sam_handelman's Journal: Got arrested today

Let's see, I went down to the demo at NYU, turnout was good (a thousand people? A lot), especially for late august, hung out for an hour or so, ate a couple vendor hot dogs and some diet snapple, chanted extensively (my voice is very loud).

Me and 80 other people sat down in front of the entrance to the library, linked hands, and were arrested after we refused to move.

Got transfered to central booking, had to take the shoelaces out of my shoes, spent several hours in a big holding cell with all the other demonstrators.

It was *exhausting*, but the police - who are having their own labor dispute at the moment - were very nice, very polite. Processing took forever but that is to be expected.

UPDATE - We were at NYU protesting the refusal of the administration there to negotiate a new contract with their graduate students. They expect to strike sometime later in the fall.

The protest was pre-arranged with the police, we went in planning to be arrested and had already arranged this with the cops, which is part of why it went so smoothly.

History here: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/07/13/nyu

Newpaper story on the protest here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/01/nyregion/01nyu.html

Uh, what were you protesting?

[shanen]

Missing details there, but you must have been doing something to bother someone. Odds on it annoyed BushCo.

Re:Uh, what were you protesting?

[sam_handelman]

Sorry - yeah, we were down there protesting the refusal of the NYU administration to bargain a new contract.

History here: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/07/13/nyu [insidehighered.com]

Grad school?

[gmhowell]

Was this the grad school strike? Did they sit you on the Group W bench?

Re:Grad school?

[sam_handelman]

Prequel to the strike. Journal updated.

Re:Grad school?

[RevMike]

That is down on Whitehall St., not Central Booking. And watch out for father rapers.

Moo

[Chacham]

I actually despise unions, so i hope you lose. :) And refusing to move? That is against the law, and i'm happy you were arrested. Should you do it again, you should be arrested again too. So there! :P

It's nice to know though that the police were kind. Are they always kind or were they just afraid of lawsuits? Then again, being i am not a New Yorker, and i find New Yorkers to be more "in your face", i wouldn't be a good judge of that.

And locking hands? After seeing how many people *don't* wash their hands wh

Good Experience

[mercedo]

I feel a little bit secured after completing reading to the last of your report. It's going to be definetely a good experience, but preferably autonomy of university will have to be kept.