"The New School"... Not So New

Seems to be your typical, average liberal American college:

While SAT scores may be “considerably lower” than those of Columbia and New York University, students come to Lang not as a substitute for these universities but for a completely different experience.

We came to the New School’s undergraduate liberal arts college in search of a creative and critical community of students who were interested in social theory and social protest. We wanted to know how the world worked, and we wanted to experience New York City in its most unmitigated form.

Many of us could have easily gone to Columbia or N.Y.U., with acceptance letters and scholarships — yet we chose a college and university where are voices could be heard.

It is heartening to see that this practice continues and has permeated all parts of the university, and no doubt the undergraduates are continuing in the tradition of criticism and protest.

“People just don’t give equality, you have to take it.”

A little after 11:30 p.m., Mr. Kerrey emerged from a university building on Fifth Avenue south of 14th Street to a sea of a few hundred protesters chanting for his resignation. As Mr. Kerrey walked down Fifth Avenue toward 12th Street, about 30 protesters began following him, some of them shouting insults.

As the crowd’s pace quickened, so did Mr. Kerrey’s. Then, Mr. Kerrey, who lost a part of his leg in Vietnam and wears a prosthesis, broke into a run. The protesters gave chase. Mr. Kerrey turned left on a cross street and ducked into a brownstone.

At some point in the confrontation, a protester threw a tomato at Mr. Kerrey.
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Mr. Kerrey, the former governor and United States senator from Nebraska who was given an overwhelming vote of no confidence from the university’s faculty in recent days, showed up at 11:30 a.m. asking to address the dissident students, but they voted not to hear him out.

The student demonstration began Wednesday evening in the ground-floor cafeteria, with about 50 of them staying overnight citing a list of grievances with the Kerrey administration, dating back to his early support of the Iraq war. They adopted a list of eight demands including a greater student voice in university affairs and the resignations of Mr. Kerrey; James Murtha, the executive vice president; and Robert Millard, treasurer of the board of trustees, who students said was connected to a private security firm working in Iraq.

“Once the faculty vote came out, we thought now is the time,” said Jacob Blumfeld, a graduate student in philosophy.

On Wednesday night, the students pushed wooden tables against the cafeteria’s front door and blocked a rear corridor to the street with heavy recycling bins. Marcus Michelson, also a graduate student in philosophy, said the sit-in was meant to show that the students were serious about having a seat at the negotiating able. “This is about starting a dialogue, and to do that you have to be seen as an equal,” he said. “People just don’t give equality, you have to take it.”

Via Insta