NYU: Not Your Parent's Campus Takeover
Stuart Nachbar
February 24, 2009
From NYUlocal.com comes the story of last week's student takeover of the Kimmel Center, a building on the New York University campus in Manhattan. Yesterday, campus police broke the barricaded third floor of the center and arrested the participating students, all members of a campus group called Take Back NYU. These students have been suspended, though they will attend a disciplinary hearing and given the right to appeal.
As in the building takeovers of the past, students barricaded doors, denying entry to the building to outsiders, including fellow students, faculty, administrators and campus security. TBNYU also made a varied series of demands on the university administration, including:
Full annual disclosure of budget
Full annual disclosure of endowment
Full union rights for all employees, including grad students
The creation of a socially responsible finance committee with the power to override the administration´s finance decision
This committee must be run by students and all members must sit on the board of trustees
Annual scholarships for 13 Palestinian students
A donation of excess supplies to rebuild the University of Gaza. This demand is being made in solidarity with Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
Tuition stabilization for all students
General public access to Bobst library
And, of course, full legal and disciplinary amnesty for all parties involved in the occupation.
As you can see, TBNYU had a scattered agenda; they mixed demands for disclosure with demands for the university to become involved in foreign policy in a manner to their liking. This probably made it difficult for the university administration to take TBNYU seriously, especially when they made a request for amnesty after they had made a decision to occupy a campus building. The university administration "re-captured" the occupied space after an initial agreement to meet with the students was refused.
In following the stories of this protest, I believe TBNYU made serious mistakes, not only with the scattered demands but because they polarized the community and student body with their demands related to Palestinian students and the Gaza Strip. Not only did these students have no right to ask their administration to take sides in an unresolved foreign policy conflict, they also set themselves up for conflict within a city that has an especially powerful Jewish and pro-Israel community.
The demands for disclosure, however, were not so unrealistic, nor is access to the library. Financial reports could be presented to the university community, including the students; endowment information is already reported to the higher education press. Tuition policy is also part of those reports. However, while the students are customers, they are only there for a short period of time, and the university administration must look after future generations.
If TBNYU who participated in the takeover had stuck to resolvable issues and argued their points in a more mature way, they might have earned the respect of the administration, and the rest of the university community. And they probably would have received amnesty, or the occupation would have ended faster, and more peacefully. Instead, they face a hearing to determine if they will be allowed to remain within the university community that admitted them years before.
As in the building takeovers of the past, students barricaded doors, denying entry to the building to outsiders, including fellow students, faculty, administrators and campus security. TBNYU also made a varied series of demands on the university administration, including:
Full annual disclosure of budget
Full annual disclosure of endowment
Full union rights for all employees, including grad students
The creation of a socially responsible finance committee with the power to override the administration´s finance decision
This committee must be run by students and all members must sit on the board of trustees
Annual scholarships for 13 Palestinian students
A donation of excess supplies to rebuild the University of Gaza. This demand is being made in solidarity with Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
Tuition stabilization for all students
General public access to Bobst library
And, of course, full legal and disciplinary amnesty for all parties involved in the occupation.
As you can see, TBNYU had a scattered agenda; they mixed demands for disclosure with demands for the university to become involved in foreign policy in a manner to their liking. This probably made it difficult for the university administration to take TBNYU seriously, especially when they made a request for amnesty after they had made a decision to occupy a campus building. The university administration "re-captured" the occupied space after an initial agreement to meet with the students was refused.
In following the stories of this protest, I believe TBNYU made serious mistakes, not only with the scattered demands but because they polarized the community and student body with their demands related to Palestinian students and the Gaza Strip. Not only did these students have no right to ask their administration to take sides in an unresolved foreign policy conflict, they also set themselves up for conflict within a city that has an especially powerful Jewish and pro-Israel community.
The demands for disclosure, however, were not so unrealistic, nor is access to the library. Financial reports could be presented to the university community, including the students; endowment information is already reported to the higher education press. Tuition policy is also part of those reports. However, while the students are customers, they are only there for a short period of time, and the university administration must look after future generations.
If TBNYU who participated in the takeover had stuck to resolvable issues and argued their points in a more mature way, they might have earned the respect of the administration, and the rest of the university community. And they probably would have received amnesty, or the occupation would have ended faster, and more peacefully. Instead, they face a hearing to determine if they will be allowed to remain within the university community that admitted them years before.
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