Occupy protesters take over

learning (Ivy League) has become the latest location to be occupied by the anti-capitalist Occupy protesters.

Protesters have already occupied a number of higher education institutions in north America, while in Britain, they are also targeting churches. This has led to the resignation of some clerics who sympathise with the protesters’ cause.
Reports say a colorful collection of tents appeared late Wednesday night in Harvard Yard, placed there by student protesters laying claim to the storied patch of land as part of the national Occupy movement.

To escalate their protests and ‘‘focus the eyes of the Occupy movement on Harvard,” said Sandra Korn, the students decided to harness Occupy’s most iconic imagery: tents.
The tents’ arrival marked the denouement of an evening of protest that began with a rally, led to a decision by university administrators to lock the gates of the yard, and spurred chaotic decision making by demonstrators who had spent weeks planning their occupation of Harvard.

A Harvard dean asked the demonstrators to move their tents to a different quad so that they would not disrupt other students who live there. ‘‘We want to accommodate you,” Suzy Nelson, dean of student life told the protesters.

The students – their ranks swelling to more than 200 – linked arms and later voted on whether to move the tents. They decided to stay.
Earlier in the evening, after the rally outside Harvard Law School, several hundred students and other protesters found themselves temporarily locked out of the yard. They chanted and waved signs as flashbulbs went off. Police closed a gate the protesters were trying to open, provoking cries of ‘‘let them in” and ‘‘the whole world is watching.”

Harvard students met repeatedly in recent weeks, sometimes for three or four hours at a time, to hatch their plan to occupy the university’s yard.
A rotating group of undergraduates and graduate students have said they plan to reside in the tents for days, leaving at intervals for class or visits with family and friends. They are calling on the university to amend its investment practices and to negotiate a new contract with custodial workers.

The prospect of chill and rain, they pledged, would not deter them.
Last week, they held a 70-person walkout of a popular economics class. That got media attention.

A statement circulated called for changes at Harvard, including disclosure of investments, a commitment not to reinvest in specific companies and hedge funds, and a new contract with custodial workers.

Meanwhile, protesters from the Occupy Wall Street movement have embarked on a march to the Whitehouse in Washington to protest the potential extension of the Bush-era tax cuts, among other policies.

Two dozen New York protesters left the Occupy Wall Street main encampment in Lower Manhattan to march on Washington early Wednesday morning.
The march is designed to allow the protesters to voice their wish to see an end to the Bush-era tax cuts that granted benefits to high-income earners and corporations.

A group of OWS’ers are embarking on a two-week march from Liberty Plaza to the Whitehouse (sic) to let the committee know what the 99 percent think about these cuts.
The march will see the protesters walk solidly during the “banker hours” of 9 am to 5 pm. – The Boston Globe/International Business Times/The Herald.