Support the Student Takeover at New School!
Posted by Mike E on December 18, 2008
Thanks to Keith and Joe Ramsey for updates on these events.
What could be more welcome, what could be more needed, than the eruption of a radical student movement within the U.S.!
Circulate the news!
Bob Kerrey, whose removal is demanded below, is a notorious war criminal from Vietnam. He personally directed and participated in the cold massacre of civilian Vietnamese in Thanh Phong village in February 1969 — over a dozen women and children were rounded up and murdered by the death squad he commanded. Like the war criminal John McCain, Kerrey became a U.S. senator of this criminal system. He is (for now) still the president of the New School.
Check out the New School in Exile website and blog.
* * * * *
From the New School SDS chapter (7 pm 12/16/08)
We have just occupied New School University.
We liberate this space for ourselves, and all those who want to join us, for our general autonomous use. We take the university in explicit solidarity with those occupying the universities and streets in Greece, Italy, France and Spain.
This occupation begins as a response to specific conditions at the New School, the corporatization of our education and the impoverishment of education in general. However, it is not just this university but also New York City that is in crisis: in the next several months, thousands of us will be losing our jobs, while housing remains unaffordable and unavailable to many and the cost of living skyrockets.
So we stress that the general nature of these intolerable conditions exists across the spectrum of capitalist existence, in our universities and our cities, in all of our social relations. For this reason, what begins tonight at the New School cannot, and should not, be contained here.
Thus: with this occupation, we inaugurate a wave of occupations in New York City and the United States, a coming wave of occupations, blockades, and strikes in this time of crisis.
Be assured, this is only the beginning,
With solidarity and love from New York to Greece, to Italy, France and Spain,
To the coming insurrection.
The occupied New School
* * * * *
ForThe Demands and More Statements:
* * * * *
Demands:
• The removal of Bob Kerrey as president of our university
• The removal of James Murtha as executive vice president of our university
• Students, faculty, and staff elect the president, EVP, and Provost.
• Students are part of the interim committee to hire a provost.
• The removal of Robert B. Millard as treasurer of the board of trustees.
• Intelligible transparency and disclosure of the university budget and investments.
• The creation of a committee on socially responsible investments.
• The immediate suspension of capital improvement projects like the tearing down of 65 fifth Ave.
• Instead, money towards the creation of an autonomous student space.
• Instead, money towards scholarships and reducing tuition.
• Instead, money for the library and student life generally.
Public Statements:
Dear New School Community,
As you may well know, the Radical Student Union (SDS, SEAC, UFPJ) organized a demonstration and sit-in at the Board of Trustees’ meeting last Wednesday, December 10th. Initially this demonstration was planned around our own issues with the Board regarding Robert B. Millard and his role as treasurer, yet after distributing flyers and vocalizing our disputes with Millard the end result was over 60 students who came to not only protest Millard, but Bob Kerrey as well. Upon hearing the faculty vote, we tailored our demonstration in solidarity with the faculty concerns as we saw an appropriate connection.
We strongly support their vote of No Confidence in President Bob Kerrey and Executive Vice-President James Murtha. They have systematically denied our rights as students to have any say in our own education. This is but one area in which their attempts to control and shape all aspects of the University in their own interest has stifled cooperation, democracy, and self-governance at the New School.
Can students honestly say that we want Bob Kerrey to be the president of this university when we are given no choice but to force him to simply hear our concerns, which he continually refuses to do? Should we not have a president who is democratically accountable to everyone in the university, who represents the interests of those whose efforts make this university run on a day-to-day basis? What trust can we have for an administration and board that not only supports him lock-step, but has the audacity to assert that our concern with their role in the university is simply “misplaced anxiety over the state of the economy”?
Our country is indeed in a severe economic crisis — and meanwhile the costly occupation of Iraq, an unpopular and illegal war, rages on. The people of this country have chosen President Elect Barack Obama because he said he stands for hope and change in these times of need. Do we want a university president who not only believes that democracy can be militarily imposed on another nation, but also believes that he is accountable to no one when imposing his will on the academic curriculum, despite the fact that this university was founded in opposition to war and the strain it always puts on the academy?
If he believes in democracy, then why does he maintain a Presidential autocracy? Why did he organize a conference on “Free Inquiry At Risk: Universities in Dangerous Times” when he has proven himself to be the biggest threat to our university? Does Kerrey not remember that the New School was founded as the University of Exile, and posed as a haven for radical academics and activists who had to literally escape the possibility of death in Europe? We need a university president who can work to build solutions during these times of need, not one who is part of the problem. We need to make this university into a symbol of change for a world desperately in need of substance, and not just a brand created by the Offices of Finance & Business and Communications & External Affairs. We in the Radical Student Union believe in a democratic university where we have a say in university decisions in proportion to the degree we are affected by their outcomes. As such, we believe deans, faculty, and students should not be denied the right to be involved in the decision-making processes that Kerrey and Murtha consistently keep us out of. We have the right to voice our opinions in regards to the future of this university and how it could be run under such freedoms.
If the faculty chooses to continue its efforts, they have the full and active support of the Radical Student Union. We have come together and have formulated a plan of action to build a more democratic university throughout the spring. Removing Kerrey and Murtha is a central concern. We will also continue to pursue Millard’s removal, transparency and accountability for the general budget and the endowment, and the creation of a committee on Socially Responsible Investment and University Self-Management.
All of this is detailed in our booklet: “The Project for a Socially Responsible University.”
The Radical Student Union (SDS, SEAC, UFPJ)
* * * * *
From within the occupied New School in Exile, 65 5th Avenue, New York City:
We have been in occupation of the Graduate Faculty building of the New School University since 8pm Wednesday the 17th of December. More than 100 of us have taken over a student building, including our only library, which the administration has marked for demolition without creating any equivalent new space on campus. We have opened the building as a student-run autonomous space, in protest against the administration of President Bob Kerrey who recently received a vote of no confidence from the majority of faculty in this school. Details of our multiple grievances against Kerrey, his vice-President Jim Murtha, and treasurer of the board of trustees Robert Millard are laid out in our first communiqué. This morning we have an update on our situation. At around noon today New School security moved to block our access to the fire exits, preventing us from allowing in our fellow students of the Inter-University Consortium to whom they had refused access to the building in a violation of the Consortium agreement. When they failed to remove us, the NYPD were sent in to violently evict us from the fire exit and one of our fellow students was arrested. The police entered the building at the same time as President Kerrey arrived and offered to speak with us, we responded by refusing to negotiate with him and repeating our demand that he immediately resign. He left and took his police with him. At the moment our security has returned and our numbers have doubled, but we expect future incursions on our space and encourage all who support us to come to the Graduate Building at 65 5th Avenue and 14th street.
Signed, The New School in Exile
Mike E said
English translation, followed by Spanish original
Traducción al inglés, seguida por el original en castellano
[download statement]
GREETINGS FROM MEXICO
[translation]
Compañeros [comrades]:
With this message we send you greetings of solidarity from Mexico. The news about the courageous action that you have undertaken, by occupying the New School for Social Research facility, is already spreading around the world. You should know that in this struggle, you are not alone. In Mexico, throughout the last ten years, there has been a whole series of struggles by teachers, education workers and the students themselves against the continuous attacks that the bourgeoisie, its government and its parties have launched against public education. In Oaxaca just two years ago, the elementary-school teachers took over their schools and began a strike that turned into a social struggle of enormous proportions when the bloody governor Ulises Ruiz tried to take down a plantón [occupation of the city center] through a huge deployment of the police.
Ten years ago, tens of thousands of us students at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM—National Autonomous University of Mexico) began the winter by occupying the campus of our university. So starting in April 1999, we were on strike, fighting against the attempt to impose tuition at the university. We fought so that, in reality, the already small proportion of sons and daughters of workers able to attend the university not suffer a de facto expulsion [because of having to pay tuition]. We also insisted that for the democratic right of education to be real, it is not enough for education to be free. We Trotskyists of the Grupo Internacionalista stressed that it was necessary to fight for a living stipend for students, together with the abolition of the university administration (rectoría) and its immediate replacement by a university government of students, workers and faculty.
Our key experience in this struggle was the formation of worker/student defense guards which, at critical moments, guarded the occupation in order to prevent an announced military attempt to eject the students who were occupying the university. Hundreds of electrical workers and university workers joined our barricades at campuses of the UNAM system. Thanks to this support from workers, the strike was able to hold on and stay strong for ten months, until 6 February 2000, when the newly-formed Policía Federal Preventiva (Federal Preventive Police) was used for the first time, with the forcible eviction of the strikers from University City [the enormous main UNAM campus in the south of Mexico City]. A thousand of us who were participating in the assembly of the Strike General Council were imprisoned. However, our tenacity bore fruit, since despite the repression, the university authorities were unable to impose tuition. Today, UNAM continues to be a university with no tuition, where do you not have to pay to study.
Today, our compañeros at the university and its preparatory schools continue to confront the rage of the reactionary administrations which have reactivated shock groups [thugs] called porros. In March of this year, students at the College of Sciences and Humanities-South campus [one of UNAM’s preparatory schools] occupied their school for a week to protest the coordinated actions by the porros and the authorities at their campus. Through this action, they achieved the sacking of the bloodhound [repressor] who was in charge of campus “security.” The massive mobilizations of students were key to this victory, together with the support of the campus workers, who are members of STUNAM (Union of the Workers of the Autonomous National University of Mexico).
Because of all this, compañeros, in the midst of your cold northern winter we send you our very warm greetings in the struggle.
J. Santamaría, for the Grupo Internacionalista.
SPANISH ORIGINAL:
Saludos desde México
Compañeros,
Por este medio queremos enviarles un saludo solidario desde México. Las noticias acerca de la valiente acción que han emprendido al ocupar las instalaciones de la New School for Social Research están ya esparciéndose por el mundo. Deben saber que en su lucha no están solos. En México, a lo largo de la última década, ha habido toda una serie de luchas por parte de los profesores, los trabajadores de la educación y los estudiantes mismos en contra de los ininterrumpidos ataques que la burguesía, su gobierno y sus partidos han lanzado contra la educación pública. En Oaxaca hace apenas dos años, los maestros de primaria tomaron sus escuelas y emprendieron una huelga que luego se convirtió en una lucha social de enorme envergadura cuando el sanguinario gobernador Ulises Ruiz intentó barrer un plantón con un enorme despliegue policíaco.
Hace diez años, decenas de miles de estudiantes de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), empezábamos el invierno ocupando las instalaciones de nuestra universidad. Y es que, desde el mes de abril de 1999, nos encontrábamos en huelga, luchando contra la imposición de cuotas en la universidad. Peleábamos para que, en los hechos, no se expulsara de la UNAM a los ya de por sí escasos hijos de trabajadores que pueden asistir, insistiendo también en que para hacer efectivo el derecho democrático a la educación, no basta con que no se cobre con la educación. Los trotskistas del Grupo Internacionalista insistimos también en que había que luchar por estipendio para que los estudiantes puedan vivir, así como por la abolición de la administración universitaria (la rectoría) y su sustitución inmediata por un gobierno de estudiantes, trabajadores y profesores.
Nuestra experiencia clave en esa lucha consistió en la formación de guardias de obreros y estudiantes que, en momentos críticos, cuidaban de la ocupación para impedir un anunciado desalojo militar. Cientos de electricistas y de trabajadores universitarios se sumaron a nuestras barricadas en diferentes planteles de la UNAM. Fue gracias a ese apoyo obrero que la huelga pudo persistir con fuerza durante diez meses, hasta que el 6 de febrero de 2000 la nueva Policía Federal Preventiva se estrenó en el desalojo de la Ciudad Universitaria. Un millar de estudiantes que estábamos en la asamblea del Consejo General de Huelga fuimos encarcelados. Nuestro tesón rindió frutos: a pesar de la represión, las autoridades universitarias y el gobierno fueron incapaces de implementar las cuotas. Hoy, la UNAM sigue siendo una universidad en la que no se cobra por estudiar.
Hoy en día, nuestros compañeros en la universidad y en sus escuelas preparatorias siguen enfrentando la ira de las administraciones reaccionarias que han reactivado grupos de choque porriles. En marzo de este año, los estudiantes del Colegio de Ciencias y Humanidades Sur ocuparon su escuela durante una semana para protestar contra las acciones coordinadas de los porros y las autoridades del plantel. Con ello, lograron la destitución del sabueso a cargo de la “seguridad” del plantel. Las movilizaciones masivas de estudiantes fueron clave para el triunfo, lo mismo que el apoyo de los trabajadores afiliados al STUNAM.
Es por esto, compañeros, que en este frío invieron boreal les enviamos unos muy calurosos saludos en la lucha.
J. Santamaría, por el Grupo Internacionalista.
Mike E said
Dear New School Community, As you may well know, the Radical Student Union (SDS, SEAC, UFPJ) organized a demonstration and sit-in at the Board of Trustees’ meeting last Wednesday, December 10th. Initially this demonstration was planned around our own issues with the Board regarding Robert B. Millard and his role as treasurer, yet after distributing flyers and vocalizing our disputes with Millard the end result was over 60 students who came to not only protest Millard, but Bob Kerrey as well. Upon hearing the faculty vote, we tailored our demonstration in solidarity with the faculty concerns as we saw an appropriate connection.
We strongly support their vote of No Confidence in President Bob Kerrey and Executive Vice-President James Murtha. They have systematically denied our rights as students to have any say in our own education. This is but one area in which their attempts to control and shape all aspects of the University in their own interest has stifled cooperation, democracy, and self-governance at the New School.
Can students honestly say that we want Bob Kerrey to be the president of this university when we are given no choice but to force him to simply hear our concerns, which he continually refuses to do? Should we not have a president who is democratically accountable to everyone in the university, who represents the interests of those whose efforts make this university run on a day-to-day basis? What trust can we have for an administration and board that not only supports him lock-step, but has the audacity to assert that our concern with their role in the university is simply “misplaced anxiety over the state of the economy”?
Our country is indeed in a severe economic crisis — and meanwhile the costly occupation of Iraq, an unpopular and illegal war, rages on. The people of this country have chosen President Elect Barack Obama because he said he stands for hope and change in these times of need. Do we want a university president who not only believes that democracy can be militarily imposed on another nation, but also believes that he is accountable to no one when imposing his will on the academic curriculum, despite the fact that this university was founded in opposition to war and the strain it always puts on the academy?
If he believes in democracy, then why does he maintain a Presidential autocracy? Why did he organize a conference on “Free Inquiry At Risk: Universities in Dangerous Times” when he has proven himself to be the biggest threat to our university? Does Kerrey not remember that the New School was founded as the University of Exile, and posed as a haven for radical academics and activists who had to literally escape the possibility of death in Europe? We need a university president who can work to build solutions during these times of need, not one who is part of the problem. We need to make this university into a symbol of change for a world desperately in need of substance, and not just a brand created by the Offices of Finance & Business and Communications & External Affairs. We in the Radical Student Union believe in a democratic university where we have a say in university decisions in proportion to the degree we are affected by their outcomes. As such, we believe deans, faculty, and students should not be denied the right to be
involved in the decision-making processes that Kerrey and Murtha consistently keep us out of. We have the right to voice our opinions in regards to the future of this university and how it could be run under such freedoms.
If the faculty chooses to continue its efforts, they have the full and active support of the Radical Student Union. We have come together and have formulated a plan of action to build a more democratic university throughout the spring. Removing Kerrey and Murtha is a central concern. We will also continue to pursue Millard’s removal, transparency and accountability for the general budget and the endowment, and the creation of a committee on Socially Responsible Investment and University Self-Management. All of this is detailed in our booklet: “The Project for a Socially Responsible University.”
The Radical Student Union (SDS, SEAC, UFPJ)
Tell No Lies said
Can we have that conversation on whether or not Obama’s election would be good for the emergence of radical politics in the US again? Obviously there are many factors in play here, but I can’t help but pose the question of whether the Republic Windows and Doors occupation and now this would have occurred in the wake of a McCain victory.
Mike E said
Brother TNL: we will be continuing our conversation…. but I would like, just for a moment, to give these students their moment and our support.
I have to say, as I got the news of this takeover I was swept with powerful emotions, and tears just streamed down my face. We need this. We need a new generation to dare to fight. And such sparks need to be fanned and supported (in many ways, including by stepping up our presumptuous work of reconceiving and regrouping).
* * * * *
Then, on your point:
There are (admittedly) very dry dogmatic forces who only and simply saw Obama and his campaign as a diversion and a “firefighter.” As radical struggle doesn’t emerge from many cracks and many trends. And those forces need to be exposed to the fresh air of real life. (And like all dogmatism, their expectations and understandings don’t weather well in real life.)
But, lets be clear, the issue on this site has not mainly been whether this election might raise expections and spark struggle. This has all along been an important possibility (as it was in the early 60s). And something to welcome.
The main struggle we had was over whether to support Obama. Whether revolutionaries should support Obama. Two very different matters, right?
And now that the election is over, this question too will be posed over and over again — among the people, among us. To those who supported Obama — when do you stop? What will it look like?
* * * * * *
Finally:
When new forces break into struggle — they often are trying to “realize” the promises of this system. They often think this system promises “democracy” but doesn’t deliver — and so the goal of struggle is often (initially) to make real the “promises” (and the ideas) of the system itself.
That is no crime. It is how things are and how they develop. People often say “we want in” before they discover “we want out.” They often see the system as hypocritical, before they discover it is truly oppressive and imperialist.
But it would be wrong (perhaps even a crime) if we (i.e. the revolutionaries) reflected, or tailed or adopted this views (of the people as they break into struggle). If we became muddled, and simply ran to embrace (not just the struggle, which should be embraced, but the ideas which, at this or that moment, bob to the top).
The students at the New School have focused on “democratizing” their institution. fine. they have demanded that the war criminal Bob Kerrey be removed (certainly fine!)
But their statements about this reflect their current understanding. As they indict Kerrey they write “Do we want a university president who not only believes that democracy can be militarily imposed on another nation.”
You have to say, this is probably the softest description of what Kerrey intended imaginable.
Now the U.S. (then and now) claimed it was “bringing democracy” — but revolutionaries and communists understand that this was not their goals. The problem with Kerrey is not that he “believe that democracy can be militarily imposed” — but that he was a conscious killer for imperialism, and was seeking to impose U.S. military, political and economic DOMINATION over East Asia (not just Vietnam, but Indochina and beyond it Revolutionary China.)
These students wrote:
“The people of this country have chosen President Elect Barack Obama because he said he stands for hope and change in these times of need.”
And here too, we revolutionaries necesarily have a different view. We know it is not the people (fundamentally) who “choose” presidents — but a whole system of capitalist politics, funding, vetting and approval that only squeezes forward reliable representatives of this system (and this empire). The system chose Obama (and McCain) as their candidates, and then the people were allowed to “pick” between Obama and McCain (even while the political apparatus of the media influenced that “picking” at every step.)
I point this out not to criticize the students — who are welcome to their views and analysis and demands. I am pointing out that we have to differentiate from the things that draw people into struggle and the ideas that actually reflect reality. We have to think through what people need to know, and learn, about the world around them… and identify the gaps between their current understanding and reality (and the gaps between what they believe and what they will have to sharply understand in order to be liberated).
Kalash said
i’m left wondering if i can just stroll on in there and become an active participant.
in the meantime: Hunter College (CUNY): RISE UP!
Mike E said
Kalash:
I’m not in New York city at the moment…. but if I was in NYC, I’d be finding a way to get to the folks in that building.
Take a recorder, and interview them for Kasama — we can post the transcripts and the audio.
do it right now, brother.
Keith said
Here is a you tube clip from a comrade inside. It is brief…
Keith said
Here is one more
hegemonik said
Everyone:
I was there when the occupation started. I left, as I was getting sick and the last thing the occupiers need are my germs.
If you are in New York, you should go *now*. The situation is that the occupiers are basically under siege with both security and the NYPD. There was one reported incursion, in which the NYPD attempted to sneak in. At least one arrest has been reported, as well as one outright assault by NYPD. All of these are on the outside of the cafeteria that was seized.
Without spilling too much: it appears possible to enter the seized cafeteria. If you are willing to join them, just go and I think you’ll be able to figure it out.
Folks should know that at 5pm, administration ordered faculty to leave. This may be a prelude to a bigger NYPD assault on the building. Folks are needed on the outside of the facility as much as on the inside to deter the pigs from doing so.
In terms of the broader struggle: folks should know that Kerrey has broken off from an agreement to speak with the student senate. That meeting will be held on the grounds of the occupation. The occupation has at the very least been successful in avoiding the forum that defused the last occupation (which was of Kerrey’s own office).
There are at least two rallies planned, one at 7pm and one at 10pm. No clue on what the tone will be. The future is, as always, unwritten…
Kalash said
i don’t directly serve kasama, mike; while i occasionally contribute to its readership, and would gladly use it as a place to post anything relevant, i’m neither an official member of this project nor a subject to be ordered around.
this isn’t merely some petty-bourgeois individualist manifestation of self, i just think you might want to consider how heavy-handed “suggestions” like the following can be interpreted, regardless of whether or not “brother” or “comrade” is thrown in for good measure.
“Take a recorder, and interview them for Kasama — we can post the transcripts and the audio.
do it right now, brother.”
Mike E said
I understand people are a bit touchy after the commandism and arrogance of our movement’s past, but still, dude….
Several people have written (here and elsewhere) that they are thinking of going down to join in…. so the “do it now, brother” means: don’t wait too long, if you are thinking of going down there. The cops may bust these folks.
If you are thinking of going down, do it now, don’t wait.
If anyone wants a suggestion for helping to get the story out… they can take a recorder with them. You may end up recording the confrontation or recording the political message that the occupiers want to get across.
R said
I wish I could take up the call. Clearly this uprising calls for the worlds attention and represents what students are up against in alarming severity, especially in light of what’s transpiring in Greece, and the global economic crisis. Capital has always targetted students in heavy handed ways, a method I’ve never seen Kasama use.
Tell No Lies said
Mike,
I didn’t mean to try to distract from the importance of this moment. Rather I think I was responding precisely to the juxtaposition between the liberalism of the analysis and the radicalism of the action. Something we also saw with the Republic Windows and Doors occupation. Like you I don’t say this as a criticism. On the contrary it is something I see as pregnant with possibilities.
I brought up the impact of Obama’s election not to say “I told you so, you should have voted for him” but because one of the several things we discussed about his election was precisely what its likely effects on social struggles would be. To me this question was always more important than the one of whether to “support” Obama, which given the capacities of the revolutionary movement at this moment was almost moot anyway. I think its important for folks here to look back on what they thought the impact of Obama’s election would be and compare it to what is actually happening (which of course is not guaranteed to continue on this present trajectory either). This election was not the last one we will face and there is a real need to sum it up correctly.
Despite my predictions, I’m actually pretty stunned by how quickly after the election things have started to jump off. Obviously there are many factors involved in that. And at a distance, as I am, its hard to know whether my sense of a dam about to burst is correct.
What I do know is that across the country students are preparing to go home for the holidays but will be returning to budget cuts, tuition hikes and other austerity measures. For many, I hope, the example of the New School students will be taken as a challenge to take similar actions.
le vere said
The actions that you are seeing in the US right now were being set into motion before obamas victory. If anything obama could pasify things. This is generally how all things that become addicted to leftwing ideology become. France 40 years ago was an obvious example when the reforms began to quell things. What is happening in Greece happened under a right wing government. If anything people would probably be in more of an insurrectionary mood under mccain.
Kalash said
you’re right, dude, i’m killer touchy, but you gotta understand, dude, i’m surfing some serious pipe at the moment. it’s mad rad dash to the maxxx with a healthy dose of gnarls.
partake, dude…partake.
ShineThePath said
Just came from inside the occupation – got some thoughts to share, but later
Must try to rest…
ShineThePath said
By the way, by coming from there…I mean the occupation of the building has ended.
Carl Davidson said
Here’s a message I sent to the students yesterday:
You have my solidarity for bringing all the issues of a democracy of mass participation back to one of the key institutions which, in an earlier day, helped to promote the idea of the university as an instrument of social change for a wider democracy.
Your president has taken the New School far from that conception, and thus is deserving of your ‘No Confidence’ verdict.
The most interesting of your demands, to me anyway, is your call to ‘open the books,’ for transparency in the university’s dealings in what really is a public trust. Information wants to be free, and once you have it, it becomes a weapon for the greater good.
As some of you know, I am a veteran of both the Berkeley and Columbia student strikes of 1967-1968. From that perspective, I would offer only one point: You are part of an entire city where students are being cheated of a quality education and workers are being denied the right to organize on the job. Keep their interests in mind as you fight for your own; in fact, make common cause with them, fight to end these miserable wars, and make a better world.
Carl Davidson
SDS, 1966-68
December 18, 2008 3:47 PM
John Steele said
This is the most recent entry in the newshoolinexile blog, posted last night:
Thursday, December 18, 2008
New School In Exile WINS Major Victories in Third Day of Occupation!
1) I agree to grant total amnesty for all participants involved in the occupation and all events related to it over the course of 12/17/08 through 12/19/08 at all New School Buildings. Neither criminal charges nor academic disciplinary measures will be pursued against those involved.
The University will not press charges against Eliot Liu.
Staff and security guards will be compensated for all time lost over the course of the occupation.
2) I agree that students may use the GF building at 65 Fifth Ave until a suitable replacement is secured and instituted, which would include the re-installment of suitable library and study space. This would need to be approved by the USS.
3) I agree that students will have voting representation on the search committee for the interim-Provost and the Provost, as well as any searches that may take place in the future for a new President. The details of this will be worked out with representatives of the University Student Senate, and input from the student body at large.
4) I agree for student participation to establish a committee on Socially Responsible Investing (SRI) for the University’s endowment and that this committee will then establish an independent auditing process with the SRI framework. The committee to establish the SRI will meet by the first week of April, 2009.
5) I agree to grant the University Student Senate the ability to communicate with the student body freely and without constraint (and to not restrict their access to Groupwise email and other technologies that enable this).
6) I agree that a representative of the USS should be allowed to have a representative at meetings of the Board of Trustees in order to speak to specific issues that pertain to decisions passed by the USS or directly relating to USS business.
Final Copy will be posted Shortly!
Posted by New School In Exile at 11:36 PM
Eddy said
Seriously? You see a causal relationship between the presidential election and either or both of those protests (which themselves deal with two very different conditions)? Have people involved in either struggle spoken to the government-in-waiting? And what about the reasons and demands that both groups have advanced?
(as an important aside in terms of contingency, New School faculty have been opposed to Kerrey since his selection as preseident, and faculty and students have protested his actions at various times, as for example the 2006 commencement — to which Kerrey invited John McCain to receive an honorary doctorate and to speak — also featured visible and vocal protest by attending graduates and faculty, including the valedictorian undergrad emphatically criticized McCain directly and as the theme of her entire speech.)
future's ours said
I would like to express my support to Mike’s opinion about the occupation in post 4.
And I want to express my disagreement to Carl’s post when he says:
“The most interesting of your demands, to me anyway, is your call to ‘open the books,’ for transparency in the university’s dealings in what really is a public trust.”
The first demand by the students is the ousting of Kerry. It is because they understand that in the field of Education, the main problem is not transparency, or that the money should be well spent, but it has to do with decision making, with the ideology underspinning the educational process.
That’s why the authorities can even accept the other demands. But they cannot accept the first demand because it means with democracy they will have to change the orientation of Education.
transprog said
I don’t know what, if anything, this has to do with Obama’s presidency but this action is part of a national campaign of SDS for accessible education. This campaign was initiated this summer long before Obama’s victory was decided.
A better question maybe would pertain to the intensity of the action. What an Obama presidency symbolizes is hope to many of these students, whereas a McCain one would simply create more pessimism. Does this inspire bolder action, like occupations?
I also want to point out that some have referenced the statements of the participants as being representative of level of political consciousness. I think it should be taken into account that this action was done by a coalition of groups (SDS, UFPJ, SEAC). Any statement by this coalition has to be a compromise between them. I have met several of the sdsers and know that their analysis goes deeper than the statement. I assume any analysis that comes off as more moderate comes from a compromise with one or both of the other groups. In my experience too, sds is not homogeneous and has many liberals. How then to strengthen the more radical tendencies?
Carl Davidson said
‘Future’s Ours,’ what’s to disagree with? I said it was the demand most interesting to me; I’ll leave it to them to decide what they think is most important, whether it’s the more interesting or not.
But in another way, you’re right. Getting rid of one capitalist chancellor or president for another CEO type, even if more liberal, is still within the realm of oppositionism. The information that comes from ‘open the books,’ however, can lead to deeper and more targeted structural reform,’ although not necessarily so. It depends on what is done with it. If you’ll recall, at Columbia, when we involuntarily ‘opened’ Grayson Kirk’s books, we found all sorts of dealing with the CIA and military way beyond what we knew.
Sometimes the more radical demands are not necessarily the more sexy or militant sounding, a point I’m often making in these discussions, trying to get some here to think outside the box a little.
land said
Will do whatever possible to spread the word of this student takeover.
Send it to student newspapers in our area.
Great going everyone. Good way to start the New Year.
Tell No Lies said
Causal relations in social processes are notoriously difficult to prove. But yes I seriously believe the election of Obama is likely to have informed the decision of both the Republic Windows workers and New School students to opt for a form of advanced action (occupations) rather than more moderate forms of action. Simply put the election of Obama effected the popular mood, putting wind in the sails of people looking to make progressive social change and this changed popular mood in turn is influencing peoples calculations of what they can get away with.
I’m not arguing that this struggle emerged fully formed in the wake of Obama’s victory, but rather that the tactical escalation probably reflects the perception on the part of several actors of a changed conjuncture. Neither the fact that the New School faculty has opposed Kerrey for several years nor that SDS is waging a national campaign argue against this analysis. Its entirely possible that SDS would have attempted an occupation irrespective of the electoral result. What is less likely is that they would have had the same degree of broad support of faculty and other student groups needed to pull off so ambitious an action AND to win several of their demands in such short order.
Whether these developments legitimize peoples decisions to vote for, or otherwise support Obama, is, as Mike has ably argued, a separate question. But if we are really interested in seeking truth from facts we need to at least attempt an analysis of the relationship between the election and what has happened in its wake. Obviously it is still early in the game and the net effect of Obama’s election on the willingness of people to struggle may yet go the other way. But I think an honest appriasal of events so far suggests that the impetus to increased struggl ehas been considerable. (We haven’t even discussed the wave of actions after the passage of Prop 8 in California.)
Tahawus said
@TellNoLies: Or for that matter the wave of actions that could result from Obama’s decision to use Rick Warren for the invocation.
Radical-Eyes said
This from the Chronicle of Higher Ed
December 19, 2008
New School Protesters Claim Victory and End Campus Occupation
Student protesters at the New School claimed to have won a decisive
victory last night in their battle with university officials and ended
their occupation of a campus cafeteria at around 3:30 a.m., The New York Times’s City Room blog reported today.
The students had presented university officials with a list of demands,
including the resignation of the New School’s president, Bob Kerrey, and had threatened to continue their occupation of campus buildings for a second full night.
Mr. Kerrey has not resigned, but he agreed to several of the students’
demands, including “total amnesty” for all the protesters, according to
the text of an agreement posted by the students.
Mr. Kerrey has been under growing pressure over the past two weeks from students and from faculty members, who voted no confidence in his leadership. That move was prompted by news of the abrupt departure of the school’s provost and the announcement that Mr. Kerrey himself would fill the office on a temporary basis.
The agreement between Mr. Kerrey and the student protesters says that “students will have voting representation on the search committee for the interim-provost and the provost, as well as any searches that may take place in the future for a new president.” —Aisha Labi
hegemonik said
[moderator note: This commentary was reposted to the central Kasama panel.]
Mike E said
I think that we will see, over time, the impact of the Obama election campaign (and the Obama’s election) on the struggle, resistance and consciousness of the people. and I certainly think it is far too early to sum it up.
It is a welcome sight to see the Republic works takeover by workers, and the New School takeover by its students (and the greek uprising in Athens).
But not only is it too early to assume this is a harbringer of more, but it is certainly too early to say that this suggests a particular impact of Obama.
After all, we have had ongoing student actions before (including waves of struggle like the SLAM events at CUNY) which were then too tied (yes, of course) to larger events (and to the developments in the system’s political coloration)… but the connections have not been linear or simple.
* * * * *
If anything, I think it is clear that the Republic takeover got national news coverage in a pretty remarkable way because of the “transition” — the whole country (including the ruling class) is saying good riddance to Bush. And this chicago worker takeover was presented, not as a blow against the system or the government, but as part of that. (even Blagojovich came down to be photographed with the workers, who weren’t threatened by police eviction etc.)
And it is worth thinking through the complex impact of this very friendly media coverage — an embrace really — that enveloped the takeover in a mood of “goodbye” to the old (and therefore explicitly, a honeymoon with the new). what could republic do (under such circumstances) but settle (paying the people pennies) — since the mood of the media (and the bourgeois establishment) was to extract a bit of populist flesh from the major banks who Republic was tied up with.
And what is that current populist tweaking of the banks in the media (their planes, their bonuses, their salaries — but not their existance as exploiters of coure) but part of setting the stingy mood for having the government “demanding more concessions” — especially from the auto “manufacturers” which quickly boils down to more concessons from their workers! (How quickly the tweaking of the auto capitalist private jets became a means for demanding more stringent “restructuring” of the auto industry and its “legacies”!)
so in that populist climate of crisis management and transition, the republic takeover got a window of celebrity (in the world media), and with it a chance to victory (not quick police eviction).
all that is fine, but the impact of Obama’s election on the eruption of struggle, its treatment in the media and its resolution is complex (and will be rapidly changing for future struggle). The moment he is in office, will similar takeovers be treated as sympathetically (or as reckless attempts to disrupt an unfolding process of “rescue” and threatening the success of “the new administration”)?
* * * * * *
In the final analysis:
will Obama’s election dampen certain kinds of resistance, or the mood to struggle among certain sections of the people?
Will it give rise to (and the frustrate) certain kinds of expectations (and “hope”) leading to more struggle?
Will obama end up skillfully and charmingly using his prestige among some oppressed people to dampen certain kinds of struggle (as a fire-fighter-in-chief)? (Given any thought to summing up the wave of black mayors after the 1960s and their role?)
will the inevitable rightwing and racist hounding of Obama’s Presidency end up focusing people’s attention on inner-bourgeois conflicts, and help trap them further into that framework?
Or will the sullying of Obama through scandal and siege, embitter people about the ways this corrupt and ugly process frustrates their just demands and highest hopes?
I deeply believe that all of that is still unwritten. It certainly can’t yet be drawn from the eruption of these two welcome struggles during the transition period. (You can’t read the tea leaves before the tea is even poured!)
For now, I’m still focused on this: what we can know is that revolutionaries and revolutionary work is desperately needed. and we can know that because it is not a fact dependent on specific developments or specific trends in THIS transitional period.
We have to step up our presumptuous work of building a new creative revolutionary trend that is not trapped by its own past. And we have to expect to face a great challenge in leading within the resistance and turmoil that unfolds under the new imperialist commander.