A group of faculty and staff at NYU will withhold administrative tasks for the fall semester starting Labor Day until senior leadership removes police from campus and pardons those facing disciplinary action for their participation in pro-Palestinian demonstrations, a recent pledge signed by Faculty & Staff for Justice in Palestine reads.
The pledge, which FSJP claims to be in accord with “numerous” faculty and staff across the university, includes the refusal to take part in on-campus task forces, admissions and communications that do not acknowledge the war in Gaza. The strike will also include the “interruption of a variety of internal and public-facing” events at the university until NYU fulfills the group’s demands.
“We believe the ultimatum the FSJP has presented is unproductive in an academic institution where we engage in robust debate and dialogue,” NYU spokesperson John Beckman said in a statement to WSN. “We all have a choice to make about the kind of year we want to bring about and what each of us can do to make this happen.”
Beckman also said that NYU sponsored more than 20 listening forums over the summer to seek input from community members. He said the university learned that many community members want a “more constructive approach with engaging each other,” and that FSJP’s pledge is “not in line with that.”
A member of FSJP, who requested to remain anonymous due to safety concerns, told WSN that NYU’s administration “did not respond at all” to the pledge, which has been reiterated at least twice over the summer. The member said the university has consistently “turned a deaf ear” to the NYU community in the wake of on-campus protests against the war in Gaza, which have led to the arrests of dozens of students, faculty and alumni. They also said the upcoming strike is “a last resort” and comes after “many failed efforts during the last academic year” to engage in debate and dialogue.
The group is also demanding that the university commit to protecting free speech and protest activity on campus, including speech and actions critical of any state, including Israel. Most recently, NYU updated its Guidance and Expectations on Student Conduct to include “code words, like ‘Zionist,’” as an example of speech that could violate the university’s Non-Discrimination and Anti-Harassment policies. FSJP has said the updated policy is “disturbing” and “troublingly equates” criticism of Zionism with discrimination against Jewish people.
In July, NYU reached a confidential settlement in a monthslong lawsuit filed by three Jewish students who accused the university of being indifferent toward antisemitic incidents on campus since the start of the war in Gaza. The university said it will create a new Title VI coordinator position as part of the settlement, whose job is “meant to parallel” the responsibilities of NYU’s existing Title IX coordinator, who oversees sex and gender discrimination on campus. The university has said its commitment to address antisemitic incidents on campus is consistent with its existing policies, which include the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism. The definition includes “the targeting of the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity” among other conditions.
“The restrictions on action and speech, including the measures involving police, have been unilaterally imposed by the administration, without any consultation with faculty,” the FSJP member wrote to WSN. “In addition, this summer, NYU legal counsels entered into a confidential settlement of the antisemitism lawsuit which, from what we can tell, will further expose our speech and actions to censure and discipline.”
Contact Yezen Saadah at [email protected].
