Police forces butted heads with students Thursday morning in the Occupied New School. It will take mass solidarity from other organizations, labor and activists to prevent police forces from using force.

This story will be covered as it develops; for now here are some communiques from New School. Militant working class action like the successful occupation of the Republic Windows Factory in Chicago and resurgences of student power, like this occupation, must be actively supported by all organizations of the left. These are embryos from which a mass movement may must be reborn.

Update 1: The Occupation Committee has organized a rally at 10:30am Thursday at 65 5th Avenue, between 13th and 14th St. Come to show support for the students.

Update 2: A live blog from the site of the occupation: http://www.newschoolinexileblog.blogspot.com/

Update 3: Victory at the New School

Students from The New School University are currently occupying the 65 5th Avenue Building demanding:

• The removal of Bob Kerrey as president of our university
• The removal of James Murtha as executive vice president of our university
• Students, faculty, and staff elect the president, EVP, and Provost.
• Students are part of the interim committee to hire a provost.
• The removal of Robert B. Millard as treasurer of the board of trustees.
• Intelligible transparency and disclosure of the university budget and investments.
• The creation of a committee on socially responsible investments.
• The immediate suspension of capital improvement projects like the tearing down of 65 fifth Ave.
• Instead, money towards the creation of an autonomous student space.
• Instead, money towards scholarships and reducing tuition.
• Instead, money for the library and student life generally

Here’s a video of New School students (apparently on Wednesday) explaining why they want Kerrey out.

Here is their booklet: “The Project for a Socially Responsible University.”

We have just occupied New School University.

We liberate this space for ourselves, and all those who want to join us,
for our general autonomous use. We take the university in explicit
solidarity with those occupying the universities and streets in Greece,
Italy, France and Spain.

This occupation begins as a response to specific conditions at the New
School, the corporatization of the university and the impoverishment of
education in general. However, it is not just this university but also
New York City that is in crisis: in the next several months, thousands
of us will be losing our jobs, while housing remains unaffordable and
unavailable to many and the cost of living skyrockets.

So we stress that the general nature of these intolerable conditions
exists across the spectrum of capitalist existence, in our universities
and our cities, in all of our social relations. For this reason, what
begins tonight at the New School cannot, and should not, be contained here.

Thus: with this occupation, we inaugurate a sequence of revolt in New
York City and the United States, a coming wave of occupations,
blockades, and strikes in this time of crisis.

Be assured, this is only the beginning,

With solidarity and love from New York to Greece,
To Italy, France and Spain,
To the coming insurrection.

- New School Occupation Committee

http://www.newschoolinexile.com/