New School Re-Re-Occupied
November 18, 2011
All-City Student Occupation @ 90 5th Avenue – Inaugural Statement
Today, the university is a supreme symbol of social and economic inequality. Skyrocketing tuition costs at public and private institutions deny us access to higher education and saddle us with crushing debt. We will reclaim this elite space and make it open to all. We will foster dialogue and build solidarity between students, workers, and others excluded or marginalized by economic and social inequalities. We will build community through the commonality of occupation. We will offer free education – this is systematically forbidden. We join a long tradition of student activism and struggle. We the indebted and the future unemployed and underemployed stand committed to this movement for our collective lives. We invite all to join us in this open occupation.
Workers, students, and the millions of this city unite!
Together we will be victorious.
ESCALATE the Struggle. EXPAND the Movement. OCCUPY!
The New School Reoccupied 
November 19, 2011 at 11:40 pm
I wish I was there with you guys, but I’m occupying elswhere!
This is a sign of the way we must live, rather than being idiots while we are being dropped to a whole lower level of our humanity.
November 20, 2011 at 2:34 am
[…] the New School Occupation in […]
November 20, 2011 at 2:48 am
Yeah, thanks for occupying the only space on the New School campus which is actually availble to students. Why don’t you get brave and occupy a real site of power instead of taking away precious space from students who need it? You can keep up all the anit-capitalist signs (love the tent), just give us our study space back!
And please keep in mind that many students–including a lot of foreign students–might not know how to participate in re-establishing a quiet study area. Many voices are certainly silenced here.
November 20, 2011 at 9:03 am
if 99 to 1 correct or is it 999 to 1
November 20, 2011 at 2:43 pm
…especially now that final exams are approaching
November 20, 2011 at 4:35 pm
[…] the New School Occupation in […]
November 20, 2011 at 6:56 pm
“occupy everywhere”!!! so proud!!!!
mother of one of the occupants
November 20, 2011 at 7:01 pm
So what do you mean that you are offering a free education? Who is teaching who is giving out the degrees, paying the electric bills and the heat bills? I am trying to understand this occupy movement but it stinks of socialism. Who is in charge? someone has to be and someone or some group will be and then there will always be haves and the have nots.Which usually means the governing body Has everyone else has not. Help mevunderstand.
November 20, 2011 at 7:15 pm
I see some criticism about occupying student spaces. I am a student at SUNY Purchase, and an occupation there has come under the same criticisms. Many people will tell me that one should occupy spaces of power. I try to explain that there is power is any space, and the movement becomes more powerful as it grows to include everywhere. Any advice on making occupation seem relevant and important to people at their colleges?
November 20, 2011 at 9:23 pm
As a New School student, I have to agree with the comment by “mom” – quiet space dedicated for studying at our school is already precious and usually over-crowded. Even though you mean well, you are doing quite the opposite of what many believe your intentions to be – making a stand for open access to humane resources regardless of socioeconomic strata. Are your fellow students (who happen to use the building that you’ve targeted) not part of your intended beneficiaries? Are the members of our institution (many of whom are here from overseas and/or are attending due to financial support from the school’s various academic departments) to be denied open access to this same space which was once ours?
I think you would be hard-pressed to find many New School students that do not support you and your goals, however this action that you have taken has and will continue to isolate a great number of would-be fervent OWS supporters – given our school’s legacy of protest and subversive action.
So please give some thought to the potential comrades that surround you in other New School buildings (some of which are not owned by Wells Fargo) … especially now that final exams are approaching
November 21, 2011 at 9:27 pm
The Communist Manifesto talked about a nation where everyone equally shared the resources available and wealth didn’t dictate social standing. Unfortunately, the collapse of the Soviet Union highlighted the drawbacks of such a system of government. The members of Occupy Wall Street are espousing the same political rhetoric that tumbled a Tsarist Russia. If you suceed in your quest to reform US government, how will you pay for the equality you demand? How will you ensure that you don’t replace a corrupt government with an equally corrupt system? It’s fine to call for change, but do you have any concrete suggestions for how to create and finance a lasting change? I have yet to hear anyone provide examples of how this monumental task will be accomplished. Instead of wasting your energy thinking of ways to occupy someone else’s privately owned propery, why don’t you put to work the great minds you have assembled to take a serious look at the problems our nation faces and come up with realistic solutions to those problems? That would garner my respect and support.
November 22, 2011 at 7:23 am
amen. give some solutions, organize, don’t just inconvinence alot of hard working people and give those who don’t an excuse to continue to do so. there are issues, people in need, but hand out and distribution of wealth is a falsehood if you think people are genuinely over all caring about their fellow man. Alot do, but in the end you will see that many do not. Someone or some group will be in power and decide was is best for the whole and most often the governing body will be better off than the masses and the whole thing starts over again. We have a great government and country in need of an overhaul. Sitting in a hallway accomplishes nothing but to feed egos. the people in DC occupying the Wells Fargo owned building who do they think they are? They should work to start a nonprofit give up a year or two of their lives to volunteer and live like the destitute, work with the proper channels to make a change and then i will be impressed. I have been part of that kind of thing. Stealing from Wells Fargo is not the answer. neither is stealing space and attention from the students at New School. Who is compensating them for what they or their parents are paying for. Occupy has some good ideas but your methodology stinks. You look like a bunch of spoiled american kids who just say “give me” and pretend you care about others.
November 22, 2011 at 1:26 am
This is the thing… There are no convenient places to occupy.
This whole thing is supposed to be an inconvenience, for those occupying and for everyone else.
Hundreds and thousands have given up there spaces, time, gigs to be in a place unfamiliar, cold, hard, inconvenient.
No where in any founding document does it say “this will be easy, relax, buy stuff. Chill-out and get fat occupying a cushy job.”
All governing documents that proclaim to provide for a democratic society are about the society Working, really working, to understand the issues that confront us and to WORK on solutions, to really think, process and act to find solution/resolution to better everyone’s situation. Freedom, liberty are not easy.
Our representative system and it’s purchase has allowed many to feel that all we have to do is vote in a couple elections here and there, or even not, just buy instead. Work some gig and purchase some stuff you somehow find you need. It’s easy.
That’s a falsehood.
This isn’t going to be easy But maybe we will end up with a democracy, then, we can all share in the work and collectively process and decide how to better everyone’s situation.
Good luck on your finals
November 22, 2011 at 5:40 am
Wow,Klww. No one is advocating complacency. I doubt than anyone here who is expressing concern needs a lecture from you on the falsehoods of capitalism and our current governing system. We already know that, and it’s not the issue. In that, as far as I can tell, we are with you.
The issue is that you have taken over a highly functional student study space in the name of democracy. What used to seem like a “we” (students, people interested in OWS) now seems like an “us” and “them”. You show your authority in full force, and any individual who dissents on a single action of an independently acting OWS group will be branded persona non grata. It won’t be the first time in New School history. I am also concerned that being part of OWS somehow gives you license to do whatever you want–including lame graffiti all over the study center and the basic de-establishment of the study area.
I seriously recommend that you gague OVERALL student support of the occupation; if the majority agree agree to hand over the study center to the occupation, then I will certainly change my mind. Instead, you only gague the opinion of those who come to the study center. My concern is that you have not really consulted the community on an issue that affects them. I would suggest reaching out because right now there is a serious sense of displacement and alienation.
November 22, 2011 at 10:53 am
How many in the New School occupation are New School students?
I tend to agree with mom on this one, occupyers of the New School space you need to listen to your community, this is not the same as occupying Zuccotti, or an empty public school building as they have done in DC or a bank. Occupying the New School building is not making the statement you are hoping for and you are alienating students. I am a staunch supporter and defender of the Occupy movement and I feel uneasy in this criticism, but I also feel I have to say something.
Someone give me some solid reason why occupying The New School building is good for the movement. I think the strength of statement is better made elsewhere. If you want to make a statement about education, occupy a school that has been shut down. This will garner a lot more support and make a positive more powerful statement.
If I am wrong, I am happy to be enlightened, but as a student and a supporter, these are my thoughts.