Kevin Wu

(Kevin Wu for WSN)

NYU Langone Health canceled a presentation about global humanitarian crises because it had “antisemitic” and “anti-governmental” implications, Joanne Liu — the former head of Doctors Without Borders, who had been set to speak at the medical center — said in a French op-ed last week.

Liu, who is also an NYU alum, was scheduled to deliver the speech at the medical center’s Emergency Department last month. The presentation, “Challenges in Humanitarian Crisis,” had included one slide about the cuts to the U.S. Agency for International Development, one slide about high death rates among humanitarian workers in Gaza and one slide about U.S. relations with Ukraine. 

The day before her presentation, Liu received notice from the health center’s vice president of education, informing her that they were concerned it might come off as “antisemitic” and “anti-governmental.” She offered to consolidate the slides and create one general graph about rising deaths in humanitarian work, and the administrator said they would consider it. A few hours later, they told Liu that her speech was canceled. 

“Guest speakers at our institution are given clear guidelines at the outset,” NYU Langone spokesperson Steve Ritea said in a statement to WSN. “Per our policy, we cannot host speakers who don’t comply.”

Ritea added that Liu was fully compensated for her time and travel from Montreal, Canada.

Liu was “stunned” by this response, she wrote in the Le Devoir op-ed. In an interview with CTV News, she said she was disappointed that U.S. universities “self-censor” and are enabling “an assault on academia” out of fear of federal retaliation. 

“I truly and strongly believe that universities are the temple of knowledge, but, as well, of plurality of ideas,” she said in a Monday interview with Democracy Now!. “If we do not allow that, we are basically killing the essence of what university is about.”

Liu wrote that NYU Langone was likely concerned about the withdrawal of federal funding after the Trump administration pulled hundreds of millions of dollars from Columbia University, Johns Hopkins University and other U.S. colleges — with billions more on the line. The cuts came after the Federal Task Force to Combat Antisemitism — which is also set to probe NYU — concluded that the universities failed to address antisemitic incidents on campus. 

NYU Langone was also recently pressured by in-house lawyers to remove phrases such as “diverse students” and “systemic racism” from its website and replace them with phrases like “opportunity” and “equal access.” The medical center also allegedly warned employees against protecting undocumented patients from immigration authorities.

“I remain astonished by the institution’s posture of preemptive over-obedience, which wants to ensure it won’t be caught out,” Liu wrote. “The University doesn’t want to stick its neck out and then get beaten. The new American government uses the method of deterrence by notorious negative example. After that, all it takes is to raise an arm without striking for a retreat to occur.”

Contact Amanda Chen at [email protected].