A press release from Darragh Sheehan (516-429-7549):

Students and Faculty Protest
Role of Bob Kerrey,

President of New School University,

in the Right-wing "Committee

for the Liberation of Iraq"

Kerry Agrees to Forum
after Students Sit-In at his Office

and Demand
Public Accounting for his Pro-War Stance

When: Wednesday, December 4th 1-3pm;

PressConference at 12:30 pm

Where: Tishman Auditorium, New School, 66 West 12th Street (near 6th
Avenue)

Bob Kerrey, New School University‚s controversial President and former
Senator from Nebraska, has once again created a storm of protest, this
time around his decision to join the Committee for the Liberation of
Iraq. The Committee is "a small group of well-placed right-wing
activists with close ties to the offices of Pentagon chief Donald
Rumsfeld and Vice-President Dick Cheney and soon Senate Majority Leader
Trent Lott" according to a November 2002 report by Foreign Policy in
Focus (fpif).

Founded in 1919 by John Dewey and Charles Beard as an institution
supporting peace, independent thinking and critical intellectual
thought, The New School now faces one of its greatest challenges.
Students, staff and faculty across The University community are
wondering out loud, "Who is Bob Kerrey and why is he the President of
the New School?" Concerned members of the university community are
holding a press conference on the issue Wed., Dec. 4 at 12:30pm,
followed by a university-wide meeting with Kerrey.

The Financial Times characterized the Committee to Liberate Iraq as "a
public outlet for the more hawkish realms of the administration." Former
Secretary of State George Schultz said "A committee like this gets a lot
of impetus from the White House it is an outside group which can be
briefed and sound off." (Financial Times November 21, 2002).

The sounding off, however, is coming from the students and faculty
across divisions at the New School University. People are outraged that
Kerrey is affiliating the university with such hawkish heavy hitting
right wingers.

Last Wednesday November 20th as part of a city-wide student walk out
against the war, 25 New School students went to Kerrey's office
demanding a public accounting on the war and his conduct as President.
The students refused to leave until Kerrey agreed to schedule the forum.
Kerrey's office had previously declined to even schedule a meeting with
the students.

Kerrey's ideology of militarism doesn't start and stop in Iraq; he is
also rejecting the New Schools legacy by honoring George David, the CEO
of United Technologies, the fourth largest defense contractor in the
country. In addition, he is inviting a representative of the Honeywell
Corporation, the 14th largest defense contractor and maker of cluster
bombs in the world, onto the Board of the Trustees of the University.

Students will be joined at the press conference by:

* David Cline, a Vietnam combat veteran and President of Veterans for
Peace

* Fred Jerome, author of The Einstein File: J. Edgar Hoover's Secret
War Against the World's Most Famous Scientist, and adjunct instructor at
Lang

* Elizabeth Enloe regional director of the AFSC New York Metropolitan
Regional

Background information available at freensu