The Office of Equal Opportunity closed its investigations into complaints claiming that attire restrictions at commencement ceremonies held by the Graduate School of Arts & Science violated NYU’s Non-Discrimination and Anti-Harassment policy.
In an April email, GSAS administrators barred students, faculty and staff from wearing adornments such as “decorated caps, sashes, stoles, cords, pins [and] scarves” or displaying “any signs or banners” at convocation ceremonies. Citing “safety and security” concerns, the administrators said that any graduate or faculty member who violated the policy would be removed and the ceremony would end.
Several NYU faculty separately filed complaints a few days after the graduation ceremony. One employee who filed a complaint — and spoke to WSN anonymously out of fear of retaliation — claimed that Allan Corns, the GSAS assistant dean of academic affairs, and other administrators violated NYU’s NDAH policy by restricting freedom of expression.
The employee said that the new attire code came after GSAS Dean Lynne Kiorpes expressed “dissatisfaction with displays of Arab and Palestinian culture” at convocations in 2024. That year, NYU’s graduation ceremonies saw students waving flags, wearing keffiyeh scarves and holding signs with pro-Palestinian messaging. They claimed that Corns told GSAS convocation staff that if “we have to do it for one, we have to do it for all,” referring to ethnic backgrounds and political affiliations.
In a statement to WSN, NYU spokesperson John Beckman said that the policy, which required “official academic gown, hood and headwear to be worn, and without personal adornments,” was also implemented at graduation ceremonies outside of GSAS in May.
“Overall, the ceremonies went very smoothly and were widely enjoyed. There were a very small number of reports about the school’s attire requirement and how they were applied,” Beckman wrote. “The university’s Office of Equal Opportunity thoroughly reviewed the matter and found that neither the academic garb requirement itself nor the way it was carried out violated NYU’s non-discrimination and harassment policy.”
After filing his complaint in May, the employee met with OEO Director of Investigations Bradley Domangue and Title VI Coordinator David Krieger to discuss his concerns. The complaint had extended to his experiences prior to graduation — he was reportedly told to blur his background, which contained a flag with a Shia Muslim phrase in Arabic, during Zoom meetings shortly after taking office. He also said that last year, Kiorpes informed him through his supervisor that he wasn’t allowed to wear keffiyeh at a GSAS event because employees needed to “stay neutral” while representing the school.
About three weeks after the employee met with Domangue and Krieger, the two administrators said that OEO would terminate its probes into the complaints because they did not warrant an NDAH policy investigation, adding that the employee’s concerns would be passed to NYU Arts & Science, according to an email obtained by WSN. When the employee questioned why “being prohibited from wearing a keffiyeh while representing GSAS does not violate NYU’s NDAH,” Domangue and Krieger referred him to their initial email.
“They should understand how microaggressions work. They should understand how racism works,” the employee said. “David and Bradley were playing dumb, acting like they had no idea what that was. It was overtly racist even without coming out and saying ‘no Palestinian expression.’”
An Arts & Science employee — who also filed a complaint about the convocation attire policy and wished to remain anonymous out of fear of retaliation — reported that during a GSAS convocation volunteer meeting, she was told that “the policy was truly about limiting the expression of Palestinian and Israeli students and faculty.” WSN was able to independently verify this email exchange.
The employee told WSN that an organizer of the meeting said the attire policy restricts all forms of adornments in an effort to make it appear unrelated to issues over pro-Israeli or pro-Palestinian speech. Like the other employee’s complaint, hers was similarly dismissed by Domangue and Krieger. She added that during her meeting with the two administrators, Krieger repeatedly asked her to detail how she faced or witnessed “discrimination on the basis of Muslims’ shared ancestry,” which was not mentioned in her complaint. Rather, she wrote about her concern over censorship of expression across all backgrounds.
“I felt like that was a bit of a microaggression because I don’t know where he got that other than by assuming my name,” she said. “It’s gonna be really hard for people who experience discrimination at NYU to be taken seriously unless it fits a very specific definition of discrimination.”
The GSAS attire restriction in May followed a similar regulation at NYU Abu Dhabi’s graduation ceremony in 2024, which resulted in one Ph.D. student allegedly being detained and deported after holding a keffiyeh and yelling “Free Palestine” on stage.
“Discrimination against Muslim people, assumptions about Muslim people as a group are going to be widespread at NYU and baked into our system,” the Arts & Science employee said. “That’s gonna make it really hard for people to issue complaints or get results or accountability from the NYU administration.”
Contact Amanda Chen at [email protected].
