Month: February 2009

NYU STATEMENT ON EVENTS AT UNIVERSITY’S KIMMEL CENTER

New York University is pleased to report that the students who sat in the Kimmel Center’s cafeteria and disrupted services have peacefully exited the building.

Robust dialogue is a customary, normal, and expected part of the interaction between students, faculty, and administration at NYU. But it is not appropriate for it to take place while there is an ongoing violation of university rules.

Despite the protesters’ stated principles that the protest was to be non-destructive and non-violent, the protesters, despite specific warnings to stay off the Kimmel Center balcony, broke the lock to gain access to the balcony. The protesters also injured an NYU security officer during a scuffle.

These actions dishonor NYU’s commitment to free exchange of ideas, reasoned debate, and legitimate forms of protest. From the outset, the University made clear to the protesters that they were violating the University rules and engaging in improper activity.

Nonetheless, the University offered to sit down and have a dialogue with the students if they left the cafeteria early the night of February 19. The 18 students who stayed through the night of February 19—after rejecting the University’s offer to leave the building—have been suspended pending the outcome of the university’s disciplinary process.

No students who were participating in the demonstration in the Kimmel Center cafeteria were arrested by the New York Police Department. None of the students’ demands were met.

(via soupsoup: mknell🙂

NYU student occupation has video

as my own work has firmly entrenched the idea of creating your own media (ie my work during the Beijing Olympics), especially when it comes to under serviced/reported political actions, i’ve now discovered that Take Back NYU! has been live streaming vis-a-vis Ustream. sadly, at this very moment, they are off the air.

in this age of techo-political theater, if you want to control the message, you MUST control the media. in my two cent, arm-chair activist review, i think they should have gotten a mogulus stream and pre-packaged their asks into an endless number of videos clearly illustrating their demands while splicing in live feeds from their occupation. at a minimum, these kids should be twittering updates and taking their message directly to the public. BUT don’t get me wrong, this is one step up from the New School occupation…

btw, if anyone has access to these kids, someone should slip them a cell phone with qik and teach them to twitter. if the cops/authorities do decide to use force, there’s nothing more dramatic than a jostling moving image with people screaming/chanting “don’t tase me bro!”

good luck comrads!

Streaming live video by Ustream