Yesterday was May Day, the international day of leftist protest. This year, college and high school kids from around the City converged at Cooper Union. From its founding in 1859 Cooper Union had not charged students tuition; that is, until April 23rd, when the school’s Board of Trustees announced that students would have to pay because of the Union’s shrinking endowment. Otherwise, it would go bankrupt. Read more…
Students Converge At Cooper Union For May Day
May 2nd, 2013 by Paul PastoreYour Five Minute Guide To Why Americans Are Getting Killed In Libya [UPDATED]
September 12th, 2012 by Ari Lipsitz
You may have heard about the death of the American Ambassador to Libya, but not necessarily who killed him, or what happened next. The news cycle on this has been really cluttered. So in the spirit of short attention spans, and to show how ridiculous this whole crisis is, here’s a quick guide.
Who’s getting killed again?
The American ambassador to Libya was killed yesterday in a rocket attack on the US consulate in Benghazi. Three others were killed as well.
Woah! Why?
Protests are happening across Libya and Egypt right now due to a stupid video. The video—which is really, really stupid—makes fun of Islam and is generally pretty racist. Muslims in Egypt are not happy. And since Muslims in Egypt are next to Muslims in Libya—well, y’know. Read more…
Healthcare Union Protests NYU Trustee
September 12th, 2012 by Andrew Elrod
There was a celebration yesterday on the west side of Washington Square North. On the park side, a large purple crowd gathered, singing and dancing. A sort of conga line had formed and was snaking its way back and forth along the street. Across from them along the stoops of the old townhouses a smaller crowd milled about.
Three buses had left from Connecticut that morning to protest the owner of HealthBridge, the company that employs them. Another group from the New Jersey nursing home company CareOne crossed the Hudson to join them outside the law building on Washington Square. The two companies are owned by the philanthropist Daniel Straus who funds the NYU Straus Institute for the Advanced Study of Law and Justice. Read more…
NYU Kicks Off May Day With Bobst Picket Against 2031
May 1st, 2012 by Brett Chamberlin
This morning, a crowd of over 60 students, faculty, and Village residents picketed Bobst, marching around the library’s red sandstone columns in the light rain. For a little under an hour, the group expressed their opposition to NYU’s 2031 plan, which its opponents characterize as aggressive real estate expansion that threatens the historic character of the Village.
The demonstration, jointly organized by NYU4OWS and NYU Faculty Against the Sexton Plan, was the NYU kick off of May Day, a nation-wide general strike called by Occupy Wall Street.
“We’re just generally upset by NYU’s corporate strategy,” explained Peter Wirzbicki, an organizer with NYU’s Graduate Students Union. Wirzbicki expressed optimism that NYU would scale back their plans again (beyond the 16% cut the university announced last month). “We’re trying to publicize the faculty departments that voted against the plan,” he said.
Indeed, faculty represented the largest contingent at the picket. Christine Harrington, a politics professor, marched with a bright sign that read “Politics Department Opposes NYU 2031.” Read more…
Cooper Union Students Protest College’s First Ever Tuition
April 26th, 2012 by Brett Chamberlin
This week, Cooper Union student organizers preparing for an Occupy Wall Street protest against student debt were energized and infuriated by their school’s decision to introduce tuition in the graduate program. In a move announced in the New York Times on Tuesday, Cooper Union will begin charging tuition to students in the graduate program; previously, all students at Cooper Union received full scholarships to attend the prestigious school for art and architecture. Undergraduate education will remain free “for now,” according to the college’s president.
On Wednesday afternoon, students gathered in Cooper Square, a plaza just south of Astor Place, and enclosed by the college’s two buildings: the arched brownstone Foundation Building, and the rippling, gouged metallic facade of 41 Cooper Square. Before marching to Union Square to join a larger demonstration there, Cooper students condemned the actions of the school board. Read more…
You Had Me At ‘KGB’: Putin Has A Putin Problem
February 9th, 2012 by John Surico
The past few weeks have been especially cold in the Motherland. On the domestic front, massive protests are proliferating around Russia – the last one on Saturday in Moscow estimated an audience of “tens of thousands.” Internationally, in regards to the latest stall on action in Syria, the U.N. is starting to ask wonder whose idea it was to give Russia a veto power.
Vladimir Putin & Dmitri Medvedev – the world’s most adorable master-puppet duo since Bush & Cheney — have never looked more befuddled about a Presidential election in March (which could mean possibly 12 more years for Putin) that they are poised to win by a large margin, And they should be — the external and internal systematic cracks are forming and, as Thomas Friedman pointed out on Saturday in a Times op-ed, “Russia is at a crossroads” and on the verge of collapse from a bottom-up glasnost. Read more…
Sheriff 99% And The 1% Corporate Outlaw: NYU Law School Trustee Locks Out Workers
January 31st, 2012 by Rebecca Nathanson
The two women stared each other down, slowly walking in a circle as they matched each other step for step. One, dressed in black from her cowboy hat and fake mustache down to her shoes, wore a paper badge labeled “99% Sheriff.” The other, a white cowboy hat, black Zorro-esque eye mask, and the label “1% Outlaw.” Suddenly, a line of people walked between them, breaking their concentration for a split second. Classes were out, and law students needed the entrance to their building back.
The actors quickly fell back into character and resumed their telling of a story of greed and inequality—the story of the “99%” versus the “1%”. But the women were not actors, and the story was not fiction. Rather, the “99%” represented the many caregivers at a Milford, CT, nursing home who are currently locked out by HealthBridge, a company run by Daniel Straus, or “the 1%.” Straus, an NYU Law School Trustee, endows the Straus Institute for the Advanced Study of Law and Justice with annual gifts of $1.25 million and owns six nursing homes in Connecticut, as well as many more in other states. Read more…
Twenty-Five Arrested At Baruch College Protest [VIDEO]
November 22nd, 2011 by Eric Silver
Last night, Baruch College students clashed with baton-wielding CUNY police forces. All of this went on as demonstrators launched a protest outside of the CUNY school’s Board of Trustees meeting. After a daylong rally, students congregated where the meeting was being held, where police battered them with batons and locked students in handcuffs. ABC Local News reports that the trustees were going to discuss a hike of tuition of $300 a year for the next five years. This increase is comparatively significant, as full-time resident undergraduate students pay $5,100 per year in tuition.
A representative of the National Lawyers Guild said that at least fourteen demonstrators were arrested, but students involved claim 25 arrests, including five taken down to central booking. Along with the CUNY police force, the Daily News reports, “witnesses said about 100 NYPD officers showed up to provide backup and arrest unruly protesters.” Read more…
Surprise Police Raid Wipes Out Zuccotti Park, Police Violence Rattles Protesters
November 15th, 2011 by Ari Lipsitz and Jocelyn Silver
Around 1 AM last night, word spread that the NYPD was raiding Zuccotti Park. Sure enough, ominous lines of cops decked out in riot gear appeared on the livestream, proclaiming that protesters needed to get their stuff and leave the park or they would be arrested.
Down at the park, the NYPD cordoned off entire blocks, prohibiting everyone, even press, from entering. Inside, the police cleared out all the tents and supplies, throwing them into large dumpster trucks. They even disposed of the 5000-volume People’s Library. When they were finished, Zuccotti Park was empty.
Outside the perimeter, police threatened marching protesters with arrests. The march was marred by several jarring incidents of violence. The first that we witnessed was at approximately 2:45 a.m., when we saw one Katherine Garuvis beaten and kicked in the back by police outside of the Fulton subway stop. Other notable conflicts occurred at approximately 3:15 a.m. at Grand and Centre Streets, where we saw at least four people beaten with batons, and around 3:30 a.m. at Spring and Broadway, where we were unable to determine the number of protesters involved. The police generally arrested or beat protesters that ran into the street after being told to stay on the sidewalk. Read more…
People’s University Brings Teach-In To Washington Square Park
October 24th, 2011 by Zoë Schlanger
As Occupy Wall Street fans out into different parts of New York City (and, well, the world), Washington Square Park has quickly become the hub for student involvement in the protest. From the student walk-out earlier this month to the recent addition of a student general assembly by the fountain, university participation is picking up momentum.
This Saturday began the newest iteration of student organization: People’s University, a teach-in style lecture series of professors and academics, organized largely by graduate students and a few undergrads from NYU. They’re organized around the idea that education should be free and in public spaces, and “not a consumer good,” according to their Tumblr, so they’re bringing academia outdoors.
Teach-ins have been a staple of American protests since 1965, when 200 professors at the University of Michigan taught for 12 hours to protest the Vietnam war. Professors and other academics have been giving lectures to the protesters at Zuccotti for a few weeks now, including NYU professor Slavoj Zizek, journalist Naomi Klein and the Nation reporter Chris Hedges to name a few. Read more…
