RUTHFULLY YOURS

In February 2009, President Obama had just taken his oath of office, and I was a freshman at NYU. On the evening of February 18, a group of about 60 NYU students, and a few students from other schools, assembled in the NYU student-center cafeteria. They said that they were a group called Take Back NYU, and that they were occupying our cafeteria until a grab-bag of eleven non-sequitur demands were met.

Their first, courageous demand was that none of them be punished. Their second was that “all employees whose jobs were disrupted during the course of the occupation” receive “full compensation.”

Third, they demanded that NYU’s budget and endowment be made public. Fourth, that “student workers” and teaching assistants be allowed to bargain collectively. Fifth, “a fair labor contract for all NYU employees at home and abroad.” Sixth, they demanded “a Socially Responsible Finance Committee that will immediately investigate war profiteers and lifting of the Coke ban.” (NYU had recently overturned a silly “All University Senate” decision to ban Coke from our vending machines and cafeterias; rumors about abusive labor practices by the Coca-Cola Company turned out to be lies. But I’m not sure which war profiteers they had in mind.)

Seventh, they demanded annual scholarships for 13 Palestinian students. (Why 13? I never found out.) Eighth, all of the university’s “excess supplies and materials” were to be donated to the University of Gaza. Ninth, “tuition stabilization for all students,” coupled with a demand that “the university shall meet 100% of government-calculated student financial need.” Tenth, student groups were to be given priority in reserving university space (priority over whom? Faculty? This was something else I could never work out). And finally, they demanded “that the general public have access to Bobst Library,” which is NYU’s main research library.

Eventually they added a twelfth demand: that they be given access to bathrooms. They evidently hadn’t thought too carefully about the room they chose to “occupy.” “Not allowing us bathroom rights is a human-rights violation!” cried an 18-year old freshman, forgetting that she was free to leave the cafeteria whenever she wanted. What she wanted was to be able to leave, use the bathroom, and come back. Like a parent giving a lollipop to a screaming child, NYU let her.

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The protesters broke the locks that kept the third-floor cafeteria balcony closed, and addressed a crowd below — a crowd that blew hot and cold. Some shouted their support, pushed up against barricades, and chanted, “Shame! Shame!” at NYU security. But once everyone found out the cafeteria wouldn’t be serving food for the duration of the protest, an equally boisterous cadre chanted, “Give us back our quesadillas.” Counter-revolutionaries made at least two signs: “HIPPIES GO HOME” and “YOU SUCK.”

Many of the “occupiers” had brought their laptops with them; I was surprised to find one — a friend of mine — on “iChat,” a now-defunct instant-messaging program. While he was on the barricades, I had a chance to ask him what the big deal was. He said he didn’t care about the demands, or at least didn’t care too much. But, he said, “I’ve always wanted to occupy a building.” He was a big fan of Abbie Hoffman, ever since the preceding summer, when all incoming art students had been told to read a book about the protests of 1968.

The book awoke something deep inside those art students . It made them desperate to be big shots, to accomplish something of consequence, to be the envy of their peers, to be famous. My friend had the idea that Take Back NYU’s heroic stand was going to get him national attention.

After assassinating Julius Caesar, (Shakespeare’s) Cassius asks the other assassins, “How many ages hence shall this our lofty scene be acted over in states unborn and accents yet unknown? So oft as that shall be, so often shall the knot of us be called the men that gave their country liberty.” That’s what the NYU occupiers had in mind for themselves. And I’m sure that’s the fantasy of the pelting, petty students at Mizzou, Yale, et al. Dollars to doughnuts, every single one of them knows who he wants to play him in the movie. And that’s why they don’t care what specifically they’re protesting: hate speech, Israel, Thomas Jefferson, Indian headdresses, black lives not mattering. As long as they get to be the new Jerry Rubins of a new 1968. (Interrupting Bernie Sanders is just a preview. Unless Hillary’s security is really on its toes, next year’s Democratic National Convention should be a real riot.)

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And while the new radicals play themselves out, do yourself a favor and watch the best video on YouTube: insider footage of Take Back NYU’s protest being broken up. Just 18 of the occupiers stuck it out to the end of the three-day protest, when NYU decided enough was enough. The clip shows NYU security guards disassembling a flimsy barricade and entering the cafeteria; the protest-leading cameraman shouts impotently, “You may not come in here! This is students’ free space!” The security men ignore him and walk into the room. “Excuse me? Brutality here? You’re on camera,” says the cameraman, as he walks after the security guards, who continue to ignore him. “Do not use brutality! You may not detain us! You are on camera!”

Befuddled, the cameraman then says security can, in fact, come in, “as long as they don’t have devices of force.” He tries to set rules for a negotiation, to which one of the security men genially responds, “This isn’t a negotiation; we’re explaining the disciplinary procedures that are going to be applied in this case.”

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“That will only happen if you agree to negotiate with us at this point,” says the cameraman.

“No it won’t,” says the security man.

“You’re making everyone very upset,” says the cameraman.

The cameraman says the occupiers need to assemble in a “consensus area” to decide what they’re going to do. The security man says they can have ten minutes. “This is all on camera,” says the cameraman, “so if there’s brutality, it will be filmed.”

“You’re gonna get sued — we have lawyers,” adds a brave, off-camera occupier.

A girl in a kaffiyeh begins to scream: “Help! Help me! . . . He touched me! He grabbed me by the shoulders! . . . Don’t f—ing touch me!”

It’s ten minutes long, but it’s worth watching to the end — the footage closes with the cameraman logging his possessions to make sure they aren’t confiscated; it includes the gem “headphones . . . macbook charger . . . water bottles . . . I don’t think that they want water bottles, they probably drink corporate water.”

Sic semper whiny students.

— Josh Gelernter writes weekly for NRO and is a regular contributor to The Weekly Standard. He is a founder of the tech startup Dittach.