1Seni Thomas

As a fellow NYU grad, this whole incident has been an embarrassment. Yeah, John Sexton is over paid... and there is a gynecologist making 2.4 million a year, but this definitely wasn't the answer.

March 3, 2009

2David Castillo

I would like to pose an alternative view of this. Even though I am certainly critical of how these activists went about achieving their objectives - I do think accountability is important. I don't know about your buddy Dave, but this Dave thinks that letting private entities do whatever they want with little oversight isn't a good thing, I don't care how much money they make.

I also think it's incredibly troubling that youth culture is more about snickering at people who do something than actually doing anything themselves. Remember when to be cool you actually had to do something? Paint, DJ, Write, Be in a band?

Students activism was a vital part of some of the most important social movements of the last century. A very small group of people including myself got Hofstra university to break an exclusive contract with Coca Cola for their human rights abuses... in the middle of suburbia. Sometimes it just takes a little work, a little guts and some know-how. Even though this was a misguided and at times hilarious attempt- at least someone out there is taking a chance and not playing the college party line.

March 6, 2009

3Noah Brier

David, first off, I can't disagree with you. There's nothing inherently wrong with what they were trying to accomplish, it was just the way they were going about trying to accomplish it. I can also promise you that Dave doesn't think that at all (he is currently getting his law degree with plans to help those who can't otherwise help themselves).

If this protest felt like anything more than grandstanding I wouldn't have commented on it. However, it just didn't seem particularly sincere and even if it was, it seems like there are much smarter ways of going about this (like a list of demands that might actually get you somewhere).

I'm not putting down the action of standing up for what you believe in, just the specific method they used.

March 6, 2009

4Reverend Dave

Dave, you raise some points worth addressing.

- Accountability is incredibly important and I think especially now people are aware of the importance of oversight. I firmly support the idea that NYU’s finances should be transparent. That said though I do recognize the fact that as a private institution, students can only claim a moral not a legal entitlement. I think that distinction has to color protestors approach to the issue.

- I cant help but see some disconnect in your second point. No argument about snark’s cool connotations today, and it has always been easier to mock something than fix it. But your argument about being cool by doing requires the presumption of a certain amount of proficiency at the chosen creative outlet. Sure, I could get on Noah’s decks and spin some disks but I would suck at it and justly be mocked. Same with protesting. Doing is not doing well.

- Student activism and the protest movement in general have been tremendous forces for change over the last forty plus years, but throughout all that time they were vilified and marginalized by, for lack of a better term, the establishment. The negative stereotypes of protestors and advocates for social change are deep set and wildly known. That is at least part of the reason the occupiers of Kimmel deserve such condemnation. There was no work, no guts and no know-how. Their immature, ill-conceived, self aggrandizing actions did nothing but allow those who already wanted to dismiss the protest movement a greater sense of righteous justification. As someone who worked 16 months on a campaign in opposition of the Bush administration in ’04, and who attended numerous anti-war protests, marches and events in ’03 when that administration was defining protestors as anti-American and treehugging tie dye wearing neo-hippie liberals, I have a serious problem with self indulgent idiots legitimizing those caricatures and undermining the long term utility of protest actions for their own short term amusement.

- Final point. I believe that circumstances have changed enough in the last few years to make the Coca-Cola debate far less black and white, but without arguing the merits of either side I am just curious why Coke appears to be the one issue that captivates the hearts, minds and efforts of every college kid who wants to claim social consciousness? Again I am not arguing for or against a Coke ban, and I certainly appreciate the fact that it is just the kind of achievable focused goal that student protest can achieve, I just want to understand why in a world full of serious issues this is one everyone is foaming at the mouth over. (Again this isn’t intended to demean you or the success of your actions in Hofstra. I bring it up because its been easily the most polarizing political issue at NYU over the last two years. More so even than financial transparency.)

March 9, 2009