BOSTON (Reuters) – Ivy League professors dropped by anti-Wall Street protest camps in Boston and New York yesterday to school the demonstrators on theories that bolster their demands to end inequality in the American economy.
Part of the Occupy Boston site was temporarily renamed Free School University as the crowd gathered at the feet of Brown University international political economy professor Mark Blyth and Boston University international relations professor Kevin Gallagher.
Standing on a wooden crate, they discussed with a crowd of about 50 people the misdeeds of Wall Street and Washington. Future forums were scheduled to address anarchism, psychology and law and privacy rights.
“People have every right to be angry,” Blyth said about the Wall Street bailout in 2008, which left banks enjoying huge profits while average Americans suffered under high unemployment and job insecurity with little help from the federal government.
In New York later yesterday, a Columbia University professor was to talk to protesters about activism in Greece.
Organizers, who have pledged to stay in the tent village in Boston’s financial district possibly into the winter, said they were kicking off what they hoped would become a regular forum for education and discussion.
The crowd was mixed with people versed in economic policies and others struggling to understand how the country will resolve its financial crisis.
