Letter to the Editor

To the Editor:

The Free Press has trumpeted “revelations” that the arrestees from
last year’s April occupation are seeking funds from the LSU and USS to
compensate them for a small fraction of the legal fees they have paid
out over this last year’s proceedings against them. As usual, the Free
Press is spreading inaccuracies, trying to create scandal out of
nothing and curry favor with the authorities.

Those seeking these funds have always been clear that they would be
reimbursed for debt already incurred and that the lawyer in question
has received payment. It makes no material difference that this
proposal appears now, after payment has been made—it is a question of
providing adequate legal representation to New School students
arrested at a campus protest, without placing an undue financial
burden on them, which infringes on their rights to free speech and
defense counsel. If arrestees had requested funds a year ago, before
paying out anything and before a year’s fundraising work, they would
be asking for substantially more!

A few voices have been wondering about the precedent set if this
proposal passes, and rightfully so. The US has been at open war for
nine years. We’re two years into the Great Recession. Student debt is
skyrocketing. There will be more campus protests, if the university is
fulfilling its supposed mission of producing citizens capable of
thinking critically, not just conformists, careerists and bureaucrats.
There may even be more occupations—and I’d like to point out that in
most parts of the world, even under the most brutal and repressive
regimes, university occupations are not an unusual way for people to
take space and empower themselves. Do we want to set the precedent
that protests and occupations at the New School will be met with over
100 police vehicles, with the protesters tossed in jail and
prosecuted, paying 100% of their own legal defense? Or will the LSU
and USS stand up for student solidarity and student rights?

Sincerely,
Micah Murphy
PhD Candidate, NSSR