NYU Students Plan To Protest "Indefinitely" Until Their Demands Are Met - Immediately Go Home When The School Calls Their Parents

Village Voice – When a group of New York University students began occupying the staircase of a campus building last week, they initially planned to stay indefinitely, or at least until their demand for a meeting with the school’s board of trustees was granted. Instead, the students departed within forty hours, after the university phoned their parents, warning of a possible suspension that could lead to a loss of housing and financial aid.

The phone calls — which a memo from the Student Government Assembly described as an act of “administrative recklessness” — startled both students and parents, and have since ignited a debate about how universities should treat campus protesters.

Oh man, if there is a better, more concise profile of the 2018 college student protester than this, I’d be shocked to see it.  So much courage and determination, a deep desire to inspire change in the world, to fight the injustice of too much homework and culturally appropriated cafeteria food and a dependence on fossil fuels, to sacrifice their time and energy and dedicating themselves to a cause bigger than themselves, the cause of social justice.

Unnnnnnnnnnnless they call your parents and you run the risk of losing your cozy studio in the Village.

Then it’s time to hustle home and get back to video games.

The students “initially planned to stay indefinitely,” notes the Voice’s report. “Instead, the students departed within forty hours.”

I, too, was shocked that students violating the rules by disrupting university operations faced consequences for their actions.

I guess they were shocked too.  You’re telling me you can’t just stop going to classes and doing work to occupy a school building until your demand of meeting the board of trustees is met without anything happening in response?

Christiane Riederer, whose daughter Josephine is an NYU sophomore and a member of the divestment movement, says Stipeck phoned her as well, and warned that her daughter would be in danger of losing financial aid, scholarships, and her housing if she continued occupying. “It seemed excessive, when they could have just listened to the kids instead,” says Riederer.

The real world is going to be a real motherfucker when you occupy your boss’s office until your demands of having input into the company’s investment strategies are met, only to promptly have your paycheck cancelled, benefits cut off and find yourself instantly replaced by another employee who wants to do their job.

I miss when protesters really believed in the cause they were fighting for and it actually meant something to them.  Real protesters would take pride in the authority they were challenging threatening them and trying to punish them.  It would be a badge of honor and make the movement that much more meaningful.

Now it’s NYU kids running home as soon as daddy calls.

In last week’s phone calls to parents, Beckman added, the university did not “threaten students about their housing or other financial aid. But it is simply the case that certain possible disciplinary outcomes — such as suspension — would have an impact on those matters.”

Sad!