Applause for the NYU Students, their sacrifice, courage and integrity.

Editor's note: Here are a few responses from the many who were inspired by the student occupation of NYU on February 19 and 20. - LMB

Feb 21st, 2009 by Take Back NYU!

At around 2pm today, members of Take Back NYU! left the Kimmel Center for University Life, ending a 40 hour+ occupation. Their action made national and international news, and showcased the real power of the new student movement sweeping the globe.

No doubt NYU will begin attempting disciplinary action, but no suspensions, expulsions or arrests can contain what began in the last two days. This fight will carry on in the hands of the dozens of people who made it inside, and the hundreds more who came out to support the occupation. NYU showed it's irrational need to defend secrecy and its exclusive hold on power, and that alone will drive this movement forward.

For everyone showing support: the real lesson here is that you can act and you can make a difference. Take the lessons from the occupation on to your own struggle, and begin to act yourself. Onward.

Feb 21st, 2009 by Take Back NYU!

Near the end of the occupation NYU put some of its dishonesty on wide display. 5 students occupying the building were told they would be offered negotiations with Lynne Brown, and willingly passed their barricades to begin serious talks. As soon as they left, a cadre of NYU security guards swept them away and served them with papers saying they would be expelled. No negotiations ever took place.

To the end, NYU showed just why we need more actions like this occupation: to hold NYU to its word, and to put students first.

NYU's Crackdown Feb 21st, 2009 by Take Back NYU!

NYU is taking immediate steps against protesters, at risk of its public image and the wellbeing of its students. Right now, several protesters in university housing are being evicted from their residences. This is not OK. Dissent should never make someone homeless. Please contact NYU Housing to insist they allow students to stay in their dorm:

Phone: 212-998-4600

email: housing@nyu.edu

44Elizabeth Wrigley-Field

Huge respect to all of you for this action. As an NYU alum, I am horrified and angered by the administration’s response. You can count on many of us in the broader NYU community to defend the students from any discipline. Thank you for inspiring us at campuses all over the country — in Madison, WI in my case — and beyond.

on 21 Feb 2009 at 2:15 am45daybe

congrats all on an inspiring action. everyone i know here in philly is talking about you. but hey, i can’t find info on what’s happening to ya’ll. do you need help? i mean, next to actions in solidarity with the people in gaza, getting some college kids out of jail seems trite, but i’d want you to get my back. what’s going on now?

67kilroy

The “NYU: love it or leave it” crowd seems to think it’s fine for university administrations to treat workers, students and teachers as poorly as they want, because people can “leave” if they don’t like it.

In the first place, this claim is totally one-sided, because it’s telling students and campus workers to simply pack up their lives / jobs, and take on large burdens in terms of time and money to find a new place to go to school / work, without ever questioning the validity of the university policies that they find unlivable. Why on earth would you question acts of resistance, but not the power structures that necessitate them?

In the second place, this claim is totally myopic, because it doesn’t acknowledge that the problems at NYU are pervasive throughout the entire higher education system. Universities all over the U.S. conduct research for the government and corporations to further unjust wars and globalization, all the while treating their campus workers and low-level faculty like trash. At some point, there’s nowhere else you can “leave” to, and you’ve got to pick a place to take a stand. The Take Back NYU folks did that, and it was an inspiration.

“Love it or leave it” is another way of saying “if you see something unjust happening, ignore or avoid it.” That’s the real cowardice.

76Inspired Onlooker

Don’t let anyone tell you that you’ve failed. It doesn’t matter that your demands wern’t met, just by fighting you’ve won. You’ll inspire more people to stand together and fight, by standing together yourselves. You guys are amazing and an inspiration to everyone out there standing up for what is right. Resistance is beautiful. Love and Solidarity forever.

78jb

Don’t be disturbed by those who criticise you;

You have made statements for knowledge, justice, and equality,
at the center of an empire which is founded on discipline, injustice, and inequity; and so giants who enjoy their sleep will attempt to drown out your whispers with snores.

Blinded cyclops’ whose violent nightmares make them rip apart a reality they ignore; Lifeless daleks, whose great unending sleep overpowers our dreams; Lying gorgons, who muffle you as if putting out the last flame of a fire,

Do not feel voiceless in the shadows of your immediate surroundings.

The rest of the world hears you, you, whose actions have situated yourselves on the side of humanity, and agaist the funding of terror and hate. Perhaps meager against the atrocities of the everlasting inhumane present we are entering, your actions have situated yourselves on the side of education, democracy, dignity, and they are a pin prick against the privatization and exploitation of every facet of humankind, which have created both a whisper, and a ripple.

We who are listening know: the whisper will become a chorus and the ripple, a rebirth.

http://takebacknyu.com/2009/02/21/occupation-ended/