make NYU not abhorable

I was never entirely comfortable with the slogan "take back nyu," if only because NYU was never ours, always anathema to the university i have spent much of the last decade trying to create, always the enterprise university, the engine of gentrification and commoditization fueled by precarious labor and massive debt burdens. That is, until wednesday, when dozens of students took over the 3rd floor of Kimmel, took the space not "back" (this was not reaction) but for the purposes of a wide-ranging but interconnected set of demands - disclosure, divestment, recognition, collective bargaining, justice, openness, transparency.

Just before noon today, the NYU administration, in a strategy built entirely upon lies and fear, summoned the negotiators under the pretense that it had come in good faith, but instead secluded them from the other occupiers and told everyone they were suspended, a group which included friends and former students of mine. Then the security guards rushed the Kimmel Marketplace, and it was over. (What better site for an occupation at a university so explicitly ruled by neoliberal logics of profit maximalization, privatization of public space and resources, and ruthless disciplinary repression of workers and other movements?)

A couple scattered thoughts as I try now to focus on my dissertation proposal. First, this outcome has the potential to be extremely demobilizing, which is certainly what NYU intends. Let's not let this happen. Too many people put too much on the line to let this be anything other than a beginning, a point from which to stage new struggles to transform the university into a space of justice and democracy rather than the finanicalization of immaterial and service labor, the accumulation of cognitive and other capital. NYU is trying to suspend and unspecified number of protesters and evict and ban them from its residence halls. The university is trying to forclose upon its future, to eat, as the old New Left would have put it, its young. So I think a task for those of us who share with those who went in a vision for a transformed university is to develop strategies for countering these attacks and moving forward, building stronger movements and expanding our reach and our demands.

"2,4,6,8: John Sexton is an asshole"
"3,5,7,9: Where's my fucking contract?"
- psychology graduate student, GSOC strike, 2005-2006

convenient abjection?

In a rather craven and transparent move, the NYU administration is attempting to 'disown' and thus disqualify the protesters by branding them as outside agitators.

Take Back N.Y.U. has been a vocal presence on campus for the last few years, said Lynne Brown, the senior vice president for university relations. Ms. Brown said that she believed only about half of the protesters were from N.Y.U. and that the rest probably included students from the New School, which had its own student occupation in December during protests over the school’s embattled president, Bob Kerrey.

Ms. Brown said the university will allow the students to remain in the cafeteria through the night and will give them access to restrooms.

The notion that NYU, a "private university in the public service" is only accountable to those who pay tuition to it, its "customers," if we are willing to traffic in the neoliberal frame which has governed the institution for well over a decade now is not only specious but indeed evinces the logics of administration and governance of which Sexton fancies himself the greatest ideologue and his administration the zenith. (Disclaimer: i couldn't sleep last night for the second night in a roaw, so i am not sure if anything i'm writing makes any sense.) This is the logic of the university against which the folks in the cafeteria are actively in revolt.

That said, there were folks from CUNY and the New School and Columbia there last night, mostly, i suspect, on the outside, but the occupation is not the work of "outside agitators," arising instead from very real antagonisms and structural conditions produced by seven years of rapid tuition hikes, administrative fiats, questionable investments, and imperial hugs. That the occupiers have declared solidarity with comrades in the UK, Greece, Italy, Rochester, and on fifth avenue in no way exculpates the NYU University Leadership Team for its venal neoliberalism, its arrogant attacks against the academic and urban commons, and its evangelical fervor for the bottom line above all else, that is, the superexploitation of precarious and transient labor in the form of undergraduate work study, graduate employees, adjuncts, and postdocs, not ot mention migrant construction labor in Abu Dhabi, etc. This occupation, as VP brown would realize if she knew any of the students who are behind the barricades, is very much in and of NYU even as it participates in a larger transnational conversation about the spatial politics of the global university and the future of the city.

one more thing

An update from the folks inside, at least four of whom are former students, (I have had some awesome students) and many of whom are friends and colleagues. I feel conflicted about not being there with them, but i have to perform my labor. I think this is important enough to merit conversation in section tomorrow. Regardless, I'll be back on the west 4th street sidewalk tomorrow afternoon (after i teach) shouting loud so the folks inside, and the city, and John Sexton and Marty Lipton and Ken Langone and Catherine Reynolds and Barry Diller and Anthony Welters can hear.

well, we finally did it.


ACTUALLY, THAT'S MINE.
or why we finally, really took back nyu.

WHAT’S MINE? THE UNIVERSITY, OF COURSE. IT’S YOURS, TOO!

A group of student-empowering, social-justice-minded rabblerousers have occupied the Marketplace at Kimmel and we refuse to move until our demands are met. All are encouraged to join us on the third floor and help us sustain this occupation until NYU complies with our demands. Our demands are as follows:

-Full, annual disclosure of NYU’s operating budget and endowment.

-The election of a student body whose purpose is the socially

responsible investment of NYU’s funds and all of whom are full, voting members of the Board of Trustees. That this body investigate NYU’s investments in war and genocide profiteers, specifically the Israeli occupation of Gaza.

-That tuition be stabilized; that no student pays more tuition than they did their first year. That the University meet 100% of students’ government-calculated financial need.

-That all NYU employees, including graduate students, are granted union rights, and that work study employees are allowed collective bargaining rights.

-That NYU provide humanitarian aid to Gaza, and that it offers scholarships for 13 Palestinian students annually.

-That NYU grant public access to Bobst Library and that student groups get priority when reserving space in all NYU-owned or –leased buildings.

We apologize for inconveniencing the loyal lunchgoers of the Kimmel Marketplace, but we are not sorry for causing a disruption! Established channels have been insufficient to make our voices heard by the administration, and we have waited too long to be taken seriously. By disrupting the University’s functioning now, we are forcing the administration to deal with those people it depends upon the most—we, the students!

Our demands, though many and varied, are united by the desire to empower students to take part in the governance of their University.

By making public the endowment and budget, and establishing a student voice in the investment of funds and on the Board of Trustees, we are creating a means for active student participation in the administration of the University. By providing union rights for graduate students and collective bargaining rights for work study employees, we are guaranteeing that the students upon whom the University depends for labor are treated and compensated fairly.

By drastically reducing the amount that tuition can increase, we are forcing the University to reassess its spending and cut back appropriately (instead of making a low-income student take out more loans, perhaps the University can build one less abroad site). By forcing the University to meet 100% of students’ financial need, we are ensuring that students spend less time working multiple jobs to make ends meet and more time making the University a place where active minds flourish.

By demanding investigation into war and genocide profiteers, providing aid to Gaza, and offering scholarshipts to Palestinian students, we are demanding that the University heed our own voices immediately. Through these demands we are also stating our solidarity with the students who have occupied their universities in the United Kingdom and elsewhere demanding aid for war-torn Gaza.

By demanding students have priority in reserving space in NYU buildings, we are literally making space for ourselves in the University, and putting students above groups who rent out space in our buildings. By allowing the public access to Bobst Library and the wealth of knowledge it contains we are building a bridge between NYU and the community it so often displaces, while empowering students of all universities (as well as alums of our own) to take part in information that is too often consolidated in the Ivory Tower.

We have waited too long for the University to respond of its own volition. We have let administrators push us around through endless red tape, through never-ending tuition hikes, through unfair labor practices, through secrecy and lies, through power being consolidated in a tiny group of (mostly) rich white dudes who know nothing about our lives as students. We wrote John Sexton a nice letter and struggled to contain our rage in Town Hall after Town Hall; we’ve agitated and tabled and built our coalition. Our demands serve and concern all students. We refuse to dignify the University’s lack of response with our own inaction.

So we take action! We’ve got food and sleeping bags and good friends and we are not going anywhere. Join us! This is a sleepover for student empowerment, a party for participation in the University, a disruption for democracy, an occupation for all!

occupiamo tutto

Just saw like fifty NYU folks and allies barricade themselves into the Kimmel "Marketplace" in a full on occupation of the space. A bunch of us GSOC folks (I'm on staff this semester - have I mentioned that here?) were there, though i have to teach in ten hours so i wasn't able to stay inside, and instead moved to the sidewalk solidarity demo when the cops shut down the building. I'm excited about what the folks inside have done and I'm awed and inspired. Seeing the barricades come down was one of my top five NYU moments.

FREE UNION PETER!

Anyway, here is the list of demands for folks who are interested:

At approximately 10pm tonight (Feb. 18), students of Take Back NYU! took over the Kimmel Marketplace. They have blockaded the doors and declared an occupation!
NYU is the latest university to join a wave of global student occupations in the name of student empowerment. The Kimmel Center for University life is official a reclaimed space.

What you can do:
Come support the occupation!
Send a letter to the administration in solidarity
Send an e-mail to your professors, peers, listservs, facebook groups you name it! Tell the world.
Have your parent write a letter or e-mail to the university
Print the following demands and distribute them far and wide:

DEMANDS

We, the students of NYU, declare an occupation of this space. This occupation is the culmination of a two-year campaign by the Take Back NYU! coalition, and of campaigns from years past, in whose footsteps we follow.

In order to create a more accountable, democratic and socially responsible university, we demand the following:

1. Full legal and disciplinary amnesty for all parties involved in the occupation.

2. Full compensation for all employees whose jobs were disrupted during the course of the occupation.

3. Public release of NYU’s annual operating budget, including a full list of university expenditures, salaries for all employees compensated on a semester or annual basis, funds allocated for staff wages, contracts to non-university organizations for university construction and services, financial aid data for each college, and money allocated to each college, department, and administrative unit of the university. Furthermore, this should include a full disclosure of the amount and sources of the university’s funding.

4. Disclosure of NYU’s endowment holdings, investment strategy, projected endowment growth, and persons, corporations and firms involved in the investment of the university’s endowment funds. Additionally, we demand an endowment oversight body of students, faculty and staff who exercise shareholder proxy voting power for the university’s investments.

5. That the NYU Administration agrees to resume negotiations with GSOC/UAW Local 2110 – the union for NYU graduate assistants, teaching assistants, and research assistants. That NYU publically affirm its commitment to respect all its workers, including student employees, by recognizing their right to form unions and to bargain collectively. That NYU publically affirm that it will recognize workers’ unions through majority card verification.

6. That NYU signs a contract guaranteeing fair labor practices for all NYU employees at home and abroad. This contract will extend to subcontracted workers, including bus drivers, food service employees and anyone involved in the construction, operation and maintenance at any of NYU’s non-U.S. sites.

7. The establishment of a student elected Socially Responsible Finance Committee. This Committee will have full power to vote on proxies, draft shareholder resolutions, screen all university investments, establish new programs that encourage social and environmental responsibility and override all financial decisions the committee deems socially irresponsible, including investment decisions. The committee will be composed of two subcommittees: one to assess the operating budget and one to assess the endowment holdings. Each committee will be composed of ten students democratically elected from the graduate and under-graduate student bodies. All committee decisions will be made a strict majority vote, and will be upheld by the university. All members of the Socially Responsible Finance Committee will sit on the board of trustees, and will have equal voting rights. All Socially Responsible Finance Committee and Trustee meetings shall be open to the public, and their minutes made accessible electronically through NYU’s website. Elections will be held the second Tuesday of every March beginning March 10th 2009, and meetings will be held biweekly beginning the week of March 30th 2009.

8. That the first two orders of business of the Socially Responsible Finance committee will be:
a) An in depth investigation of all investments in war and genocide profiteers, as well as companies profiting from the occupation of Palestinian territories.
b) A reassessment of the recently lifted of the ban on Coca Cola products.

9. That annual scholarships be provided for thirteen Palestinian students, starting with the 2009/2010 academic year. These scholarships will include funding for books, housing, meals and travel expenses.

10. That the university donate all excess supplies and materials in an effort to rebuild the University of Gaza.

11. Tuition stabilization for all students, beginning with the class of 2012. All students will pay their initial tuition rate throughout the course of their education at New York University. Tuition rates for each successive year will not exceed the rate of inflation, nor shall they exceed one percent. The university shall meet 100% of government-calculated student financial need.

12. That student groups have priority when reserving space in the buildings owned or leased by New York University, including, and especially, the Kimmel Center.

13. That the general public have access to Bobst Library.

Along with this, students have issued a

SOLIDARITY STATEMENT

We, the students of Take Back NYU! declare our solidarity with the student occupations in Greece, Italy, and the United Kingdom, as well as those of the University of
Rochester, the New School for Social Research, and with future
occupations to come in the name of democracy and student power. We stand
in solidarity with the University of Gaza, and with the people of
Palestine.

OMG LACANIAN POLAR BEAR!!!

Taking its cues from the same group that held a "find the illegal immigrant" debacle here two years ago, the NYU University Senate has voted by a slim majority to lift the ban on Coca-Cola products which it imposed in 2005 in response to Coke's complicity in the murder of trade unionists at its bottling facilities in Colombia by paramilitaries.

There is no evidence that conditions are any better or that coke has taken any steps to ensure the right to organize free from fear, intimidation, murder, or torture. A recent report by the International Labor Organization failed to even call the question and one of the the organization's trustees is also on Coke's board. Meanwhile, the yearly death toll in Colombia has remained high since Alvaro Uribe took office in 2002. This is what NYU is welcoming back onto its campus.

I can't say that I'm surprised, given this campus's abominable labor record of late. Sexton et al clearly do not care about the rights of working people, especially not those in far flung subcontracted corners of the globalized division of labor/coloniality of power.

But I am apalled. Apalled that a university that claimes to be in the public service would so blithely traffic with militarized terror against rank and file union members, apalled that with no justification 28 NYU senators decided to affirm their sudden support for a status quo they had voted to reject less than three and a half years ago, a status quo of torture, terror, and murder. Today the global university just became even more compromised by its imperial entanglements than it was yesterday. Today NYU has a body count.

I spent most of the day in the panopticon, reading Thomas Sugrue's Sweet Land of Liberty instead of grading. Watched the latest episode of Battlestar Galactica on the long subway ride home, and holy fuck (I had to sit down on my couch and not do anything for like five minutes after i finished it to let my heart slow down), and then read the kakistotle (that's a greek joke. aristotle from aristos, best, kakistos=worst, also a demon in buffy season three.) I like the Sugrue book a lot, narrative but also theoretically grounded and both deeply enmeshed in the archive and demonstrating widespread knowledge of recent historiography of the long civil rights movement. I would like to see him engage more directly with some of Nikhil Singh's critiques of a few of the figures and movements he discusses, but maybe that's another book?

The ontario provincial government has ordered striking York U graduate employees in CUPE 3903 to return to work, and the workers are returning without a contract. This is no resolution.

Some folks from the Republic Window Workers' Strike stopped by Judson yesterday and it was inspiring to hear firsthand abotu what went down and what the struggle and the victory meant to the folks who fought and won it. Kudos to jobs with justice for making folks submit questions on index cards to minimize the sectarian rostrum hoggers. I sat behind the folks from DWU and next to the dissident TWU contingent, which was interesting. Ed Ott is pretty awesome as CLC presidents go. Oh, btw, Boycott Stella D'Oro. The factory, oddly enough, is a couple blocks away from where i went to high school. They tried to force the workers to accept some severe cutbacks and workers have been on strike for nearly six months.