New York University bans pro-Palestinian professors and students

The International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE) of New York and New Jersey condemns the police repression carried out at New York University (NYU) against demonstrators opposed to the American-Israeli genocide in Gaza. We demand that the university bans against pro-Palestinian professors and students be lifted immediately.

As part of a pro-Palestinian demonstration at NYU on Monday April 22, 2024

On Thursday around 12:30 p.m., police arrested eight pro-Palestinian protesters at the main entrance to NYU’s Bobst Library, including at least two NYU professors. That same afternoon, NYU emailed dozens of students informing them that they had been declared persona non grata (PNG), a status that deactivates their campus ID and bans them from the campus. access to campus buildings, for their participation in a pro-Palestinian sit-in in Bobst on Wednesday.

Three teachers were also declared PNG for their participation in these protests, including the two who were arrested. Banned professors include sociology professor Andrew Ross, a faculty and staff member for Justice in Palestine (FSJP) at New York University, and history professor Rebecca Karl, who was initially denied entry into Bobst to teach his course on Thursday. The three banned teachers are Jewish.

The FSJP said in a press release: “The faculty was informed that the PNG order came from the office of the provost, Gigi Dopico, who then verbally confirmed the status of the PNG, but stated that she had no ‘no details’ on why, except that it was a “security issue”… After contacting the rector, Professor Karl was escorted into the building to teach, although campus security officer Karen Ortman , continued to shout “She’s PNG!” as it happened.

The two protests at Bobst on Wednesday and Thursday centered on the demand that NYU disclose its investments in companies linked to the US-Israeli genocide in Gaza. In the spring semester, university administrators promised student organizers that investment information would be made available to students, but rescinded the offer when the students refused to disband their Gaza solidarity encampment, outside NYU’s Paulson Center.

On Wednesday, 13 protesters sat outside administrators’ offices on Bobst’s top floor while dozens more occupied Bobst’s main lobby from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. At 4:45 p.m., protesters played an audio recording of NYU administrators promising to disclose NYU’s investments. On Thursday, around 9 a.m., protesters picketed in front of Bobst’s main entrance, including five students blocking the entrance by tying their arms with PVC pipes.

According to an update from NYU’s campus newspaper, the Washington Square News:

NYU spokesman John Beckman said New York City police “arrived on scene” after protesters blocked the last open entrance to Bobst Library around noon, “ignoring clear instructions campus security officers and repeated attempts by university staff to de-escalate the situation.” .”

“The university rejects any assertion that this was a peaceful protest,” Beckman wrote in a statement to WSN. “Their harassing behavior disrupted our academic operations at a particularly critical time in the semester (as exams begin), ignored the rights of students who wish to study in the library, and interfered with safe passage in and out of a building senior academic.

On the contrary, an independent journalist on Twitter/X video published student protesters allowing people to leave the library and reported that NYU itself closed alternative entrances to the building just before the NYPD began arresting protesters. And as the WSWS previously explained:

Banning demonstrations under the pretext of preventing the “disruption” of “public order” and “economic life” is the motto of every authoritarian regime in modern history. For this reason, from a democratic legal perspective, the possibility of “disruption” has always been considered essential to freedom of expression.

The authoritarian crackdown at NYU is part of a wave of repression sweeping campuses at the end of the fall semester. Campuses in New York and New Jersey that have recently experienced similar developments include:

Columbia University: A pro-Palestinian protest was planned for Monday at Barnard College’s Futter Field, but on Sunday the Barnard administration sent an email to its students explaining that access to campus would be limited to those with ID cards. valid identity and that students would be required to respond to requests for unmasking and bag searches. Monday morning, Barnard installed new surveillance cameras while protesters announced they would be moving to an intersection just outside campus — an announcement that was complicated by the suspension of Columbia University’s Apartheid Divest Instagram account the same day.
Fashion Institute of Technology: Eleven students from the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) at the State University of New York in New York have been suspended by decision for participating in the Gaza solidarity encampment in the spring. On December 5, FIT Students for Justice in Palestine announced that four of these students had now been “officially” suspended – three for a semester and one for a year – while two other students had been sanctioned for protesting at the autumn. Another student was declared persona non grata and banned from campus.
Rutgers University: On Thursday, December 5 in New Brunswick, New Jersey, the Rutgers University Student Assembly (RUSA) was scheduled to hold its final meeting of the semester. The Zionists planned to introduce a bill that would call on RUSA members to commit to combating anti-Zionism on campus, based on the fraudulent claim that anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism. When the university administration learned that pro-Palestinian activists were planning to attend the RUSA meeting, they asked the police to restrict access to the student activities center to only voting members of the RUSA. Russia. Ultimately, the administration canceled the RUSA meeting altogether.

These developments are not limited to New York and New Jersey. At George Mason University in Virginia, university administrators not only banned the Students for Justice in Palestine club, but also barred two of its leading members from campus for four years by criminal order of trespassing after FBI agents and police searched their homes. At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), second-year doctoral student Prahlad Iyengar was effectively expelled for his pro-Palestinian activism on campus.

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As the WSWS previously wrote in its statement: “Oppose the pro-genocide purge on American college campuses!” »:

International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE) is calling on students to mobilize against this growing attack on democratic rights. Students must demand that all charges against those protesting genocide – one of the greatest war crimes of the 21st century – be dropped. All sanctions and restrictions imposed on students and faculty must be reversed.

Students should seek support from workers in factories and workplaces where colleges and universities are located to mobilize broader support, linking defense of basic democratic rights to opposition to war abroad and the war against the working class at home.

Students and young people who share this perspective and want to fight for it should get involved in the IYSSE.