of all nyu studnets.
#12: “but I can’t say it enough: control the media. Control the comments against you; control the bad publicity coming out. ”
Um, that sounds familiar. Usually fascist states do that - is it any way to run a protest or a “revolution” to squash all dissent to your point and destroy alternate viewpoints?
I am not a student but I do know students.
We as Americans are too ignorant, too self-righteous to do anything worthy. Our generation needs to stand up for something. I applied to NYU, you are all paying a ridiculous sum of $ to be there. You should definitely know in what this $ is invested in. The media is powerful, speech is powerful - we are the technological generation. Start chain texts - people can pass along notes on facebook, why not for something that is worthy?
Get the Student Organization involved - this is only the beginning. We are in a recession, NYU is a dream school for many people - it’s about time the Administration realized that they are NO ONE without the student body. The student body is much bigger than the Administration. Numbers, in situations such as this, are crucial.
NYC supports you whole-heartedly; I support your efforts.