Around 10 members of NYU’s chapter of Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine read passages from books “presenting critical analyses of Zionism or Israel” at a demonstration in Bobst Library on Wednesday.
The group of tenured professors — all members of the FSJP — gathered in the library’s main lobby and took turns reading from a list of books that they deemed could be “bannable” by the university for their criticism of Zionism and the state of Israel. The demonstration comes two weeks after the FSJP published the list, created by Gallatin professor Sinan Antoon, in response to NYU’s updated student conduct guidelines which now cite “code words, like ‘Zionist,’” as examples of potentially discriminatory speech.
“If a student feels uncomfortable with what these books are saying — even though a lot of these books are by Jewish and Israeli scholars — they could file a complaint and this book would be banned,” Antoon said in an interview with WSN. “This new policy is negatively affecting the way many of us are able to teach our classes.”
The demonstration was disrupted twice — once when a Campus Safety officer approached an FSJP member during their reading, and again when a student yelled “Can you be quiet, I need to study,” and left the scene.
CAS professor Lisa Duggan said the demonstration only included tenured professors because untenured and contract faculty are “extremely vulnerable to disciplinary action.” FSJP member and CAS professor Ara Merjian added that “the mere act of advocating” could jeopardize individuals’ employment, visa status and subject them to safety concerns.
“While many, many university employees may, entirely understandably, feel intimidated and silenced in the wake of new repressive rhetoric and strictures on campus — to say nothing of the unprecedented increased presence of the police — those of us who can speak out about these matters will continue to do so,” Merjian said in a statement to WSN.
On the same day the FSJP published the list, NYU spokesperson John Beckman released a statement denying that university policy would restrict any of the books.
“There is nothing in NYU’s non-discrimination and anti-harassment policies that has the slightest thing to do with ‘book banning,’” Beckman said in the statement. “It’s frankly very disappointing that this group would invent such a fiction.”
Last semester, NYU suspended nine students and issued two a person non grata status after around 30 members of the university’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine read poetry and chants aloud on the library’s main floor. A university had said that the demonstration violated university policies against disrupting “academic activities or to interfere with other students’ academic work.”
Members of FSJP have continued to demand that the university remove police from campus, pardon students facing disciplinary action for their involvement in pro-Palestinian protests and commit to protecting free speech on campus. The group has recently pledged to withhold administrative action in a faculty service strike, which they said would be ongoing until the university meets their demands.
Andrew Ross, a CAS professor and member of FSJP, said that his book “Stone Men: The Palestinians Who Built Israel,” is included on the list and could be “subject to censure under the new conduct rules.” Ross, who also helped organize the event, said the demonstration was “an assertion of academic rights to free speech.”
“We have to push back against an administration that is trying to make it harder for students and faculty to have open conversations about the devastation in Palestine; this is tantamount to cutting off the lifeblood of a university,” Ross said in a statement to WSN. “As faculty, we are obliged to speak out.”
Contact Liyana Illyas at [email protected].
