File photo: A pro-Palestinian rally on October 17 in Washington Square Park, where NYU professors formed the organization Faculty for Justice in Palestine. (Alex Tey for WSN)
A group of NYU faculty and staff will withhold their administrative duties for the fall semester beginning Labor Day until senior leadership removes police from campus and pardons those facing disciplinary action for participating in pro-Palestinian demonstrations. a recent promise Signed by Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine reads:
The promise, which FSJP says is in line with “numerous” faculty and staff members across the university, includes the refusal to Campus work groups, admissions offices and communications that do not recognize the war in Gaza. The strike will also include the “suspension of a number of internal and public” events at the university until NYU meets the group’s demands.
“We believe the FSJP ultimatum is unproductive in an academic institution where we are deeply engaged in debate and dialogue,” NYU spokesman John Beckman said in a statement to WSN. “We all need to decide what kind of year we want to achieve and what each of us can do to make that happen.”
Beckman also said that NYU sponsored more than 20 listening forums over the summer to get input from community members. He said the university learned that many community members wanted a “more constructive approach to engaging with each other” and that the FSJP pledge was “out of step with that.”
A member of the FSJP, who asked to remain anonymous for security reasons, told WSN that NYU administration has been “absolutely unresponsive” to the pledge, which was repeated at least twice over the summer. The member said the university has consistently “turned a deaf ear” to the NYU community following the campus protests against the war in Gaza that have led to the arrest of dozens of students, faculty and alumni. They also said the upcoming strike is “a last resort” and comes after “many failed attempts over the last academic year” to engage in debate and dialogue.
The group also demands that the university commit to protecting free speech and protest activity on campus, including speech and actions that criticize any state, including Israel. Recently, NYU updated its guidelines and expectations on student conduct to include “code words like ‘Zionist'” as an example of speech that could violate the university’s anti-discrimination and anti-harassment policies. FSJP has said the updated policy is “troubling” and “disturbingly equates criticism of Zionism with discrimination against Jewish people.”
In July, NYU a confidential agreement reached in a months-long lawsuit brought by three Jewish students who accused the university of being indifferent to anti-Semitic incidents on campus since the start of the Gaza war. The university said as part of the settlement, it would create a new position for a Title VI coordinator, whose job would be “parallel” to the duties of NYU’s existing Title IX coordinator, who deals with gender discrimination on campus. The university has said its commitment to addressing anti-Semitic incidents on campus is consistent with its existing policies, which include the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of anti-Semitism. The definition includes “attacking the State of Israel, which is conceived as a Jewish community.” under other conditions.
“The restrictions on action and speech, including actions involving police, were imposed unilaterally by the administration, without consultation with faculty,” the FSJP member wrote to WSN. “In addition, NYU’s legal counsel entered into a confidential settlement in the anti-Semitism lawsuit this summer, which, as far as we can tell, will further expose our speech and actions to censorship and disciplinary action.”
Contact Yezen Saadah at (email protected).
