How Not to Protest
The latest NYU protest made news, but it didn’t make a difference.By Ned Resnikoff
February 23, 2009
Last Wednesday, a friend of mine went to New York University’s Kimmel Center to cover Take Back NYU!’s Second Study Breakdown for NYU’s blog, NYULocal. Here’s how Charlie’s initial liveblog of the student takeover began:
9:18 PM – I’m sitting on the 3rd floor of Kimmel watching as a ton of students roll in for Take Back NYU’s 2nd Study Breakdown. Except it seems that there won’t be any dancing and somebody just asked me if I needed a number for legal counsel if I get thrown in jail. Looks like this might be a bit more than a dance party.
The fringe student activism group’s first Study Breakdown had been a short-lived dance party in the university library the previous semester. As Charlie quickly learned, this one was going to be a little more ambitious.
EJ Henricks, a New York University student and activist, shouts in support of other students who were barricaded in the Helen and Martin Kimmel Center for University Life on the New York University campus.(AP Photo/Robert Mecea)
Not long after he published the post above, Take Back NYU! members barricaded themselves inside the Kimmel cafeteria and announced that they would remain there until the NYU administration met their demands, which included everything from budget disclosure to aiding the rebuilding of the University of Gaza. The list was a poorly conceived mess, a bizarre smorgasbord of stereotypically liberal concerns with nothing to bind them together. It did, however, reveal something very important about the protest: that it was seemingly less about a productive strategy on its own merits, and more about allowing the members of TBNYU! to role play all of their favorite fantasies of 1960s activism.
It’s too bad they didn’t take a harder look at the models they were emulating. The sit-ins of the ‘60s, like the one that occurred in 1968 at NYU’s uptown cousin, Columbia University, were frequently marred by violence and met very little, if any, success. Nobody who is serious about campus activism would have expected them to push a massive bureaucracy like NYU into disclosing its investments, helping to rebuild Gaza, banning Coca-Cola products, and so on merely by throwing an illegal drum circle in one of the cafeterias for three straight days.
The TBNYU! protest was one of the strangest farces in NYU’s 178-year history. By the end of the 40-hour occupation, only 10 protesters remained, which NYU security* unceremoniously removed from the building. Each one was suspended and kicked out of campus housing, and NYU did not meet a single one of the group’s demands. Nevertheless, the official TBNYU! blog, with characteristic detachment from reality, insisted that the occupation had “made a difference.”
And perhaps it had, but not in the way they expected. The group had managed to unite the NYU Democrats and Republicans in denunciation of the occupation. And as Jessica Roy, another friend and NYU Local staff member said, “The administration will most likely now be more tight-lipped, dodgy and suspicious of the idea of discussing these important issues than they ever were before.”
In other words, the protest was an unmitigated fiasco, and a solid model of how not to effect positive change on your local campus. And what else could it have been? Although TBNYU!’s sit-in tactics were clearly inspired by a similar protest at the neighboring New School in December, the way the two incidents played out, and the events leading up to them, could not have been more different.
For one thing, in the case of the New School sit-in, the participants had good reason to believe that they had no other recourse. The New School’s tenured faculty had already passed a nearly unanimous vote of no confidence against university President Bob Kerrey, largely in protest of his decision to appoint himself provost. The catalyst for the sit-in came when Kerrey chose to ignore the vote, saying that only the board of trustees could have him dismissed. New School students only took extreme measures when it became clear that no amount of lobbying through the system was going to get him to step down as provost.
Take Back NYU!, on the other hand, can’t claim that they tried everything else first. Besides the “dance party,” most of its campus activism before the sit-in had been limited to writing slogans in chalk on the sidewalk and rude behavior at town hall meetings. Given that NYU President John Sexton has shown willingness to compromise whenever it will save the school some embarrassment, there’s no question that TBNYU! would have gotten further with fewer Code Pink-style antics.
Once the New School protesters took extreme measures, they were also sure to make it clear exactly what they wanted. Although the initial list of eight demands was a little muddled, by the second day of the occupation they had refocused it into something that made it clear what their priorities were. That was why they were able to negotiate with Kerrey and the administration, and get most of what they wanted.
TBNYU!’s list of demands, on the other hand, was an unfocused mess, with no clear organizational principle behind it. TBNYU! has long made budget disclosure and transparency its pet issue, but the thirteen demands also included such bizarre items as annual scholarships for 13 students and an administration investigation into the student council’s decision to lift a ban of Coca-Cola distribution on campus. The list was so eclectic and bizarre that the senior vice president for university relations, Lynne Brown, said of the initial negotiations: “We’ll be trying to clarify the exact nature of their complaints, and try to engage them in colloquy and conversation. It’s a little unclear for us now.”
The exterior of Kimmel reflected the group’s disorganization and terrible messaging. Banners demanding budget transparency were mixed in with others expressing solidarity with Palestine, and there was nothing to link the two ideas together. Outside, anarchists in black masks and two topless female undergrads showed their support with the squatters. It was a circus, and the average passerby walked away with absolutely no idea what TBNYU! was protesting.
If the leaders of TBNYU! were more prudent, or even competent, they would have at least attempted realizing their demands through reasonable engagement with the student government and university administration before they jumped straight ahead to illegally occupying school property. They could have at least tried to make their demands ideologically coherent. Instead, they fulfilled every ugly stereotype of the immature college hippie, trying to relive a grand fantasy of ‘60s campus activism.
Ned Resnikoff is a sophomore at NYU and a regular contributor to Campus Progress.
*Edited from the original text, which read NYPD.
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Comments
just to point out some factual inaccuracies, there were at least 20 students left in the end, and no nypd were involved in removing them from the space.
other than that, thanks for the well-thought-out critique, though we don’t really need the name-calling as much. maybe someday you’ll take action instead of criticizing those who already have.
— emily st - Feb 23, 03:42 PM - #Here are my sources for those two disputed points:
One.
Two.
That last one (“I just spoke to Emily Stainkamp and she informed me that administrators and security guards raided the 3rd floor and rounded up the remaining protestors.”) is you, yes?
— Ned - Feb 23, 05:48 PM - #Actually, you are correct that NYPD weren’t involved in actually removing the protesters from the building. That was my mistake. But security guards did escort them out, and the non-NYU participants were turned in to the NYPD.
— Ned - Feb 23, 06:00 PM - #“maybe someday you’ll take action”
Maybe someday you’ll stop getting all whiny about Coca-Cola.
Hey, we can dream.
— Shii - Feb 23, 08:26 PM - #Video clearly shows NYPD at the scene.
Wow. This is some whiny nonsense.
— monkey monkey - Feb 23, 09:22 PM - #nypd on the scene is not the same as nypd removing occupiers from the scene, interestingly.
— emily st - Feb 24, 12:06 AM - #I think you’re kind of splitting hairs there. One could certainly argue police presence is police involvement.
The people involved in this protest owe liberals, and college students in general, an apology. This protest was, and the protesters were, a ridiculous stereotype on every level, and most of us don’t want to be painted with this same brush.
— Jeremy - Feb 24, 01:03 PM - #I think its interesting that the so-called “respectable” sectors of the progressive movement – Campus Progress, the Huffington Post, etc – are coming down so hard on the Take Back NYU coalition. Tactical disagreements are an important debate, but articles like this don’t really give fair credit to constructive criticism and instead rely on a holier-than-thou form of self-righteous elitism by so-called progressives deciding what is and what is not an acceptable form of protest. A far more effective method would involve all sectors of the progressive youth movement to work together on projects while avoiding tactical disagreements. Respect and support what other crews in the movement are doing.
— David Goodner - Feb 24, 07:50 PM - #David—
I totally disagree. What you’re suggesting is a kind of tactical and strategic relativism in which everyone brings something useful, or at least thoughtful, to the table. As the recent TBNYU debacle demonstrates, some “sectors of the movement” have thought quite a bit less seriously than others about how to best effect change. I don’t think that judging this protest as folly reflects elitism; I think it reflects common sense.
— Paul C - Feb 24, 09:27 PM - #I love Take Back NYU! A team of the world’s best comedic screenwriters could not have scripted their pathetic last stand to play out any funnier. Corporate Water???? Come on, you have to admit that is the most pathetically bourgeois thing you’ve heard in a long time, no? Water is bad, Apple is good? Take Back NYU is going to ruin the Apple brand altogether!
— Bob W. - Feb 24, 10:08 PM - #Wow. I used to have a lot of respect for Campus Progress. The students had two student senate members occupying the room who have been working within the bureaucracy of the campus for more than two years on these issues and no non-nyu students were turned over to the police. If you have a problem with TBNYU! then build your own coalition and address those issues. Your university invests in war and genocide and you’re persecuting the people speaking out on it. There were many many Obama supporters in that room, some wearing O pins. These are not “fringe” radicals. Maybe you’re losing touch with progressives you should be working with? Is it too difficult for you to work beyond voting and getting Democrats elected?
— Alex Lotorto - Feb 25, 03:37 AM - #Alex, writing a column isn’t “persecuting.” And don’t assume that I’ve ever taken my civic obligation to stop at just voting. My problem with TBNYU! isn’t that they were activists, but that their tactics are poorly conceived and unproductive.
— Ned - Feb 25, 08:21 AM - #Yeah I guess I just have a beef with people who appoint themselves the gatekeepers of what is and what is not acceptable forms of dissent. Like its always the progressive students that want a job at the Center for American Progress or are loyal Democratic Party members that get all bent out of shape anytime other students do something that these self-proclaimed gatekeepers deem to be too radical.
Take Back NYU had a campaign for 2 years, maybe they’ve tried all other avenues. The problem wasn’t with their long list of demands, the probem was they needed to articulate how and why those demands intersected and interrelated. The problem wasn’t with the occupation itself but that the dance partying cigarette smoking made them look less serious than they really were. A little bit of discipline might have helped their image. But those areas are small things that can be pointed out in the spirit of comradely cooperation and constructive criticism. A way to fine-tune the next occupation. Instead you and that other kid over at the Huffington Post blow things out of proportion. I think its because, quite frankly, the establishment progressives are afraid of a radical movement that could grow out of their control. If students start occupying their universities then it makes your job as the gatekeeper journalists a little obsolete, doesn’t it? I feel like you and other progressives are criticizing Take Back NYU because they make you afraid of losing your own influence.
— David Goodner - Feb 25, 10:41 AM - #Yes, that must be it, they are afraid that a “movement” might “grow out of their control.” It can’t just be that they want to poke fun at a bunch of paranoid, self-important, douchy, college kids who think they know everything about the world that is out to get them.
If you don’t want to support a school that does things you don’t believe in then stop paying them to be there.
— Jeremy - Feb 25, 11:13 AM - #The list of demands was long, but they weren’t that disconnected: the destruction of Gaza is directly related to NYU through their investment decisions. And it’s worth noting that the so-called “progressive” campus groups who shamelessly sniped at the occupiers offer no viable alternative for attaining an open and democratic university at NYU (and on a certain level it’s hilarious to see groups dedicated to electing Democrats lecture organizers on how to create radical change).
The occupation revealed the Administration to be petty, vindictive, and entirely unfamiliar with the bargaining table (for example, they called for negotiators to come out, and as soon as they did they were arrested – stay classy, NYU!).
And if you’re still of the opinion that this action was detrimental to making progress at NYU, the last thing you should want to do is focus attention on the occupiers themselves – a much more productive route to salvage any momentum would be to slam the University for the plethora of unacceptable shit they pulled before, during, and after the occupation.
— For Student Power - Feb 25, 11:13 AM - #Jeremy makes an excellent point: these students wanted to have their cake and eat it too. After thinking seriously about how they wanted to spend four years of their lives (and making considerable financial sacrifices to do so), they decided that they’re being played by some corrupt institution?
There are many colleges—most of them not as ‘elite’ as NYU—that espouse values more in line with the protesters’. Rather than try to change an enormous and enormously complex bureaucracy overnight—and one, quite frankly, that is not the evil empire some think it is—these students could have voted with their feet and transferred out. Or do they want the help of the NYU Career Center once they’ve finished their suspensions?
— Paul C - Feb 25, 12:19 PM - #Paul, none of the occupiers or their allies would claim that they’re aiming to change NYU’s bureaucracy overnight – hence the organizing and campaigning for years prior to this.
For us to better understand your subtle “love it or leave it” argument, could you point to a democratically-run University that these students could transfer to?
— For Student Power - Feb 25, 01:53 PM - #——-
And for what it’s worth, contrary to Ned’s account, the 1968 Columbia occupation was ultimately successful – Columbia withdrew from IDA and they changed the location of their proposed gymnasium (those were SDS’ two primary demands).
There’s no law that says you have to go to any school at all. If you are morally opposed to something NYU is doing leave and find a school that isn’t doing it. If you are opposed to any institution that isn’t democratically run, then perhaps college, and for that matter, ever having a job, isn’t for you.
The idea that students should have much say at all in running, let alone be allowed to run, the schools is as preposterous as advocating that Target should allow its customers to make all sales/policy decisions, because anything less than than can only result in pure malevolent evil.
You are a customer of NYU, if you don’t like what they are selling, buy elsewhere. If enough people started doing that they would change in a heartbeat. I guess they must not cover the most basic economic principles in Anti-Corporate Drum Circling 101.
— Jeremy - Feb 25, 02:51 PM - #The similarity between Target and its customers, and a University and its students, exists in only the crudest of analysis (that, for example, leaves out the huge number of students who are not just students, but also university employees in one capacity or another). And aren’t you aware of democratically-run workplaces? Or consumer co-ops, where the customers actually do make sales/policy decisions?
Your paean to “basic economic principles” is just that: basic. The institutional pressures on something as complicated as a university, let alone the constellation of universities across the country, isn’t something that can be grappled with successfully from an Econ 101 text.
Many decisions, especially decisions regarding governance and management – both in academia and industry – are made with little regard to the desires of the “market” (or even productivity or efficiency).
If you have something productive to add that you didn’t get off the back of an Ayn Rand novel, I look forward to it.
— For Student Power - Feb 25, 03:36 PM - #I don’t see how the Target analogy breaks down just because students are also employed at the university. That’s completely irrelevant, and last I checked Target employees were allowed to shop at Target.
Yes, Co-ops exist, Target and NYU are not one of them, so that point is also irrelevant.
If you don’t think that the university would respond to half of its students leaving, you’re crazy. Obviously there are other pressures and a good mix of playing politics involved with any/all policy decisions, that doesn’t mean “this is what the customer wants” isn’t the main factor. Obviously any business COULD ignore what the customer wants, but they won’t stay in business very long that way.
My point never was that there we’re no such thing as democratically run stores/workplaces (though, good luck with that), just that non-democratic establishments are not inherently evil. The fact that the university didn’t cave to the whim of a handful of its students doesn’t make it evil, it was 100% justified and right to do what it did.
— Jeremy - Feb 25, 04:00 PM - #Not “love it or leave it.” My point is something like, “work within the system you voluntarily embraced, or leave it.” Otherwise you’re disrupting the far greater number of students who attend college for the education, not the activist kicks.
— Paul C - Feb 25, 07:10 PM - #I liked the NYU occupation demands, but I think they did not do a good job on two things
1- building up a base of support.
2- The tactics of the occupation. A student center is not the thing to occupy. The Administration building is.
Learn from our mistakes. Rebuild stronger than before.
— Scribbler - Feb 26, 02:54 PM - #Two things:
1) Sit ins like these have their place. Successful movements employ multiple tactics, and sometimes even several strategies. Nothing is guaranteed to work.
2) The organizing forces behind this sit in should have put more thought into this. It looks like they chose simple and gratuitous over smart.
— Patrick B - Feb 26, 05:07 PM - #not all students voluntarily attend colleges – there is an economic need for some and they are invested in the college for upward mobility.
i understand that the tactics may not have been the best. but you shouldn’t be too harsh on students trying to have their voices heard – 1. they’re still students, they’re still learning and i think we should cut them a little more slack, 2. we need to be careful about how we criticize and direct our arguments at one another; the last thing we need is for the left to be as splintered as the right.
— morose - Feb 27, 03:06 PM - #All you did is list why people choose to go to college, it’s still a choice..
As for the splintering: as opposed to what exactly? What are the universally held principles of the left?
— Jeremy - Feb 27, 03:23 PM - #I made a remix of the footage from the event: www.youtube.com/watc…
— Freddie Wong - Feb 27, 03:27 PM - #Ned, you managed to write hundreds of words here and elsewhere about the meaning of Take Back NYU! without speaking to a single member once. That’s irresponsible.
— Duncan - Feb 28, 06:11 PM - #It hurts to see students ridiculing students when what is important is not how students protested, but how they were dealt with for voicing dissent. Should dissent only be limited to reserved forums, blogs, and the classroom?
Why not highlight the use of police force to forcibly remove students who were suspended and evicted from their university for making bold demands for the rights of students and workers?
Ned, I would like to ask if you have any experience in student organizing, and if yes, why, as a student activist, did you find it necessary to jump on with the status quo and further degrade students? We can get this critique from any other website; why is so important to read it on a blog that claims to be progressive?
— Teresa - Mar 6, 01:54 AM - #