History
Oct 19th, 2008 by Take Back NYU!
Take Back NYU! is a student-run coalition united by the dream for transparency, accountability, and democracy at NYU.
In 2007, the group Students Creating Radical Change decided they wanted to take up a campaign for budget disclosure at NYU. They kicked the baby Take Back NYU! campaign off with an event called What is NYU Hiding? in October. That was followed by What is NYU Hiding in Abu Dhabi?, an event about NYU’s proposed campus in the U.A.E. After building energy and support throughout the 2007-8 school year, SCRC collaborated with a number of student groups to write Take Back NYU!’s three demands: budget disclosure, endowment disclosure, and placing a student on NYU’s Board of Trustees.
Over the summer, SCRC reached out to dozens of student groups asking for endorsements of the Take Back NYU! demands. The groups that endorsed the three demands formed the core of the TBNYU! Coalition that now leads the campaign. At the same time, members of the coalition wrote the NYU Disorientation Guide. On September 2, 2008, Take Back NYU! presented its three demands to the NYU administration and asked for a reply within one month. A couple weeks later, Take Back NYU! hosted Have Your School and Eat it Too, an edible exploration to imagine an ideal university. October 2nd came and went with no reply from NYU, leading to the planning of a town hall meeting, Steal This School!. Dozens of students came together that afternoon to speak about the future of the campaign.
On Halloween, a political theater event occurred where members staged vampire attacks around campus. Victims would plead to onlookers for student democracy to keep the vampires from sucking them dry with no accountability. At the same time, members of TBNYU! were pursuing shareholder activism, reviewing NYU’s tax forms, and helped elect a SCRC and TBNYU! member to the University Senate Finance Committee.
The next few months were a flurry of actions: there was a march for pay equity, a sham financial aid plan, a Know Your Rights workshop led by David Rankin, a panel on Creative Activism, and finally, a free form dance party in Bobst, the Study Breakdown.
In 2009, after the offensive lift on the Coke ban along with the winter siege on Gaza, Take Back NYU! occupied the Kimmel Center for two nights. For more on this, check out the posts on the website about it. Press coverage from all over the world ensued; a non-exhaustive list is here. Since, we have hosted Talk Back NYU!. We have began to work on various forms of propaganda, a shadow SRI committee, and the establishment of deeper ties across campuses.
Take Back NYU! is a dynamic, evolving campaign for accountability student democracy. Our ‘history’ changes almost weekly, so be sure to check back here for regular updates on our campaign and NYU news.
Groups
Amnesty International @ NYU
Campus Anti-War Network @ NYU
Campus Icarus
Coalition for Fair Labor @ NYU
Community Roots @ NYU
Earth Matters
Gallatone
Graduate Student Organizing Committee
Krishna Bhakti Club @ NYU
Latinos Unidos Con Honor y Amistad
Malaysian and Indonesian Students Society
National Organization for Women @ NYU
Queer Union
Radical Film and Lecture Series
Students Creating Radical Change
Students for a Democratic Society @ NYU
Students for Education on Animal Liberation
Students of Color and Allies
Transform America
Voices for Choice
Points of unity for the groups above:
- We are working towards achieving the following demands: disclosure of the budget, disclosure of the endowment and a student on the board of trustees.
- All formal decisions and actions of the Take Back NYU! coalition will be agreed upon by consensus at non-hierarchical meetings. If consensus is not reached, the group can continue with their action, but should not use the Take Back NYU! coalition’s name.
- Take Back NYU! is an egalitarian, anti-oppression, anti-sexist, anti-racist, and queer-friendly organization.
- We encourage and respect the right of our member groups to use a diversity of tactics, provided that those tactics do not conflict with aforementioned Points of Unity. Endorsing the demands of Take Back NYU! does not mean endorsing particular tactics of other members of the coalition.
- We believe these demands will create a more transparent, accountable and democratic NYU community.
I’m concerned about the rhetoric you use to describe your occupation as “taking back” the university, as though NYU had recently come under the possession of someone other than the students. When have the students ever been able to make demands upon the university, specifically the kinds of demands on your list? These demands seem to be somewhat beyond the students’, both indvidual and collective, publicly and legally recognized rights to enforce.
Lastly, what support of the NYU student population do you have to be making these demands? You seem to claim to express the rights and concerns of the student population, and have acted to inhibit certain activities of the university and the student population, but I don’t know where your support comes from.
In the interest of full disclosure and clarity, you should include this information as support for your demands, otherwise your group appears to be exerting some small collective bargaining power over a much larger set of individuals or communities who do not agree with your demands.
I have to say honestly that although I admire your passion for your cause, you’re all missing the mark. Why don’t you just drop out of NYU altogether? That will hit them where it really hurts. If all of the students just stopped enrolling, NYU would have to reconsider some of their pompous policies. As far as “Take Back NYU”, I really can’t take you all seriously when you’re paying NYU $50,000 per year in the first place. Seems contradictory.
Student protests like this one are hard to dismiss. You may be a group of affluent kids (as I was, I went to Wesleyan), but you are taking big risks for your ideals — and so you deserve respect and careful attention to your demands. Is it unreasonable that NYU be required to release information about financial investments? No. Back in 1976, I sat in the Wesleyan President’s office (we took it over) to demand that the University divest its stocks in companies that did business in South Africa. Hey, more power to ya.
If they dropped out, I guarantee you there will be thousands of people who would take their places. They can pay the tuition and fight as well, in fact that gives them even more of a reason, consider them taxpayers to a government, wouldn’t you want to know where your tax money went, and to know its spent wisely? They are working the system from the inside, what good would it do for people who do not attend the University to complain?
They could also work with the system, I’m not big into partisan politics, but securing seats in the student senate under the banner of your organization couldn’t hurt, join with the NYU SDS, but I urge you to also confront the school about there ever growing grasp on the neigborhood, eventually Washington Square Park will just be part of the Campus.
I am a former “budget analyst” for NYU and all I can say is that the emphasis was always on “How can we make more money?”
-Can we use vending machines instead of a real cafeteria?
-Can we charge market rate for students? (Yes - I mean rent)
-NYU is sooooooo top heavy with people with big titles that do nothing - they are there only because they had lunch with Mr. Sexton.
-The “Travel Expenses” & “Lunch Expenses” of top admins/profs are the GDP of most small nations.
-Their offices are only the best i.e. profs and top admins and are furnished with only the best furniture & location.
-Some Profs are housed in best Brownstones rent free!!!!!
Wake up NYU students - stop blaming corporate America for a little while and look what’s happening under your nose!
-Jake the Former Budget Analyst
Oh, I’m sorry, one more thing!
Is it possible to ammend your demands regarding Gaza scholarships? Keep them in, but write up contracts for the students that state that whatever they study must be paid off through service to the glbal community (or the redevelopment of the destroyed strip). Community public health/pediatrics students will work in free clinics internationally, teachers at schools in developing countries, educational theater at refugee camps, Others at family planning clinics, Environmental Architects for the rebuilding efforts, etc. This plan could eventually be implemented for a number of students, not just Gazans.
What do you expect? It’s a PRIVATE university that YOUR PARENTS ,and THEY PAID for it. IF YOU DONT LIKE THE SCHOOL LEAVE! You are not unique and are completely REPLACEABLE.
How many NYU students had these issues with the university when they applied and were accepted? I have many of these same issues with the ways that private educational institutions work and so I have gone to public universities — which have an obligation to be open.
Please Please Please just shut up with the yelling and megahones at Kimmel. Allow the students in Bobst, who aren’t wasting their time complaining about things like budget disclosure and and demanding scholarships for students from the gaza strip (?!?!?!?!) like you all are, to study in peace. You are wasting your time, and disrupting mine. TakebackNYU sucks.
Fight the just cause. Your efforts will not be wasted, but will bare fruits. If only people were as passionate for disclosures on the Bailout…
I fully support you guys. Go get ‘em!
Unbelievable the responses I see here. I am not a student of NYU nor am I affiliated with the school at all, I came to this sight from a NYTimes.com article. People who think that this is not a valid cause are the same people who have not clue what’s going on in Washington and fail to care. If you are a student of NYU, don’t you want to konw that the hundreds of thousands of dollars you spend to improve the school are actually being used to improve the school, and not to pay for scholarships that were not earned, or to go to development of programs/facilities that provide not benifit to the school. This school is a public institute, funded by the state and students of the school, disclosure of how the money is being used should be required, not only to the students but to the people of New York who are funding this school.
To those who are behind this cause, very impressed, but please remember to keep this civil, violence is never the answer.
i agree 100% with Rob. keep your noses in your books and ignore what goes on around you. no matter how appalling its policies and conduct, you must remain respectful of the university administration. talking about change was tolerable, but this is crossing the line. taking action to effect change is absolutely intolerable
Take Back NYU, thank you for your courage. We support you with revolutionary love.
Historical Memory. Too often we succumb to the historical amnesia that ideological state apparatuses (news and entertainment media, schools, the academy, etc.) shower us with. The 1950s were perhaps the most reactionary decade in US history, yet the 1960s were revolutionary - the globe over. Let us reclaim our historical memory. We understand your action as laying required groundwork for radical action to come.
Transnational resistance. Transnational capitalism - which rather apparently continues to fail us - requires transnational networks of resistance that act at the community level (the old adage: think globally, act locally). We admire your praxis.
New Millennium Movement to Free Labor. We acknowledge that just because you are NYU students does not mean that you are fed a silver spoon. Many “elite” universities leave their alumni with tens/ hundreds of thousands of dollars in both public and private debt, making us New Millennium Indentured Servants. As a Cornell alum, I understand that many of us leave the ivory tower forced to work for an exploitative and oppressive economic regime. We should not let ourselves be made to feel guilty for our hard work and luck - especially when we are fighting our local fight in solidarity with a transnational movement to free our labor and minds.
Lastly, as a NYC public school teacher, thank you for your action. The neo-liberalization of institutions of learning makes them increasingly inaccessible for many young members of our communities - not against the interests the government, either. Our struggles is are one.
Congratulations Take Back NYU,
Evan Baker Smith
Cornell University ‘08
NYC Department of Education
Just another group of Anti-Smites, Anti-Israel, and I’m sure a few self-hating Jews.
Just a group of punks that will look back on this in years to come and say “Why the hell did I do that and ruin my future?”
NYU is NOT a public university. It’s private. Get your facts straight.
>consider them taxpayers to a government,
>wouldn’t you want to know where your tax money went
Of course. But going to NYU is totally NOT like taxes. Taxes are mandatory, and enforced by the government. I have no choice about it. NYU is completely voluntary. And ridiculously overpriced anyway. So you pay $50,000 for a year and then you complain? I’m just saying that makes no sense. I’m sorry I don’t get it.
You are coming off as nothing more than pitiful amateurs with a confused agenda. Hypocritical phonies even. Put in your 4 years, which I suppose were just fine and dandy at application time; protest more productively and keep what’s going on in Gaza out of your beef with your $50K per year education. Oh - and enjoy your new schools.
If this action will help the innocent Palestinean civilians rise up against the murderous and cowardly thugs that dress as school girls and hide amongst women and children with guns and bombs up their dresses then i’m all for it. And if such revolutionaries end up throwing away their futues then so be it.
I wanted to send my best wishes on your bold, superb demonstration for accountability and transparency. As the former head of the Graduate Student Caucus I wish you every success as you transform Education Inc. into something by and for the people (rather than something resembling the hideous conglomeration of the US Senate and Wall Street).
Don’t let the idiots and sociopaths beat you down. Keep at it.
(escuse my engish!) We are going through times that history will remember, and so we have to take a stand as members of organisms that give us -or should give us- the power to think a better worl: universities. It seems to be than the “correct” place that intelectuals and students should ocuppate is the one leaded by means of individualism and self benefit; any intent to widen those limits are insulted to be bandalism (common sense at this social and economic system tell us to use knowledge, the highest bastion of humanity, for cheap and low propouses!!). That is because we have the power to make a change, and some do not whant us to use it. Think for a while: why do you want megaphones to shut up when they do not let you study if you are not being let to think att all even by studiyng? TBNYU is just legitimating the true role a profesional must have in a society, that is: the resposability to critisice power when it hides from reazon, democracy and humans rights. If we, who have the tools to think beyond reality standars, do not use them to point out injustice, then I do not know what are we studyng for at all!! As students we have a compromise to the world, not only to our pockets. That responsability, now most of all needs to emerg: At times when a world capitalism crisis is showing the worst of its unhuman mecanisms that lead to misery, unemployment, imperialists wars (meaning the deaths and hunger of most of the worl population!). FROM CORDOBA ARGENTNA I SUPPORT YOU. THANKS FOR THE EXAMPLE. THE HOLE WORLD STUDENTS ARE WATCHING.. AND LEARNING! ¡¡¡FUERZA COMPAÑEROS!!!
cb: i’m not an expert so correct me if i’m wrong, but i had always been under the impression that judaism was not about unquestioning support of israel’s foreign policy but rather universal humanism. your view that uncritical support for israel’s foreign policy to such an integral part of being jewish that those who take action against it are “self-hating Jews” is narrow-minded. it is your one-dimensional interpretation of judaism that is anti-semitic
What is the basis of your claim to represent the student body? There are over 50 thousand students here, who are busy trying to get a degree. Most of us have too much course work to protest some mythical administration. Last semester I had to find another place to study, when you ran into Bobst and started dancing. How’s that representing the best interests of anyone? If you’re truly interested in helping, I would encourage you to start right here in the city. There are thousands of kids that need tutoring, elderly that need advocates and homeless that need shelter, food and health care. It’s easy to make demands at a faceless administration, when you know that even if you’re expelled you can go back to your parents affluent homes and re-enroll at another university. It’s more difficult to help someone hands on, day after day. So please, for those of us that are making an actual difference in people’s lives, stop with this nonsense and do something more productive.
PS. Have any of you worked and donated any of the money for Gaza? Or how about this, enroll in a cheaper school, and send the difference in your tuition to Gaza. What, no takers? Making a rukus and yelling about a “revolution” is much easier, isn’t it?
Greg (Comment #12): Do you even know what NYU is? I think you might need to do some homework, buddy. New York University is a private university, where have you been? Before you accuse others of being out of touch or ignorant you need to look at what you know yourself. I’ll give you a hint: it’s not very much!
You are no better than the bandwagon kids who are joining this because they feel like they must be agents of change if they want to be recognized.
Our university in Idaho (along with another one) has made their operating budget public.
To number 25: Greg in #12 is absolutely correct. Although we are technically a private university, we receive TONS of funding from federal, state, and local governments. This comes in the form of research grants, student loan assistance, collaboration on special projects and contracting, but more importantly, in the fact that as a nonprofit, we don’t pay any taxes. We are one of the largest real estate owners in NYC, and we don’t pay a dime in taxes for any of it. Taxes on all of that land and space would otherwise be creating quite a revenue for the city, funds that could be spent on public education or infrastructure. So we’re not isolated from the public sphere. This, and the incredible impact that we have on the city and our neighbors, is what makes us a public entity, in that we should be accountable to the greater public.
(Although, it should be noted that TBNYU! is not asking NYU to be held accountable to the greater public, just the university community that constitute our school)
I’m a senior in high school and applied to NYU for Fall 2009. I will most definitely not be attending next year though. I do not want to be part of a school where the administration cannot meet basic student demands.
Disrupt normal university functions and present a large list of demands, which they would never accept, to a private university and you expected what to happen?
The university had every right to go in there an suspend all the students involved.
Take NYU back and don’t back down like that sniveling little mouthpiece depicted on YouTube. Go head, get your names and pictures on the net in perpetuity and allow me, an international employer of thousands to pat you on the back and tell you what great job you have done! I hope you get all you’re asking for because this is going to cost you in areas you have no clue as of yet.
As an international business owner based in a free enterprise society in the private sector, let me clue you in on the “rocks are hard, water is wet” reality in all of this. The last thing any CEO, Director, Partner, small business owner and/or potential employer needs is any dissent among his ranks and will as we do pay dearly in making sure insubordination is kept at a minimum. Especially when reviewing for entry level executive programs. One negative click of the mouse on that candidate is one less candidate your competition needs to worry about. The dossiers I am asked to review is part of an assessment for outside executives includes video from a decade ago to present tense and all between. I have reviewed video of executive candidates participating in Sports, Music, Theatre, Summer Stock productions, Birthdays or speeches as class officers from the mid 70’s. These candidates are hired from an amalgamation of material including these video’s which are getting easier and easier to obtain and we go to great lengths to do so.
The business world could give a rat’s ass regarding your thoughts about anything but how well you perform your job and your scalability ratio (management material). That’s it.
Unless you are all studying to be professors, authors, actors or have families that place you in the rarified Trust atmosphere, you have nothing to worry about if you’re successful in these fields. But if you’re somewhat akin to 90% of all University graduates, to make a living in our society prepare for some harsh reality.
In business my young friends you will take this emotion that led to this event home with you to your Wife, Husband, kids and/or pets but you won’t be bringing this to your place of employment assuming your reaching for a specific profession in any sector or industry. Sans your accepting a job paying north of say $100,000 per year, you won’t be acting out in this fashion in the corporate world whether you like it or not.
So, as always when generational youngsters grow up, scratch their heads as to WTF did I do or how long is this information file going to haunt me? No one knows but when you see that employment agreement which states your employer can dismiss you without cause, start sweating. If you fancy yourself so special that the “without cause” can be negotiated out of your employment package? You’re dreaming.
I’m very fortunate that my generational protests at U. C. Berkley, Kent State, Washington D. C. that resulted in the closing of all major Universities during the Viet Nam war was not memorialized on the net. Just a heads up there my young friends on the “rocks are hard, water is wet” dynamics of which we now live.
Unfortunately don’t bother applying for any position at my company because your CV won’t make it out of HR and I’ll know nothing about it. Be careful my young friends and remember when this or any isometric activity is taking place, the last thing you need is to “Say Cheese”.
Take this information or leave it, just giving you my personal experience of our bringing a new and different definition to the word protest………. for all time.
Good luck…..
While I acknowledge and see value in offering scholarships to Gaza students, why can we not offer scholarships to poor Israeli students as well? The Palestinians are not the only group being impeded by the ongoing attacks. There are many Israeli students who would jump at the chance to be educated in a safe environment. Please consider the Israeli students if scholarships are granted.
One of the key arguments against TBNYU! here seems to be that since NYU is an expensive private institution, that students have no right to protest its actions or demand accountability from it. This is crazy! Just because an institution is private does not mean it is unaccountable to its students, employees, or society at large. When institutions, whether public or private, misbehave, people have a right to demand change. Many of the schools that were occupied in the 1980’s to demand divestment from corporations that did business with South Africa were private, to take just one example. Are you against the anti-apartheid occupations as well? I think that if you look at the history of social movements, you will find that they demand change from private institutions as often as from public ones, and that these movements have made our world a better, more just and equal place.
I posted this in another thread but is worth repeating here. NYU is a private entity. It is not government, nor is it a public corporation.
When you buy a loaf of bread at a baker, do you demand that he release information about how much of your $3, or the collective $300 of other customers money goes towards in operating her business? Do you demand that she donate part of that money or to keep her bakery open at night for public karaoke?
Of course you have every right to ask or demand these things and if she does not comply, you just simply go to another baker. You chose this baker out of your own free will. There are many other bakers whose bread you can spend your money on.
Dear NYU Alum:
A university is not a baker and higher education is not a loaf of bread. You do not simply buy it and go about your business. For one thing, universities are places where political and social ideas are aired and debated, whether they are public or private. That is one of their core functions. For another thing, all private universities receive financial support from the federal government, so they have an obligation to the public as a result of that.
The analogy of an NYU student to a baker’s customer is not quite right either. Students at NYU become part of the institution because they are there for an extended period of time: at least four years, in most cases. Because they have a long term stake in the school, they have a right to express their disagreement with it and to shape its policies.
Third, what about previous student movements, such as the movement against South African apartheid? Many students at private schools forced their schools to divest from South African companies, which put tremendous pressure on the South African government and contributed to the fall of apartheid. Are you against that as well?
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I think its great you guys are doing this, it is time to take a stand. What are they doing in Abu-Dubai? I think they should let the students, who are paying the tuition, know what is going on, they should have a list of where all the money goes. I wish I could go occupy the buildings with you! Stay strong and continue to do what is right, which is what so many of us lack….fight for a cause!
Somebody has got to do it.
To the people of NYU: Even a private university like NYU has stakeholders, such as students, professors, TAs, PTLs, and alumni. If the university chooses not to listen to them, it is at risk of being protested against. While I, a Rutgersman, am unfamiliar with NYU politics, I am not surprised that there has been controversy - let’s face it, activism runs strong in Greenwich Village, and has since at least the days of Jane Jacobs. In this case, I suspect NYU made a bad investment in “Abu-Dubai” (that would be the United Arab Emirates), and apparently got called on it. Am I right? Dunno. But a school should listen to its participants.