Support Rally At Noon.
Feb 20th, 2009 by Take Back NYU!
There is going to be a rally along West 4th St at noon in support of the students who are still currently occupying the 3rd floor in Kimmel. The building has been shut down and the students have no access to the internet. They will be making an announcement about the rally at some point. PLEASE COME AND SHOW YOUR SUPPORT!
you guys are pathetic. go to class. stop taking such immature “pride” in shutting down a building. you are selfishly putting yourselves above the NYU community.
keep it up!
Can we bring some goons…
You are all working hard for justice, and I thank you. Stay strong, and if you stick together I believe you will truly see the power of solidarity. Also, thank you for remaining nonviolent and setting an example for the administration, which should enter into serious negotiations with you! Your demands are perfectly reasonable.
Hey guys, just as an FYI
A great source of information is the IRS Form 990, an annual information form that nonprofits must file with the Internal Revenue Service each year. The Form 990 summarizes the organization’s finances, lists the salaries of the highest paid officials, includes the names of board members, notes “insider” transactions, and provides a general snapshot of the organization. Nonprofits are required by law to share their 990 forms with members of the public who ask to see them. They must make the form available during regular business hours, but are allowed to charge a reasonable fee to those who request the form by mail or want to make copies. Journalists also can request copies of the 990 from regional IRS centers under the Freedom of Information Act.
I don’t know why anyone would support an effort that has resulted in people getting injured. You are wasting taxpayer money. You all deserve to be expelled, and I hope that’s exactly what happens.
I am completely appalled by what you are doing right now. You are compromising the education of every single NYU student. You have absolutely NO RIGHT to take over and force the shut down of a University building. I am sure I speak for the majority of NYU student when I say, “STOP IMMEDIATELY.” If your aim was to enrage your fellow students, congratulations, otherwise your little charade has no place here - find people who actually care and stop wasting our tuition money. If you’re not happy leave. That is why people transfer. do it. now.
Or here is the 2007 990: http://www.guidestar.org/FinDocuments/2007/135/562/2007-135562308-04827dfa-9.pdf
If the link doesn’t work just go to guidestar.com, make a free account and there you go.
do you guys realize how much more successful this could all be if you had stuck to the core transperancy demands? you’ve spread yourselves pretty thin and it’s hurt your image! be smart! start today!
Can you people give it a break already? You’re embarrassing the entire NYU population with your useless protesting (which has become an utter circus) and your ridiculous list of demands. I can agree with one, maybe two of them, but the rest are insane. You all need to give it up, go to class, and stop “occupying” the one good dining hall on campus.
You guys are pathetic and have brought an insult upon the entire student body. Your views are your own views and are not clearly represented by the entire student body. You should be expelled from NYU and arrested. The biggest mistake in this tragedy is that NYU admitted you as students!!!
how many of these posts are from actual nyu students? They didn’t “shut down” the classrooms, they took over one of the half-dozen or so dining halls affecting mainly freshmen with meal plans (because if you are an upperclassman with a meal plan, then you deserve to not get dinner). If you honestly believe that what they are doing is damaging to NYU then look back at what happened in 2005 when our dedicated TA’s (who honestly do 90% of the work in all your classes) went on strike, sexton refused to negotiate, and then blacklisted and kicked out the only TA’s who believed in their job enough to take a stand. You know who didn’t get blacklisted? All the schmucks and ass-kissers who assign nothing but student presentations in their recitation sections so they don’t have to do work.
You can access NYU’s 2007 Form 990 here:
http://www.guidestar.org/FinDocuments/2007/135/562/2007-135562308-04827dfa-9.pdf
But, the most valuable parts to look at are as follows:
Who are the Filer’s Board Members and How Much
Does its Top Staff Get Paid?- Part V-A (Current Officers, Directors, Trustees, and Key Employees) and V-B (Former Officers, Directors, Trustees, and Key Employees That Received Compensation…) on pages 5 and 6 of the Form 990. The name of each board member is listed. (The address of each board member is also given, but in many cases the address will be the same as the address of the filer). If the board member receives any compensation for her or his duties, the amounts are reported here. Of course, most board members do not receive compensation for their work as board members.
In cases where a filer may have paid certain employees (among whom key employees would be included) compensation at unreasonably high levels, the payments might be found to be “excess benefit transactions” under section 4958 of the Code. This would result in a tax being imposed on the employees who received the unreasonably high compensation (and in some cases upon the board members who approved the payments).
Item #7, Line 89b in Part VI on page 5 asks whether the filer engaged in any section 4958 excess benefit transactions during the year. If the filer answers “Yes,” it is to attach a statement explaining each transaction. Where a filer answers Line 89b “Yes,” a reader of its Form 990 may wish to find out as much as she can about the transaction
Sometimes a top management official will receive some of her salary from an organization other than the filer, which other organization is related to the filer. Knowing about such arrangements may be important for someone focusing on compensation. Line 75, which has been expanded in the 2005 Form 990, provides such information.
Finally, and significantly, Line 75d asks whether the organization has a written conflict of interest policy.
Some may be interested in learning of the comparative compensation levels paid to various staff members (e.g., top management salaries as compared to those employees working at the lowest salaries). The Form 990 does not provide any direct information on this subject, but some very rough sense of such differences may be gathered by comparing the average salary of the filer’s total staff to the salary levels reported at Part V-A and Part I of Schedule A. A roughly approximate idea of the average compensation of the whole staff can be derived by dividing the sum of Lines 25(A), 26(A), 27(A) and 28(A), which report total compensation paid to staff, by the total number of employees reported on Line 90b. Some insight on this question may also be drawn from the bottom of Part I of Schedule A which asks for the total number of employees paid over $50,000.
How Much Income Did the Filer Receive and From What Sources?
Generally Line 12 may give you an overall idea of the level of the filer’s income generating potential for the year being reported on. If you have access to the filer’s Forms 990 for the past three years and you observe that for each year its Line 12 is about at the same level, you might conclude that it will be able to generate a similar amount in the immediately ensuing period. If the filer reports increasing amounts of revenue for the three years, you might conclude its ability to generate income is growing stronger. A contrary conclusion may be reached if its total revenue decreases across the three years. These possible interpretations may or may not be appropriate to the actual situation of a particular filer. You would need to know a great deal more about the filer’s circumstances to be able to draw firm conclusions.
This page is very useful if you are unfamiliar with reading or extracting information from a IRS Form 990.
http://www.npccny.org/Form_990/990.htm
As an NYU Student, (An NYU Student Proud of my school and my community) I love my campus, and I love NYU. However these past few days have been both disappointing and saddening for all members of the student body and the NYU community that we have grown so proud of. The fact that 60 people, in a school of 60,000+ students feel that they can voice the opinion of those 60,000 is absurd.
I was at the rally from 11:30-2:00AM last night and while TBNYU felt that they had “5-600″ supporters they were grossly misinformed. AT LEAST half of those individuals were there to boo and protest against the “Occupation” of Kimmel Center and TBNYU’s ridiculous demands and many others were there just witness what we all hoped was the forceful removal of TBNYU when the 1:00 AM Deadline set by NYU Admins was reached.
As for TBNYU’s “peaceful” protest, its a lie if I eve saw one. Guards have gotten hurt and attacked (and NYU’s guards are some of the nicest employees at this school).Also the group against TBNYU (Myself being one of them) had to maintain the peace with TBNYU members and supporters as many “debates” escalated into something further. It is obvious that they are losing their “debates” and thus defaulting to violence and force to argue their points. Those against TBNYU have maintained their arguments through lightheartedness and peace, while TBNYU has not.
NYU Admins need to end this absurd protest now before it divides the school even further than it has already. TBNYU is not speaking for all of NYU’s student body and as shown by the “Huge” turn out of 250+ supporters in a student body of 60,000.
As a student of NYU and a native New Yorker, please don’t judge all of us by the actions of these few misinformed, misguided youths, we aren’t all like this.
WE ARE HERE FOR YOU! If they arrest you, we’ll bail you out. If they beat you, we will take you for medical attention.
Don’t give up. Fight back! The students are justified!
If you guys had bothered to think your demands through, you would have realized that you were doomed from the beginning.
Say 25% of the student population will automatically reject taking over a building as being too extreme. So at best you can expect 75% support from a building takeover. Now you take your demands into account. You decided to throw all kinds of random causes into your demands. First you include Gaza stuff, which is a highly contentious issue (I’m actually of the same view as you, to be honest) that only about 50% of the student population will support. Now you include public access to Bobst, which no one I have talked to actually supports. I’ll be generous and say 25% of the students support this.
Taking this all into account you could have expected about 10-15% total support from the student population. That is your best case scenario. Add in that your protest has been an utter cluster fuck, where you haven’t been able to control the information going out (you should have kicked NYU local out), and there is no way you can now expect to have any kind real student support.
This is appalling and embarrassing. I wish they would just let the NYPD storm the building and arrest you all as they should have done 24hours ago.
I’m an International Student who grew up in Italy, where ‘occupations’ of a school or a university are the norm, are the constant imitation of our parents’ occupations in the 60s, are the “coming of age” rituals for 14 year old freshmen. It’s one of the hardest and weirdest experiences to describe to my American friends in its complexity and in its stupidity and that’ why I was shocked to see one here at NYU. It’s an interesting experience because it allows students to discuss some of the issues that you never really discuss in class or that you kind of blindly ignore (like for example: where does our money really go? Can we break down tuition, etc) but it’s an illegal action that, in my experience, has never really managed to obtain anything. First of all, because there is a difference between fighting for a cause (Gaza, the Vietnam war in the past, whatever) which is more like a symbolic way for people to create an event and explain their ideals, and, on the other hand, there are legal requests, small internal (to NYU) and reasonable demands, that ask for a completely different approach: the legal one, the petition, the small but useful discussion with people inside the system. If you want Sexton to break down tuition or to give everyone access to BOBST, it would have been much more effective to ask for this, without opposing the system, by showing a detailed research or a plan of what you are debating and trying to obtain and even, in some cases, to contact experts, lawyers, etc. There are differences between rallies and requests and one nullifies the other.
So, anyway, here are a couple of observations:
1. Isn’t it a bit undemocratic that a small group decides for the entire school? I doubt that NYU will accept any of these demands but if one of those passes, shouldn’t you have consulted first the whole school, explaining these demands in the weeks before? What if the whole school doesn’t agree with all the demands?
2. Shouldn’t have you maybe asked for less instead of 13 things at once? If this occupation has a practical goal it’s a bit unrealistic to think that all of these demands can be respected. You should have started with one, include the other students and fought for that cause pragmatically.
3. The issue of Gaza shouldn’t have been in the demands because:
a) regardless of the political opinion one has, it’s counterproductive for you to shift the focus of the requests and to attach a political connotation to your protest. People on the street were confused and thought it was ridiculous, since no apparent connection was plausible.
b) You blew a chance for NYU to listen to you because of this. You can’t expect an educational institution to openly take the side of one country (any country) risking its impartiality and you can’t expect NYU to look seriously at the other demands.
c) The scholarships for Palestinian students: all the international students at NYU (and in all the other American universities) CAN’T receive scholarships, financial aid and any money from public institutions in the United States and from the government. Although NYU is a private university it has to conform to laws that have more to do with immigration, than education. Of course, I come from a country in peace so I’m in a better position than a Palestinian student and I understand that we could do something to help them, but if you give financial aid to one country you should give it to all, because I’m sure that at NYU there are International students from countries or areas that are in danger, or are (or have been in the past) torn by war as much as the Middle East.
d) Treating such a complex situation only through slogans and a flag attached it’s disrespectful for a person who (like me) has been to many of the war zones in that area and to the Israeli students who are constantly worried about their relatives. We are in college and, although I understand the need sometimes to create an even that is a bit more unconventional and shakes the system, we should know that maturity means treating each part with the same respect and invite to discussion.
e) In Italy, in my high school I remember 14 year old kids burning American flags, protesting Bush, using the same idiotic logic you are applying to the situation in Gaza, the one that to demonstrate against a situation or a war, you go in the streets and express yourself through unilateral slogans that reduce a country to a few prejudice. In the same way, this occupation would show my old high school classmates that America is not only Bush but has more complex people in it, I’m sure that Israel and NYU are not only the monsters you are depicting.
4. Isn’t a contradiction to complain about how much the university costs and then destroy some of its property? Do you want them to have to pay more for your damage?
5. Shutting a building down it’s not an admirable ting. You are preventing people from working there, students who have paid a lot of money to come here from using the internet and studying and doing something illegal.
ALL OF THIS BEING SAID, WHAT I REALLY WANT TO EMPHASIZE, IS THAT ALL THAT YOU ARE DOING, PARADOXICALLY IS NOT HELPING YOUR CAUSE BUT IT’S DESTROYING IT. THAT’S WHY IT’S SO RIDICOLOUS BECAUSE IF YOU REALLY CARED ABOUT THESE ISSUES YOU WOULDN’T BE IN KIMMEL NOW. OCCUPATION IS JUST SOMETHING THAT THE 60S MADE “COOL” BUT POLITICS ARE MUCH MORE COMPLEX THAN THIS CHILDISH STRIKES.
Someone inside should explore tethering laptops to cellphones.
I doubt the school admin could pull off shutting an entire cluster of 3G towers down or anything.
shouts and greets by the way. Don’t let the sour comments get you down. Most of them are an attempt to jam every single form of commo you peeps have. They’ve got the money but we really do have the power, whenever we don’t simply give it over to them.
You guys are an immature and short-sighted bunch, and if you really cared about any causes whatsoever you would need a lesson in negotiating 101. Obviously, you’re just a bunch of inflated and hormone-surging teenagers that give the rest of college students a bad name.
NYU used to be an ivy league college. Why does it have so little value these days? People like you.
This group has managed to damage the already bad reputation NYU students have in New York City. I’m an NYU senior, and like many others, I am unhappy with how high tuition is, even though I knowingly decided to come here under those circumstances. But you know what I’ve done because I’m upset about tuition, I’m graduating a year earlier. If you are not happy with the amount of money you’re paying to go to this school, do something about it. Don’t sit and bitch. This is a private institution; the administration does not have to make NYU affordable for everyone. I understand and sympathize with grievances about lost financial aid packages; that is a legitimate concern and should be addressed. But your group isn’t even touching on that subject. Instead of asking for ridiculous demands, like offering 13 scholarships for students from Palestine, maybe you should focus on what is going on with your own student community. And please, stop saying you represent us. You do not, in the slightest. Stop acting childish and righteous; you are not achieving something great, you’re creating a spectacle. Instead of bitching, you guys could have started a fundraising group for the University in Gaza, but obviously that would have taken more effort than you’re willing to put in. Stop complaining and offer a solution.
are you guys serious?? someone earlier posted an excellent link to a PDF of the public IRS filing by NYU from 2007….its 114 pages long and has way more financial information than you anthropology majors can process. you sound like idiots when you make statements like ‘take the power back’ or ‘we’re not gonna take it’….this isn’t birmingham, alabama circa 1955; you are students at a premier educational institution, having the privilege of being able to utilize world class facilities and faculty. you knew that it was exorbitantly expensive when you applied and is in line with the market value of premier private education throughout the country. you’re not persecuted and to whine like you are just makes you sound like whiny spoiled brats….except that girl here (http://gothamist.com/2009/02/20/nyu_student_occupation_continues_th.php?gallery0Pic=7#gallery) she can say whatever she wants…..
Good job guys… although I agree your demands spread you a bit thin… I think the point is that a few of the demands, not all, will likely be met (hopefully).
GREAT WORK and way to stand up…
RE: those referring to the 990 - that does not include much of the info these students are inquiring about - such as investment information (who is NYU invested in?)
NYU Students pay $50K a year for room & board, I think they should have SOME say in the school and be able to call upon the school to produce information on how their money is used/spent/invested
why wasn’t the student body contacted about this occupation? i don’t remember any attempt being made to educate or inform the general student body–not just people in radical groups or on radical listserves–before kimmel was occupied. takebacknyu has occupied a student space on behalf of nyu students without talking to them about it first or creating a public dialogue; it is no surprise that the student body is not showing them more solidarity.
and plus, why kimmel? that doesn’t even make sense.
Keep on keeping on!
You have plenty of support outside and we’re not going anywhere!
You all deserve a medal for your courage, ignore the idiots on top they have never been deprived or oppressed you can tell by their comments. Keep it up guys, CUNY is with you. Tax payers money is wasted on wars and occupation of other people’s land. They pay tuition they have every right to occupy what ever they want. You guys deserve a voice blame the administration for ignoring them in the first place. Shows how much they care about your thoughts and voices all the administration wants is money. CUNY is fully represented by students and in the board of trustees so you deserve it also.
SOLIDARITY !!!!
Solidarity from Boston! Keep up the good work and keep us all updated on the status on negotiations!
Virtually EVERY SINGLE student I’ve talked to thinks that you are all being silly. Only a few of your ‘demands’ even make remote sense, so you are all spreading yourselves out way too thin with calling for scholarships for 13 Palestinians, a reconsideration of Coke, and everything else. I agree that you went way too far with breaking and entering, trespassing, and damaging private property. You are a disgrace to NYU, deserve to be arrested and expelled, and should just leave if you dislike NYU so much. NYU is a private business, and has the right to charge whatever it wants. If people don’t like it, they can go somewhere else. If the price is too high, the Invisible Hand will inevitably lower tuition. People will stop applying. But people are STILL applying–it’s not too high. Many are still willing to pay.
[...] Another support ralley outside Kimmel today at noon. [...]
What you guys dont even realize is that out of the large crowd of “supporters” last night, most people were only there to see if you guys would be arrested. We were unfortunately disappointed. I hope you realize that people are embarrassed by you. You have made yourselves look foolish and ridiculous. I along with the majority of your so called “supporters” last night would be very happy if you were all expelled. Good luck finding a job after this.
You guys are ridiculous. Barricading yourself in a room in Kimmel really isn’t going to do anything. You realize NYU is a private institution and can do what it likes, right?
This is an embarrassment to NYU itself.
Here’s an idea so you guys can stop bitching about tuition hikes: why don’t you get a full time job at NYU and receive tuition remission? It’s not free, but it isn’t $50k a year. Stop being such babies.
nyusenior is obviously not a real NYU student, or he’d know that Kimmel is not a dining hall. Yes, they’ve set up shop in the Kimmel Marketplace, which is a cafeteria/dining hall, but the entire building is more or less under lockdown now, and it’s pretty much the center for a whole bunch of student groups, auditoriums, event ticket sales, music practice rooms, etc.
They didn’t shut down the classrooms, sure, but they definitely killed access to a facility that a lot of students use on a regular basis. So who’s actually suffering from their protest? Not the administration, that’s for sure.
Yeah, totally fight back. Hit female safety officers on the head. Haha. I can’t wait to see how this ends…
This is not true: the building is not “shut down”. People with jobs are in here working, folks.
Oh, and if you folks are so desperate to know our salaries, I warn you: you might be awfully humbled. NYU has made an effort not to lay people off, but 13 scholarships = 52 years’ worth of tuition. Who has to get laid off to satisfy that?
are you really that gullible to believe police officers were actually injured? They claim injury so they can go on full pay disability. This happens at every demonstrations, you get scores of cops going on medical leave for “injuries”. Same like those MTA guys that was in the news last year.
My company specializes in food catapaults…I’ll be launching candy bars, hummus, and popcorn up to the Kimmel balcony later today.
U are supported by other students all over the world!
don’t listen to the people who choose to sit on their arses and do nothing. revolution happens by doing something !!!!!
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.
It’s amazing to me that so many commenters are willing to denounce their fellow students, but not an administration that clearly tries to stifle attempts at campus worker and student organizing. As “nyusenior” mentioned, the NYU administration viciously suppressed the TA strike in 2005. That was just one moment in an administrative policy *designed* to suck money and labor from students and campus workers while providing less and less.
I wonder if the students who’re denouncing their peers right now will denounce the NYU administration when it hikes tuition and closes facilities?
It’s amazing to me that so many commenters are willing to denounce their fellow students, but not an administration that has a record of stifling campus worker and student organizing. Like “nyusenior” mentioned, the NYU administration viciously repressed a TA strike in 2005. That’s just one example of how admin policies are *designed* to suck more labor and money out of workers and students, while giving them less and less over time. It was against these very trends that the Take Back NYU folks have been fighting.
I wonder if the people who’re now denouncing student activists for “denying them access” to Kimmel (forget the fact that administration and security were the ones blocking peoples’ access) will be equally angry with the NYU administration when it hikes tuition and closes facilities?
Keep up you guys! Your display of complete stupidity is inspiring us all to take a bit more time to make sure our actions cannot be paralleled with yours.
I think someone here posted something about an IRS form 990, it’s probably a conspiracy but maybe you should check it out “just in case”.
Oh, this weekend who wants to meet me at H&M to protest the lack of transparency of the Macy’s window displays? Also we will be supporting anti-walmart activist’s right to not pay taxes so they can support boutique businesses.