A Steinhardt professor claimed NYU prohibited a panel discussion about “free speech on college campuses” from taking place in Bobst Library on Oct. 30. A university spokesperson said that the professor’s account was a “mischaracterization of what really happened” and that the event, which has since been relocated, was not approved by the library.
The professor, Robert Cohen — one of two faculty members organizing the event — said the university requested that they limit their discussions to the 1964 free speech movement and exclude topics of speech related to “anti-Gaza war” protests. In an interview with WSN, Cohen said NYU’s alleged restrictions of the event’s content was consistent with the “suppression of the student protest movement” last semester.
“No university ought to be censoring people because somebody in the administration doesn’t like what you’re talking about,” Cohen said. “The deans and the administration don’t go into the classroom saying, ‘You can’t talk about this, you can’t talk about that’ — so why are they doing that in this academic session?”
In an Oct. 3 email obtained by WSN, Shannon O’Neill — the other faculty member who originally helped organize the event — told Cohen she was “not able to cosponsor” the discussion, which had already been listed on the library’s calendar of events. NYU spokesperson John Beckman said the panel’s listing was “a mistake.”
“It was posted on the calendar of events despite not having gone through the approval process, wrongly giving the impression it was an approved event,” Beckman said in a statement to WSN. “The reason the library maintained the calendar listing — but without the event’s details, since it was unapproved — was in support of the event.”
Dean of Libraries Austin Booth, who is responsible for approving all events hosted by the library, directed WSN to Beckman’s statement when asked for comment.
The discussion, which will now take place at the Global Center for Academic and Spiritual Life, is set to feature five panelists, including the former chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley and an NYU graduate student who was arrested at the University of Texas at Austin last semester after participating in pro-Palestinian protests on campus. Cohen claimed that Booth specifically discouraged the graduate student’s participation and said they “lacked expertise to speak on an issue like this.”
He also said that when the event was listed on Bobst’s online calendar, specific information regarding the panelists’ work and the topic of free speech on college campuses had been omitted from its description. In photos of the original posting of the event obtained by WSN, the summary included a line describing that the event would also explore current free speech issues and “the pressure on universities to repress the campus encampment movement against the war in Gaza.”
Cohen said he began organizing the event last spring after universities nationwide cracked down on protests against Israel’s ongoing siege in Gaza — including at NYU, where dozens of students, faculty and alumni were arrested at encampments in Gould Plaza and outside the Paulson Center. He said he had aimed to contextualize current events and commemorate the anniversary of the 1964 free speech movement.
Last March, NYU limited public access to an event organized by NYU’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine after an administrator cited concerns of “events featuring contentious speakers” and “recent incidents of violence” on U.S. college campuses. The event, which featured Gallatin professor Sinan Antoon and Columbia University professor Rashid Khalidi, included discussion on the war in Gaza and the history of Palestine. In May, nine students were suspended, and two received persona non grata status due to participating in a pro-Palestinian demonstration held in Bobst.
Contact Mariapaula Gonzalez at [email protected].
