NYU president Linda Mills encouraged students to be a “model for others” in a Wednesday email as the university nears the start of a new academic year amid a “drumbeat of division” and on-campus protests against the war in Gaza — some of which Mills said “escalated in violation” of the university’s standards.
In the email, Mills said “many of us” spent the summer “trying to do better” and reflecting on on-campus tensions in response to the war. Last semester, the protests culminated in two pro-Palestinian encampments, both of which led to the arrests of dozens of students, faculty and alumni after NYU authorized the New York City Police Department to sweep the demonstrations. After facing backlash for the administration’s handling of the protests, Mills said that the “only path forward” at the university would be to host listening sessions for the NYU community.
“What we need is to come together around a modest proposal — a dose of a much-used word that is often forgotten in practice: community,” Mills said in the email. “Not a community that ignores the grief suffered by both Israelis and Palestinians in our midst, as well as close friends and colleagues. But an emphatically empathetic community where we come together for difficult conversations across multiple divides.”
Several on-campus groups and departmental chairs condemned the administration’s sweep of the encampments, with full-time Gallatin faculty having voted that they do not have confidence in Mills’ leadership. In April, hundreds of “parents, guardians and loved ones” signed a letter calling on Mills to resign for “unnecessary and extreme violence” inflicted on students and faculty. NYU’s board of trustees later expressed support for Mills and “her efforts to keep the campus safe.”
The email, titled “Shaping Our Future Together,” was her first of the academic year. Mills recently gave a speech to the class of 2028 at two showings of the Presidential Welcome Reality Show at Radio City Music Hall, where she likened “the intense conflict of ideas and perspectives” at NYU to the Paris Olympics because it offered the community “a rare chance to find common ground.”
Mills finished her first year as head of the university in May, having faced significant pushback from students for NYU’s crackdown on pro-Palestinian demonstrations. During her address to graduates at this year’s all-university commencement ceremony, dozens of students walked out in dissent and booed in protest of Mills’ administration.
At the end of her email, Mills asked students, faculty, administrators and staff to engage in “real listening” and included links to the university’s “How We Engage” webpage and “NYU in Dialogue,” a series of on-campus events with featured speakers. The first event of the semester is titled “Shared Grief, Shared Hope” and will feature families from Israel and Palestine to “to work through dialogue rather than revenge.”
“We’re a university—a privileged place of deep listening and learning, of discovery, of paving new paths to a better future,” Mills wrote. “Let’s identify strategies that address the complexities of this moment. Let’s engage the pain and loss we’re witnessing while upholding our core value of learning, strengthening our bonds, and modeling what we know NYU can be.”
Contact Krish Dev at [email protected].
