With none of their demands met and bags under their eyes, a handful of New York University (NYU) students threw in the towel last month. Now, with a meeting planned for Thursday, they are looking to expand their efforts.
During a protest that lasted close to 40 hours between Feb. 18 and 20, a group of students calling themselves Take Back NYU (TBNYU) occupied a cafeteria in Washington Square's Kimmel Center.
In their lengthy list of demands, they called for administrators to release NYU's endowment investments and budget to the public.
They also pushed for tuition stabilization, permission for student workers to unionize, the creation of 13 annual NYU scholarships for Palestinian students and university contributions to efforts to rebuild the Islamic University of Gaza, which the Israeli Air Force bombed during strikes in December.
According to NYU sophomore Emily Stainkamp, an unofficial spokesperson for the group, endowment and budgeting concerns topped the list.
"TBNYU has been fighting specifically for transparency… Disclosing the budget is not a sectarian issue. It's in everybody's best interest to know how money is being spent," she said. "Obviously, [our] demands were not met."
Kit Gallant, an NYU junior who covered the protest for the Huffington Post, told the Daily that some of TBNYU's demands were misguided.
Specifically, he said that the protest only served to bring more controversy to certain initiatives, such as the push to reopen negotiations between NYU and student workers about unionization.
"Their list of demands was more like a wish list that was a [combination] of wish lists from several other student organizations," he said. "They have no idea how to go about staging a successful political movement. You don't do something that will disrupt the student body without being a force on campus."
Gallant added that the response from the student body has been very negative, with few strongly supporting the protestors' actions.
Martin Bourqui, the leader of Students at Tufts for Investment Responsibility, a campus group that pushes for endowment transparency, also took issue with the NYU protest. By combining such broad demands, he said it made it easier for the university to reject them as a package.
"They presented an agenda that diverged from what a majority of what NYU supported," he said. "I think the university took their list of demands and took it as an opportunity to say no to all of them. I personally don't think it was the best way to raise awareness about these issues."
At the outset of the protest, about 70 students occupied the dining room, but when security guards broke it up, only around two dozen remained. At the protest's high point, hundreds of onlookers stood outside of the Kimmel Center.
TBNYU had requested amnesty for its actions, but NYU suspended 18 students for a week. While there are reports of fighting between police and students, Stainkamp labeled the protest as peaceful.
"[We] thought the response to our non-violent protest was really heavy-handed," she said.
But an NYU press release pointed out that protestors injured a university security officer and disobeyed direct orders not to break onto a balcony connected to the occupied cafeteria.
"These actions dishonor NYU's commitment to free exchange of ideas, reasoned debate and legitimate forms of protest," the press release read.
Even so, the protesters were not completely without official support, as a group of 170 faculty members signed a petition asking the administration to address, but not necessarily meet, the group's demands. They also requested that any suspensions follow from, rather than precede, official investigations.
The students have already returned to campus and will not be prosecuted by the state, but they will still face long-term consequences.
According to Stainkamp, the 18 students could be banned from holding campus leadership positions and studying abroad. They might also be fired from their work-study jobs at the discretion of their employers. They will remain on probation for the remainder of their time at NYU.
Notwithstanding the consequences, the protestors did not seem to regret their actions. In an official statement on their Web site, TBNYU members applauded the attention they brought to their requests. And they hope to get further exposure on Thursday, when they will meet with members of the NYU community to discuss the protest.
"This protest is just a beginning to what is to come," the statement said. "The action made national and international news, and showcased the real power of the new student movement sweeping the globe."
