Over 100 students, faculty and alumni picketed outside Bobst Library on Wednesday demanding that NYU drop charges against two faculty members who were arrested at a pro-Palestinian demonstration last week and withdraw sanctions against students and faculty who participated in the protest.
At a gathering in Washington Square Park prior to the picket, Tisch professor Anna McCarthy condemned NYU for issuing persona non grata statuses against students and faculty who participated in last week’s protests, barring them from accessing several university buildings. Participants wore black T-shirts reading “People Not Genocide” and white hats with the words “DISCLOSE,” “DIVEST” and “PNG” written in black ink.
The protesters — who are now unable to enter university buildings including Bobst, the Kimmel Center for University Life, the Paulson Center and Vanderbilt Hall — held a pro-Palestinian sit-in at the library last week, where they called on NYU to disclose its investments and withdraw from companies with ties to Israel amid its ongoing siege in Gaza.
Hamza Mankor, a second-year student at the School of Law who participated in last week’s sit-in, said he and multiple students and faculty have been labeled persona non grata. Mankor said he has yet to receive formal communication from the university detailing his disciplinary charges, and was only made aware of his persona non grata status when Campus Safety officers stopped him as he was entering Vanderbilt Hall to take a final exam. He also claimed that officers had printouts of his name and face when attempting to enter the Islamic Center at NYU, and threatened to take away his NYU ID.
“I saw firsthand as administration, various officials went up to students peacefully sitting in and lied to them, attempted to intimidate them, attempted to trick them into leaving, with the kids thinking that the demands that they’ve been putting on the table were partially met,” Mankor said in an interview with WSN. “Eventually, the sit-in — peaceful from beginning to end — disbanded and PNGs ensued.”
Last week, students and faculty organized a sit-in on Bobst’s 12th floor demanding that NYU disclose its investments in companies with ties to Israel and citing a recording of a spring negotiations meeting in which university leadership had allegedly agreed to disclose its investment profile. The next day, about a dozen protesters blocked the library’s entrance, leading to the arrest of eight protesters, including two faculty members. The day of the arrests, the university said that it “never offered” disclosure, despite the claims.
CAS professors Andrew Ross and Sonya Posmentier — the two faculty members arrested at Bobst last Thursday — also spoke to a crowd of protesters at the park before leading the march to the library. Posmentier challenged the university’s account that last week’s demonstration “was not a peaceful protest” and that it disrupted “the normal operations of this university.”
“We have seen, in fact, that the opposite is true,” Posmentier said in a speech. “The normal functioning of this university is checkpoints between our offices, classrooms, homes and dorms. It is surveilling and recording students, faculty and staff with cameras in every corner and on the streets and probably right now, right here. It is NYU Campus Safety officers threatening to put our own children in handcuffs as they walk through the streets that are also their campus.”
NYU spokesperson John Beckman asserted the university’s position on the Bobst demonstrations in a statement to WSN, calling them an “intentional disruption of a core scholarly building.” Beckman said that the protest consisted of “violent threats” and that every participant “whom NYU was able to identify” has been indefinitely restricted from the library, and said students have been referred to disciplinary proceedings.
In an email to the NYU community last Thursday, Campus Safety head Fountain Walker said the university discovered “targeted threatening graffiti” in the library directed at university leadership. A student at the Wednesday picket said there is no “substantial connection” between the graffiti and the protesters who have been sanctioned.
About a dozen New York City Police Department officers were stationed in Washington Square Park and followed the group of protesters as they marched toward Bobst’s entrance. The NYPD told WSN that four of the eight protesters arrested last Thursday were issued summonses and released, while four others — which Ross said consisted of alumni and other community members — are still in custody facing charges of trespass, disorderly conduct and “obstructing governmental administration.”
In a universitywide message sent hours after the arrests, President Linda Mills said that “accepting assistance from police” made it possible for library users to enter and leave the building, and that the NYU community had “learned some important lessons last academic year.” The American Association of University Professors condemned the Thursday arrests, with AAUP President Todd Wolfson calling it “part of a distressing pattern of repression” of pro-Palestinian speech on college campuses.
Mills faced similar backlash for her crackdown on pro-Palestinian speech last semester, having authorized the NYPD to sweep two encampments and arrest dozens of students, faculty and alumni. Since October 2023, the university has filed more than 180 conduct cases against students and faculty related to protests over the war in Gaza.
In May, NYU suspended nine students who participated in a pro-Palestinian demonstration in Bobst, where two students were also given persona non grata status on campus. In an interview with WSN, Ross criticized NYU leadership and the Office of Student Conduct for not notifying some students and faculty of their designated persona non grata status after last week’s demonstration.
“It’s very sloppy in addition to being repressive, which is maybe the worst kind of repression — there’s a randomness to it,” Ross said. “It’s just utterly shameful that Linda Mills has not sat down once with these students in 12 months. I mean, what university president would not sit down and listen to students who have issues? It’s unconscionable.”
Contact Yezen Saadah at ysaadah@nyunews.com.