US News

CLASS WAR AT NEW SCHOOL

More than 100 students who barricaded themselves in a cafeteria at the New School University for more than a day began tossing chairs and overturning tables as their raucous protest of college President Bob Kerrey intensified.

The student “occupation” of the cafeteria on the ground floor of the building at 65 Fifth Ave., which began Wednesday evening, came a week after a faculty vote of no confidence in Kerrey, a former Democratic US senator from Nebraska.

By early today, more than 100 noisy protesters were confined to the cafeteria, where they’d trashed the area, hurling chairs and toppling tables. Other protesters gathered outside.

Cops, including police brass, amassed but made no move to end the stalemate. The no-confidence vote was spurred by the sudden departure of the school’s fifth provost in seven years under Kerrey, and by the president’s bid to step in to the interim provost position himself.

Students at the ultraliberal Greenwich Village college said they took over the ground floor of the student center to protest their exclusion from decisions on the school’s finances, academic direction and expansion plans. Many said they think Kerrey treats the New School more like a business than an institution of learning.

“It’s an attitude question,” said Peter Ian Cummings, 47, president of the school’s student government. “It has to do with a feeling you get at the New School that no one cares what you really think.”

At noon yesterday, cops moved to stop those inside the center from letting others enter via side doors.

University officials said they were consulting with the NYPD over the security risks posed by the occupation, and because a security officer had been struck by a student. “In today’s world, every university must have zero tolerance for any and all security risks,” Kerrey said.

The battle at the New School also played out online as students blogged from inside the graduate center, while Kerrey’s blog was down for a while because of a “technical difficulty.”

Additional reporting by Edmond DeMarche and John Doyle