NYU administrators interfered with the freedom to protest when they called the police to arrest both faculty and students during a peaceful protest and prayer gathering on campus. In the aftermath, student protestors were subjected to a controversial requirement to write reflection papers, which critics argued undermined their intellectual freedom. Adding to the tension, NYU revised its student code of conduct to designate Zionism as a protected class, sparking further debate over the balance between institutional policies and individual rights on campus.
Although NYU claims to be “proud to foster a university-wide culture of access, equity, and inclusion,” CAIR deems NYU as a hostile environment for students, faculty, and staff due to the unwelcome conduct and intimidation by university administrators. One Palestinian senior at the College of Arts & Science spoke about the rippling effects of NYU’s ill-treatment of its Palestinian students: “It’s a blatant erasure of the Palestinian experience and the Palestinian loss of life,” the student said, “Yes, condemn the lives that were lost in Israel. But also, there was no mention of Palestinian loss of life … The fact that that was not mentioned just makes me feel kind of disregarded as a student. And just — it’s awful.” The student also shared that as a Palestinian student attending classes on campus, they do not feel safe to express themself.
On April 22, 2024, New York University administrators authorized the New York City Police Department (NYPD) to arrest 120 students and faculty members who were peacefully protesting at the “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” on Gould Plaza, an outdoor area at NYU. The protestors were calling for NYU to divest from companies that have ties to Israel and to close NYU’s Tel Aviv site. NYPD came in riot gear, and NYU professors immediately linked arms and stood side by side to form a human barrier between a swarm of cops and student protesters. For their stance supporting anti-genocide voices and university values of critical discourse, the NYU professors were the first ones to be arrested. NYPD officers handcuffed the students with zip ties and forced them to board police buses. One officer pepper-sprayed student protestors and an observer as well. NYU administrators were reported to be uninterested in having a dialogue with students as Ola Galal of NYU’s Kevorkian Center asserted, “Other universities have formed taskforces or committees to look into the demands of students. But NYU hasn’t.”
On May 22, 2024, a Palestinian American Muslim nurse was silenced and terminated from NYU Langone Medical Center based on her words honoring women who lost children in Palestine. Hesan Jabr gave an acceptance speech for an award she received for her work with grieving mothers who lost their babies during pregnancy and childbirth. “I am proud to represent my mother’s and my grandmother’s upbringing through our traditions and customs, which oblige us to always hold space for warmth and compassion for all humans,” Jabr said. “This award is deeply personal to me for those reasons, even though I can’t hold their hands and comfort them as they grieve their unborn children and the children they have lost during this genocide.” Thereafter, Jabr said she was “dragged into” a meeting with the President and Vice President of Nursing at NYU Langone to talk about how she “put others at risk” and “ruined the ceremony” and “offended people” because of her tribute towards the grieving mothers in her country. Jabr said she was “escorted off the premises” after the meeting.
According to the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) and its 2025 College Free Speech Rankings, New York University has sanctioned scholars and has ranked below average and “abysmal” in college free speech rankings. FIRE wrote a letter to NYU on September 6, 2024, stating its concerns over targeting students’ freedom of speech rights and warns of filing a complaint with the Middle States Commission on Higher Education (MSCHE). One of the concerns was that student protestors at the NYU encampment in April 2024 were punished by being required to write reflection papers that limited the amount of reflection students could write. The instructions to students stated, “[B]e advised that your paper cannot serve to justify your actions, evaluate the actions of others, or challenge a conduct regulation.” NYU administrators diminished the students’ right to freedom of speech.
NYU’s Non-Discrimination and Anti-Harassment policy states, “New York University is committed to maintaining an environment that encourages and fosters appropriate conduct among all persons and respect for individual values.” However, in August 2024, NYU’s updated student code of conduct shrank its respect for individual values on campus by introducing new limitations on free speech. Superficially aimed at restraining bigotry, the new limitations instead shut down opposition by threatening to silence criticism of Zionism on campus. Reportedly, “students who speak out against Zionism — an ethno-nationalist political ideology founded in the late 19th century — will now risk violating the school’s nondiscrimination policies.” By conflating Zionism with Jewish identity and culture, NYU has dangerously equated criticism of a political ideology, which is legitimate free speech, with discrimination against Jewish people and has thereby threatened to repress the speech of anti-genocide students, who have criticized the use of Zionist ideology to justify genocide against Palestinians. These attempts to confuse acceptable speech with hateful rhetoric facilitate the administration’s continued bullying of anti-genocide protests, making it a hostile environment for all students, staff, and faculty who value academic freedom and open inquiry.
NYU Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine (NYU FSJP), in a press release on August 25, 2024, affirmed that NYU’s updated student code of conduct will “legitimize far right and ethnonationalist ideologies under the guise of protecting students from racial discrimination. This weaponization of the Title VI apparatus openly threatens the university’s commitments to academic freedom and to nondiscrimination.” The group of faculty and staff at NYU pledged to withhold administrative duties for the fall semester beginning on Labor Day until (1) university leadership removes NYPD from the campus, (2) pardons those students, faculty, and staff who are facing disciplinary action for their participation in pro-Palestinian demonstrations, and (3) terminates the weaponization of Office of Equal Opportunity, Title VI, and IHRA against members of the NYU community. Similarly, the Nexus Project notes, “Strong criticism of Israel or Zionism or calls for major, even radical, political reform, including advocating for a state that affords equal collective and legal rights to all its citizens, are not antisemitic.”
