NYU Student Protest Over Financial Transparency Getting Heated - wcbstv.com

NYU Student Protest Over Financial Transparency Getting Heated - wcbstv.com: "Feb 20, 2009 6:46 am US/Eastern
NYU Student Protest Takes Violent Turn Overnight
Demonstrators Blow Off 1 a.m. Deadline To Vacate Barricaded Cafeteria; Cops Scuffle With Crowd Outside
Students Want Back-And-Forth On Financial Transparency
Security Guard Carried Away On Stretcher"

Dozens of students who barricaded themselves inside a New York University cafeteria have rejected the possibility of leaving the building as negotiations with school officials continue into Friday morning.

Members of the coalition Take Back NYU! have been occupying the cafeteria of the Helen & Martin Kimmel Center for University Life for more than 24 hours.

A spokeswoman for the students said that NYU told them that they could face expulsion or arrest if they didn't leave the building by 1 a.m. Friday.

A crowd outside the building scuffled with police officers about a half hour after the deadline.

The students are calling for a series of changes, including increased transparency of the school's finances. They want full budget and endowment disclosure, affordable education, and increased student participation in the university's operation.

The university has offered to dialogue with the students. NYU spokesman John Beckman said the students rejected the offer.

It has been a battle of wills in Greenwich Village as the students try to force a face-to-face discussion with the university. The students have been holed up inside the third-floor room since late Wednesday night.

The school had said if its deadline expired it may use force, but now it looks like the two sides may negotiate.

The student occupiers, who chanted for the television news cameras on Thursday night, have said repeatedly said they have no intention of going anywhere, despite the university-imposed deadline.

The occupation began to turn ugly Thursday night when an NYU security guard was wheeled out on a stretcher after claiming she was pushed by a student.

It came on a night of defiance and solidarity for the student revolutionaries who've barricaded themselves in an upstairs cafeteria claiming NYU won't come to the bargaining table.

"We're here until they negotiate with us," demonstrator Julie Kliger told CBS 2 HD.

Kliger is one of the occupants and sent to CBS 2 HD pictures of her fellow occupants, a group of students who said they won't bend to what they call the shady scare tactics of the administration.

"They're resorting to things to like these mental scare games like calling your parents to say you know this could lead to expulsion or this could lead to their arrest," Kliger said.

Webcam video is also allowing supporters to follow the drama, which centers on more than a dozen demands that centers on financial transparency. However, not everyone is buying in.

"You know a laundry list of demands and none of them seem like they have a chance of being implemented by anything other than actual negotiation rather than going for the political theater aspect of it," NYU student Ken Nisbet said.

The political theater has attracted police throughout the building, with the school saying, "We value reasoned debate and forceful argument. We do not honor, however, forms of expression that disrupt the university's academic mission, it's operations, or it's students pursuit of their education."

But students said they're not asking for much.

"The NYU has flat-out not responded. It's not even that their demands have been denied, it's that they're not responded at all," student Dacia Mitchell said.

Added student Raphael Mishler, "I think making the university more accountable to its students is something that's realistic for us to expect."

Tuition at NYU annually is about $50,000, including room and board. Some students told CBS 2 HD they had no idea the cost was so high; they just want to know where their money is going.

The budget demands seem to be the top order of business on Take Back NYU!'s mind.

"Most important to me is the budget demands," student Jane Bird said. "I think it's gotten out of hand at this point."

There are also other demands that don't concern the budget. The group wants 13 scholarships a year provided for students of the Gaza Strip, and to give surplus supplies to the Islamic university in Gaza.

Though the students are sticking to their guns, many in the NYU community didn't necessarily think action was warranted.

"I don't agree with them on the issue of Gaza, even though I agree with them on the majority of their demands," student Gabriel Schoenberg said.

"I don't like the fact that, through this action, they're taking away legitimacy from the student senate," Constantino Rago added.

Please stay with CBS 2 HD and wcbstv.com for more on this developing story.

CBS 2 HD's John Slattery contributed to this report.