An NYU administrator sent a letter to the head of the New York Civil Liberties Union on Wednesday, challenging the nonprofit’s Jan. 6 statement that criticized the university’s updated Non-Discrimination and Anti-Harassment policy.
In its statement, the NYCLU argued that NYU’s non-discrimination policy could infringe on Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which protects individuals from discrimination on the basis of their race, color and national origin. The organization said that while most of the university’s policies related to Title VI are appropriate, explicitly citing “code words, like ‘Zionist,’” as examples of potentially discriminatory speech without contextualizing its usage “goes far beyond what is required and what a university is obligated to address.”
“Title VI already offers strong protections for students who are subject to discrimination and harassment,” wrote JP Perry, a senior staff attorney at the NYCLU. “NYU’s expansion of what constitutes discrimination is too broad and will inevitably infringe on lawful, important academic discussions and debates on campus about Palestine and Israel — it’s dangerous and puts academic freedom principles at risk.”
Perry and Donna Lieberman — the executive director of the NYCLU who authored the letter — said the updated policy is “excessively vague” when describing the instances in which the university would consider the term a “code word.” The group also condemned NYU’s policy for not setting a clear standard to determine a concrete violation of Title VI.
Mathew Varughese, associate vice president of NYU’s Office of General Counsel, countered the NYCLU’s claims in the Wednesday letter, stating that the updated non-discrimination policy is “mindful of the University’s legal obligations under Title VI” and that the nonprofit’s assessment “overlooks significant aspects” of the university’s policies that reflect the Office for Civil Rights’ guidelines for higher education institutions.
“We thought the NYCLU’s analysis was flawed,” NYU spokesperson John Beckman said in a statement to WSN. “It indicated that NYU had changed its policy, which it has not.”
The NYCLU statement was also prompted by a report in which Chief Judge of the State of New York Jonathan Lippman recommended that Gov. Kathy Hochul and City University of New York administrators revise policies related to protests and increase law enforcement on CUNY campuses. The report also encouraged schools to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism, which includes “the targeting of the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity” and has been extensively criticized by several on-campus organizations.
Students and faculty have also criticized NYU’s decision to update its NDAH guidelines, arguing that it restricts free speech on campus. Last semester, many students protested a series of online modules that required them to agree to the policy for regular access to university websites.
Contact Amanda Chen at [email protected].
