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NYU Opponents Undeterred By Loss In Court

 Mark Crispin Miller, the professor leading NYU Faculty Against the Sexton Plan, at a rally in 2014.
Mark Crispin Miller, the professor leading NYU Faculty Against the Sexton Plan, at a rally in 2014.
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DNAinfo/Danielle Tcholakian

GREENWICH VILLAGE — Opponents of New York University's expansion in Greenwich Village are still fighting, despite having lost any chance of stopping or even delaying the project.

Anti-NYU activists lost all legal recourse earlier this year when the state's highest court ruled in favor of the school, greenlighting NYU's plan to construct new academic space, a theater and athletic facilities and student and faculty housing across four new buildings.

Still, the activists plan to hold a rally on Sept. 1 in Washington Square Park and have apparently roped in students and faculty from two nearby universities, Cooper Union and the New School.

The goal of the rally is unclear, but its target is apparently "the corporate university."

“NYU is now an institution driven not by a concern for education, but by an elite financial calculus that ends up hurting all of us in many ways: the students, faculty and staff within the school itself, as well as its long-suffering neighbors," said Mark Crispin Miller, the NYU professor who spearheaded the yearslong fight against the university.

"What’s happening at NYU is indicative of a nation-wide trend that has turned institutions of higher learning into profit-driven corporations.”

Cooper Union students recently defeated a planned tuition hike at their own school and part-time New School faculty tangled with their administration over contract negotiations.

The Sept. 1 rally is slated to start at 4 p.m. in front of the Garibaldi statute in Washington Square Park and end with a march to the NYU Coles gym, the first building to be torn down in the expansion plan. School officials have said the gym could be closed as soon as Nov. 15.

It will include a host of speakers and a performance by members of the dance show STOMP, who have previously performed at the opponents' rallies.

One of the proposed social media hashtags to use for the protest is #HamiltonGetReady, addressing the school's brand-new president, Andrew Hamilton.