NYU CUT OFF THE INTERNET
Feb 20th, 2009 by Take Back NYU!
We are NYU graduate students and we’re’ blogging on behalf of the students who are occupying NYU.
In its effort to quash the occupation, NYU cut off wireless internet access in Kimmel. By preventing information from flowing freely, NYU has failed, yet again, to engage in an open dialogue with its community.
This institutional shut-down gets to the heart of the reasons why the building occupation occurred in the first place. NYU’s refusal to engage in dialogue is consistent with NYU’s general lack of transparency. The diversity of the list of demands demonstrates exactly how many people NYU refuses to hear.
The students are committed to being heard and we stand in solidarity with them.
Guys, you all are amazing putting your education and future on the line for the good of students everywhere!
you got support from TEXAS!
Use someone’s blackberry as a wireless card! you can still blog from the inside! BLUETOOTH
You people are unbelieveable! Your demands are unreasonable and you should all be expelled immediately. Who do you think you are making such demands, particularly your asinine demands about the Gaza students and school? Grow up and get a job, you liberal pussies!
pussies? isn’t that somebody who just grows up and gets a job and DOESN’T do anything about the problems in the world? c, i think you’ve got a confusion of terminology
Grow up… You are screwing up your lives, you will prob be kicked out of school. There are better ways to get your way than to break the law. I hope you all get expelled.
Giving gifts to terrorists does not solve any problems. Allowing mere students to call the shots doesn’t solve any problems. We need another new song by Neil Young, something along the lines of Four Dead in Ohio.
anyone have an ethernet in there? I thought I remember ethernet outlets in there
clearly nyu has tried to make negotiations so stop claiming they are failing to start an open dialogue.
from an nyu student to you, get the hell out of kimmel. your demands are stupid and you have turned a potentitally worthwhile cause (transparency) into a circus, and you should all be expelled, or at least suspended, for disrupting our student center and just for being asses in general.
Giving help to the people of Gaza is not giving gifts to terrorists. There are many many innocent men, women and children enduring a violent occupation in Gaza right now who need all the help they can get.
Solidarity from Missouri
C and imature…go out and do something about it instead of bitching about what others are doing. think you can do better? i invite you to go right ahead. in fact, i encourage you to. it’s called democracy, and it certainly does NOT involve a repeat of the Kent State shootings.
and read the demands about students from Gaza, the operative word being “students,” not terrrorists. Look it up, i believe there is a difference between the two.
on another note, how are you all getting internet access?
“ethernet” soooo college LOL
NYU Administration has opened dialogue with the occupiers several times over the course of the occupation (as reported by bloggers inside Kimmel and the live video stream.) It seems every offer by the administration has been rejected by the protesters. Cutting off the internet is a logical step in ending an occupation by those unwilling to negotiate to achieve their goals.
This could have been a good protest, but it was so screwed up by the insane list of demands. I really want university transparency, but I don’t want 20 students to be on the trustee board, nor do I want them to have absolute veto power over the school’s decisions. I don’t trust students, especially insane and inefficient ones like these guys because clearly they think THEY are going to get to be that “ethical committee”. I don’t want to send my money to Gaza, especially not via Hamas. They should all be expelled and let the people who seriously want to make a difference get about it!
It’s funny how people on here can say fighting for what you believe is the wrong thing to do. I can only imagine that the batteries can only last 3 hours max on a laptop. Idk if there is like a socket that isn’t taken away when it comes to power. I guess you can start sending messages via paper planes to get your message to the people.
Honestly, the best information that was ever flowing freely during this whole ordeal was from the blogger representing NYU Local locked in with the protesters. The most major presence the protesters had on the internet was the livefeed, which was dominated by a kid not even from NYU, but from Muhlenberg College, who pretty much only talked about his pet cause, the Gaza occupation, and the fact that he wanted to make a documentary about all this.
Please realize that you do not represent the current student body at NYU, you do not represent the alumni of the school and that creating a scene of this nature has only undermined the very legit concern over financial transparency.
Anyone found supporting these idiots should face the same punishments for their crimes. I’d have you all expelled and jailed.
Fight for what you believe all you want, just stop acting like you represent the student body. You don’t and you’re making the NYU student body look like disorganized fools by claiming to represent OUR desires. I, like many posters before me, hope you all get expelled, or at least a little tear gassed. assholes.
[...] NYU and the Military Dictatorship in Burma? Posted by MOR on 20 Feb 2009 >> cyberactivism, connectivity, activism Using a tactic that was also used by the military dictatorship in Burma, New York University has cut off internet access to students who are occupying the school. [...]
[...] blog is saying that the internet in Kimmel has been disconnected and there’s “no access to power outlets.” Waiting for confirmation from Lynne [...]
No one is saying that fighting for what you believe is the wrong thing. What they ARE saying is that taking over facilities that other students’ tuition pays for is wrong, and that claiming to represent the student body when you in fact do not even come close is wrong, and that damaging property and assaulting guards is wrong, and that making demands that a majority of the student body has democratically rejected (e.g., the coke ban) is wrong.
The internet shutdown is not symbolic of a refusal to engage in dialogue. NYU offered multiple opportunities to meet for negotiations, which TBNYU turned down because it wasn’t good enough for them. Well, you know, negotiation means give and take. It doesn’t mean you list your demands, and the other side complies. At this point, the only option the university has left is to remove any incentives for TBNYU to stay barricaded in Kimmel, or go in and arrest everyone. Personally, I hope they do the latter.
I protested NYU too! By not going there.
This is like protesting McDonalds with a Big Mac in both hands.
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 by the movement…you should be controlling the voice of what is going on!!! I don’t care how you get your msg across. Have someone on the outside blog for you and advertize the page: tell them what to say and even claim that he is inside and you have found a way to bypass NYU. Screw the establishment, stick to the truth but make up your own narrative. This is how you will get the masses excited about your action.
Come on people…this action could really work!
In solidarity!
why don’t you just send out text messages? they haven’t cut off the cell phones have they?
What a farce- responding to girls who can’t afford clothes-”Keri”? I wasn’t aware that choosing a really expensive private school allows you to fight to contradict those very funds needed to run that expensive private school. Want Clothes? Choose Hunter!! I can see that many of those kids are simply unproductive, jump on the bandwagon of chaos, “anarchists”, convincing you that they should be allowed free access to the same building and conveniences you pay for! Watch out with them, next thing you know - you’ll be in a cardboard box and they will have squatted your dorm room…!!! This is so absurd! Scattered ideas with no real purpose and no real spine. What do you think the kids at CUNY think of your actions… They work hard just to get to class. Try it! Some old fashioned ideas might help you put perspective on how ridiculous your unfocused demands really are. The only thing that is going to come of it.. is purposeful rioting to point out the police can’t keep it calm and some getting hurt and arrested. Imagine being in this protest when some of them don’t even attend this or any school, are against capitalism yet participate in wealthy, spoiled kids protest!! Look around you - Collect and construct change- Do something instead of occupy to cause chaos! You are only alerting the public to how much money you are wasting on your education as clearly it is not helping you use your common sense…
huh… well charlie was doing a good job covering the event. i think it’s a stupid move on NYU’s part to cut internet. just makes them look like they’re trying to conceal what will happen.
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.
JohnCody, please don’t speak for all of the Texans here on campus. Some of us do choose not to support this unreasonable and well out of control “protest.”
Tech note: set up a Twitter and cellphone-text out messages. When your batteries run out, have students who are working in the building switch batteries (or other people’s cell phones) out for you.
Wonderful and important moves by Take Back NYU.
Suggestion:
why not give all but 13 spots at NYU to the Palestinian people? The Palestinian people can open an Islamic school right in the belly of the beast, and Take Back NYU can actually have democratic professors they can respect. The 13 students who are not Palistinian can then fan out and do missionary work throughout The Second Avenue shops and Restaurants.
The Palestinian Cause is our cause: Give NYU back to the Palistinian Diaspora!!!!
Also, the homeless should be allowed to burn the books in the library to stay warm and eat for free and sleep in any dorm room. Unlock the doors on all buildings until the Islamic College decides what use it wants to make of these facilities.
You are serious people and at least 1/1,000,000 th of the entire Bogosphere is watching and at least 2 dozen people world wide sort of support you.
Pepsi! RC! Wegman’s Cola!!!!
Death to Coca-Cola!
BTW….
I think the Administration is doing you a favor by silencing you, because once someone reads your Demands, a normal person just wonders whatever happened to Bob Barker and drifts off to sleep.
The Less people know who you are and what your Demands are, the better for you in terms of support.
Coming next summer, more important actions and headlines concerning your amazingly dangerous and revolutionary cadre: “Ants refuse to follow Take Back NYU to picnic, despite presence of honey and other treats. Protesters unfazed by latest failure…..”
i support your cause and all, but who the hell planned this? you MUST have an information advantage. didn’t you guys bring dishes to boost your signal and get wifi from off site? don’t put all your PR eggs in one basket that the university administration controls next time
I’m glad to see these students are taking responsibility for their education. With room and board, NYU students pay about $50,000. I respect these students for taking control over how their $200,000 per person is being spent. Congratulations on being concerned citizens of your own finances and your own money.
I think it’s interesting how NYU is handling the same type of protest that the New School had — seems tho the administration at NYU is pretty harsh.
You guys suck.