The New School Occupation On Twitter

April 12, 2009 in Administration, Campus Press, Campus Protests, Civil Liberties, History, Media, Police, Student Power, Students, The Corporate University, Town and Gown, Youth | by | Leave a comment

The activists who occupied the New School building at 65 Fifth Avenue early on Friday morning did not use Twitter to organize their action or to communicate with the world outside. No-one who self-identified as a participant in the occupation ever tweeted while it was going on, and the protesters seem not to have given much weight to Twitter as a medium through which they could communicate with the public. 

But news of the protest broke online quickly, and by the time the occupation ended much of the conversation surrounding it was taking place on Twitter. Hundreds of tweets about the occupation were posted that morning — by noon, a new one was going up every eighteen seconds. Many of these tweets were written by eyewitnesses, and taken in aggregate the occupation’s Twitter feed offers both a real-time narrative of the morning’s events and a demonstration of the multiple ways that Twitter is deployed when news breaks.

 

The Occupation On Twitter

 

The occupation began at about 5:30 in the morning, by most accounts. The first tweet that mentioned it was posted at 6:46 am — twenty-six minutes after the activist group Take Back NYU announced the action via email to its Facebook group.

The first request that observers bring cameras to the occupation site to document events as they unfolded came at 7:26. The first photo from the scene was posted exactly forty minutes later.

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U of Maryland Followup

April 11, 2009 in Administration, Campus Protests, Civil Liberties, Divestment, Politics, Religion, Student Government, Student Power, Students, Sweatshops | by | Leave a comment

Last week a campus political party at the University of Maryland College Park defied their administration and some state legislators and screened about half an hour’s worth of a hardcore porn movie as part of a free-speech forum.

So what’s happened since?

Well, legislators backed off of their threat to immediately axe UMD’s state funding over the screening, but they’re planning to revisit the issue in the fall. The state legislature directed the university to establish a policy on porn on campus before September 1, and at their Friday meeting the university’s regents told the UMD chancellor to present them with a set of recommendations for such a policy by summer.

In other news, the UMD College Park president, uninterested in picking any new fights with right-wing politicians, has overriden a vote of the university senate to drop the opening prayer from the university’s commencement ceremonies. The senate had voted 32-14 to abandon the prayer, with all of the senate’s student members voting with the majority.

The UMD College Park Student Power Party, the campus activists who staged the porn-screening-slash-free-speech-forum, have apparently seen all their candidates go down to defeat in the student government’s executive board elections. Election results aren’t official yet, though, as one of the other slates has charges of campaign violations pending.

Finally, the university’s student government voted unanimously on Thursday to oppose UMD’s contract with apparel-maker Russell Athletic. More than two dozen colleges and universities have dumped RA since the beginning of the year, in response to findings of labor violations at one of RA’s Honduras factories.

The NYPD’s Narrative of the New School Occupation

April 10, 2009 in Campus Protests, Civil Liberties, Police, Students | by | 1 comment

The New York Police Department has released a narrative of today’s events at the New School. That narrative, which appeared alongside the YouTube clip it posted this evening, is posted without comment below.

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NYPD Releases Video of Two Minutes When They WEREN’T Assaulting New School Students

April 10, 2009 in Campus Protests, Civil Liberties, Litigation, Police, Students | by | 1 comment

Well, this is a little weird. The NYPD has put up a 1-minute-and-59-second video on YouTube. The video, shot inside 65 Fifth Avenue this morning, depicts a group of occupiers seated on the floor of a large room, as police prepare to handcuff and arrest them.

It’s a little odd that the cops would think that posting video in which they weren’t beating or pepper-spraying people would serve as a defense against evidence that they beat and/or pepper-sprayed other people at a different stage of the day’s events.

What’s really odd, though, is that the video is so short. If there was no police misconduct at any point during the arrests inside 65 Fifth, that’s great news. But if that’s the case, shouldn’t the cops release all the tape they have from inside the building, instead of just a two minute clip?

U of Arkansas Students Press to Bring Pot Penalties In Line With Alcohol

April 10, 2009 in Administration, Alcohol, Civil Liberties, Drug Policy, Politics, Student Government, Students | by | Leave a comment

The students of the University of Arkansas voted this week to urge the U of A to adopt “sanctions for the possession and use of marijuana … no greater than those imposed by the University for the possession and use of alcohol.”

The university’s dean of students inserted himself into the referendum debate a week ago, sending a mass email to students arguing that “individuals choosing to possess and/or use marijuana merit different educational sanctions from those who violate the alcohol policy.” All of the candidates running for student government president and vice president endorsed the referendum, however, and it passed by a two-to-one margin.

Update: These referenda have been put on the ballot by NORML chapters at a bunch of campuses — one passed at Purdue just last week.

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StudentActivism.net is the work of Angus Johnston, a historian and advocate of American student organizing.

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