The New School In Exile

The New School Students’ Demands & Occupation Are Righteous; NYPD
Assaults & Arrests Are Wrong

The World Can’t Wait strongly condemns the NYPD’s vicious and
unjustified physical assault on students at the New School, and the
arrest of 22 demonstrators. We demand that charges against all of them
be dropped immediately, and express our full solidarity and support for
these New School resisters.

Continued in Read More link below...

On Friday April 10, more than 100 police officers converged on students
who were non-violently occupying their campus. Video evidence clearly
shows cops repeatedly pepper spraying students—proving the NYPD’s
earlier insistence that officers did not do so to be an outright lie—and
also shows police beating demonstrators on the street. This sort of
brutality would be outrageous in any situation, but the fact that the
vast majority of it was meted out against students on their own campus
is all the more reprehensible.

The demands of the New School students, which included the resignation
of war criminal president Bob Kerrey and greater student control of the
campus, are righteous. We applaud the courageous, defiant spirit of
those who decided to demand change themselves, rather than placing their
hopes in politicians who repeatedly promise—but never deliver—such change.

At many points during the past few years, recognizing the tremendous
galvanizing impact that waves of student resistance can have on society
as a whole, World Can’t Wait and others resisting wars for empire,
torture, and the many other crimes of our government have wondered:
“Where are the students? Where are the youth stepping out to lead the
charge towards a new, and radically different, society?” Recent bursts
of political life at the New School, along with similar manifestations
at NYU, inspires hope that a new generation of student resisters can and
will step forward.

At the same time, the police brutality visited upon students at the New
School must be linked to the heightened repression carried out by our
government particularly during the Bush years, connected to escalating
assaults on a broad range of people throughout the world, in forms
including: Overt torture and spying on the people; undisguised wars of
aggression; secret kidnapping and detention of people without charging
or trying them; the raiding, detention, and deportation of huge numbers
of immigrants; and killings of persons of color by law enforcement.

An increasingly vicious crackdown on dissent within the U.S. was driven
home very powerfully in the massive police presence, pre-emptive raids,
violence, arrests, and political charges against protesters at the
national Democratic and Republican conventions in 2008. College campuses
have been a target of this government crackdown on dissent. Images of
riot police raiding the New School called to mind police tasering
University of Florida student Andrew Meyer in September 2007 police
because he was too persistent in asking John Kerry tough questions.

Dissent from U.S. foreign policy brings consequences for faculty, too.
Professors who speak out against the U.S. and/or Israel have been lately
subjected to politically-motivated firings (whether they were
acknowledged as such or not) of University of Colorado professor Ward
Churchill, for denouncing the brutality of the United States government
and military throughout the world; Depaul University Professor Norman
Finkelstein, for speaking out against the crimes against Palestinians by
the state of Israel; and Bard College professor Joel Kovel, for the same
reason as Finkelstein.

Reversing the fascist direction in which our government has moved during
the Bush years, and bringing to a halt the crimes of this government
will require massive and sustained independent political resistance.
Recent displays of student activism at the New School and NYU are
inspiring examples of what this resistance looks like; of the spirit of
bravery and moral certitude that must fuel this resistance; and of the
tremendous impact this resistance can have.

We urge students at the New School—and those across the city and the
country who have been inspired by their actions—to broaden their demands
to address the mounting crimes of our government, including the
occupations carried out for empire, and to raise their sights. A student
movement can change the world by aiming not only for a radically
different campus, but for a radically different world; a world in which
the tremendous diversity of people on this planet live and work
cooperatively for the liberation of humanity, rather than a world
governed by brutal wars for empire, torture, and oppression.

In solidarity,
The World Can’t Wait
866 973 4463

• Posted by: Worldcantwait
• Topic: Important Updates

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