Gallatin senior and TBNYU/SCRC member Duncan Meisel isn’t participating in The beast within download.com/on-campus/2009/02/18/exclusive-tbnyu-takes-over-kimmel-marketplace/”>the Kimmel barricade himself, but he is telling us why they’re doing it. Check out his unedited reasoning below. See any holes? Comment away.

At 10 pm Wednesday night, members of Take Back NYU! declared that parts of the Kimmel Center will be occupied indefinitely until NYU complies with a series of demands to make our school more democratic, accountable and socially just.

In a world coming apart at the seams, the biggest threat to our collective wellbeing is crippling passivity – a willingness to do nothing in the face of the massive economic, ecological and social problems facing our world.

NYU has yet to address these problems with the radical steps required. For instance, the most visible response of the university to the current recent economic disaster is a series of faux-comforting, rambling emails from our adorable President, that attempt to distract and calm students regarding the financial health of our school. Regarding questions of human rights and the environment, NYU’s response has been piecemeal and shortsighted.

Above all else, NYU’s failure to cope with these radical changes led to Take Back NYU!’s decision to occupy Kimmel.

Quibbling about the usefulness of Take Back NYU!’s tactics only stands up to scrutiny in the presence of viable alternatives to reach similar goals. Thus far, none exist. Campus government will not or cannot take on real issues, and no other students, faculty or staff have shown a willingness to organize against NYU’s administration when it counts.

This year TBNYU! faced a wide range of unfounded criticisms about the nobility of their ends, but the failure of their means. These critiques tend to come from people who offer no means at all to create a better university, outside of their sniping commentary and self-aggrandizing pronouncements.

Unless they present real alternatives, these criticisms just add volume to the chorus of voices that call for inaction and delay in confronting the problems that threaten the quality of life we expect at our university.

Like it or not, Take Back NYU! is the only organization at our university willing to take on the big questions of accountability, democracy and human rights that will determine how NYU will deal with the key problems that shape the future of our university.

I’ve been a member of Take Back NYU! since October of 2007, and I believe its members are some of the most passionate, intelligent and engaged students at NYU. I know that their actions this week are driven first and foremost by a dream of a more just and decent university, rather than any desire for conflict or self-promotion.

Although I choose not to participate in the occupation for reasons both personal and political, I believe the occupation deserves student support. In the absence of any other viable student movements to challenge NYU’s administration, I believe Take Back NYU!’s occupation offers the best shot we have towards realizing the demands so many people claim to support. You don’t have to like it, but you can’t continue to do nothing.

The economic crisis only puts a point on the problems NYU faces if its administration maintains its obstinate secrecy. Take Back NYU! offers the most viable – if imperfect – opportunity to end that secrecy and improve our university. Inaction just won’t cut it.