NYU president Linda Mills avoided discussing the recent arrests of students and faculty at Gould Plaza during the last University Senate meeting of the academic year on Thursday — a move student government representatives called a missed “opportunity to clear the air.” Mills ended the meeting, which was moved online, an hour early.
The University Senate — which comprises administrators, faculty and student representatives — is the deliberative body responsible for discussing NYU policies and changes to “university practices and structure.” At the meeting, Mills said she was “deeply distressed about what’s going on” and that a detailed message from the university “about what happened on Monday” is forthcoming.
Mills also did not acknowledge criticism from students, faculty and several organizations on campus of her initial statement, in which she described the encampment as “disorderly, disruptive and antagonizing” and said the university had received reports of “intimidating chants and several antisemitic incidents.” NYU’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors, supported by many students and faculty, has challenged the university’s account of the events at Gould Plaza, saying that “at no time was anyone on the Plaza either violent or antisemitic” and that there “was NO incitement at all.”
Student government chair Ryan Carney criticized the early end of the meeting, saying that “given everything that has happened this week,” the meeting could have been an opportunity to discuss developments on campus since the arrests on Monday and hear student and faculty input.
“Where was the support for the students, at the end of the day,” Carney said. “It is just unfortunate because she wants to bring the community together. Continuously putting the blame on students and faculty is not going to do that.”
Lamisa Khan, the Student Government Assembly senator at-large for Muslim women, called the meeting “quite disrespectful.” Khan also brought a motion to open up discussion on a months-old proposal to reaffirm pro-Palestinian speech to the entire senate body, as it had been passed to the University Senate Executive Committee — a group of seven administrators, faculty and a student representative — in February. Mills said she deferred the resolution to the committee in NYU’s “best interest,” saying the motion was “based on a false premise.”
“There was more than ample time to discuss the resolution, and they kept talking about how they’ve discussed this resolution extensively,” Khan said. “Especially given what has happened in the context of Monday, this definitely was an important conversation to have, and they clearly had the time to do so.”
NYU spokesperson Joseph Tirella said the resolution has gone through the senate’s “longstanding procedures,” and that Khan “attempted to force a vote” on the proposal, which has seen delays in the senate since the SGA passed it in December.
Khan said she hopes Mills “would take accountability” for the student and faculty arrests and what she called “the brutality” of the arrests. She also said she thinks the upcoming statement “will be used to once again try to put blame on protesters.”
“This was her opportunity to really clarify and speak to those at University Senate,” Khan said. “She clearly saw what happened with that statement — the pushback that it got. This was an opportunity to clear the air, express sympathy toward and show solidarity with students. Instead, she decided to continue putting the blame on the protesters themselves. She did not take any sort of accountability. She didn’t use the opportunity that was handed to her.”
Contact Yezen Saadah at [email protected].
