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Student Action at NYU

1. Posted by admin in 36 |
2. December 31st, 1969 |
3. Comments

Friday afternoon ended what was a nearly 2-day student demonstration at New York University in Manhattan, coming just two months after a similar student action at The New School.  The students involved kept the updates coming on their TakeBackNYU website and on Twitter, attracting both supportive and critical comments from other students and the public near and far.   The TakeBackNYU site gives the history and background to the group, and offers a look into their demands for NYU, including budget transparency, research into socially responsible investing, the right of student workers and TAs to unionize, and financial support for Palestinian students.  The New York Times covered the event, though focusing largely on the eventual suspension of the students involved in the action.

A few thoughts come to mind:

• Student voice in society - Students are indeed left out of much decision-making and higher-level discussions in educational institutions, both in higher education as well as high schools and K-12 education overall.  This goes along with an overall lack of youth involvement throughout society, which analysts such as Adam Fletcher and organizations like FreeChild and the National Youth Rights Association have discussed in great depth.  Therefore, my eyes are quickly drawn to instances where young people and/or adult allies are reacting to this repression of youth by taking action to ensure that young people’s voices are not ignored.

• Satyagraha - I’m reminded of the words of a good friend and educator colleague, who says it may be that only a “revolutionary, nation-wide, non-violent, satyagraha-style, youth-led movement” can move our country into a place to rethink our educational practices, how we treat people in a democratic society, and how we respect this world that we live in.  Young people do comprise a huge section of our society, and while adult allies cannot ignore their own role in societal change or romanticize the impact of youth-led movements, young people may be able to draw attention to issues in ways that adults who have worked for years on these same issues cannot.

• Web 2.0 tools and advocacy - The NYU and The New School student actions have impressed upon me the value of Web 2.0 tools in organizing and advocacy campaigns, both to broadcast to the public in real time the progression of events as well as to enable immediate public comment and dialogue about the situation.  Browsing through the TakeBackNYU blog posts and comments and twitter “tweets” (which you can search on Twitter with a term like “takebackNYU”), you can see how the students themselves used these tools to inform and mobilize supporters, including asking people to write letters and contact NYU officials.  Critics also used these forums to question or denounce the students’ actions, a good sign that the students leading the action practice what they preach in their own demands by welcoming criticism.

• Means and ends - While at first the NYU students declared a commitment to non-violence and no destruction of property, they later revised the property clause in order to gain access to a balcony in the building they were occupying.  I don’t know enough about the situation to comment or judge.  But it does bring up the crucial conversation about what tactics and means are justified to achieve one’s goals. How people act in their efforts to bring attention to an issue may have an even greater impact on the result as the content of the message.

• Responding to student action - As mentioned above, NYU’s response to the students’ action was to suspend the students involved and evict them from their dorms.  Meanwhile, representing a very different reaction, the final agreement at The New School included a clause that granted amnesty for all participants involved and serious consideration of and agreement to many of the students’ concerns.  My hope is that the NYU situation is so new that we will hear about forthcoming genuine discussion of the students’ issues as well as the broad concern about student voice in general.  But the immediate administrative response is not very inspiring.  Once again, I cannot judge whether or not the students were justified in all of their actions.  However, a quick dismissal of the students without a process to consider the situation and the history leading up to the recent actions seems unfortunate at best and trampeling on the rights of the students at worst.  Most of all, it would be a shame if NYU ignored the sensible concerns the students raise and continue to deny young people a voice in the educational institution to which they and their families give tens of thousands of dollars to every year.