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Many of us watch in horror as journalism and academia are repressed by autocrats in countries such as China, Hungary, Russia and Turkey. Oligarchic forces and reactionary racist groups rely on these autocrats to purge intellectuals, journalists, teachers, researchers and human rights advocates. These same efforts are taking place in the United States, from the academic curriculum in Florida to the wrestling tycoon Linda McMahon’s appointment as U.S. Secretary of Education. However, as is abundantly clear, a similar process is underway here at NYU. The latest purge that has occurred is that of LS dean Julie Mostov.
As the two respective March 11 statements of NYU President Linda Mills and Dean of Arts & Science Antonio Merlo framed it, Mostov is “stepping down” to take “a research leave.” Furthermore, it was explained to us prior to March 11 that the decision was based on an informal eight-year rule for administrators. The reality is far more complicated and sinister. No one reason explains what has occurred; Mostov being targeted is a result of a nationwide trend to suppress dissent and the strong advocacy she has done on behalf of LS faculty, staff, and students. She has resisted NYU administrative attempts by Merlo and Provost Georgina Dopico to continue to use Liberal Studies as a cash cow from which to siphon off revenue and curriculum. She represented LS interests within the wider university, including championing more equitable salaries and opportunities for faculty, and served as an important advocate in cases of NYU administrative repression of LS student activism. This doesn’t mean she was always a perfect defender — there have been moments when on behalf of NYU administration dictates she has silenced student voices. But on the whole, she excellently served as a dean who represents and promotes her faculty, instead of serving as a cog in the top-down standard operating procedure of the NYU administration that wishes to dictate to, and not work with, faculty.
As for the “global” components of why Mills has targeted Mostov, it behooves us to open with the Dec. 18, 2023 statement of NYU’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors: “Our university community has experienced extraordinary challenges to academic freedom. These challenges emerge in a global climate of restrictions on Palestine-related speech, along with a national climate of attacks against the study of ethnic and racial inequality and structural injustice.”
Though many in our community are unaware, in June 2024 the Faculty of Arts and Science Faculty Assembly passed a statement of no confidence in Mills and called for her resignation. That vote was based on the many egregious unacademic and repressive measures taken during her administration, including allowing the New York City Police Department on campus to arrest protesting students and faculty, suspensions of students, and forcing students to write “reflection papers” and take modules from an “Ethos Integrity Series” which — as one law professor called them — are “morally odious,” and are an Orwellian form of forcing students to proclaim “1 + 1 = 3.”
Mills and her myrmidons have also promoted narratives of outsider agitation and antisemitism to characterize acts of civil disobedience at NYU, with one example being her April 22, 2024 proclamation that “hate, disruption and intimidation can never be countenanced.”
This is a purposeful conflation of protesting Israeli policies and Zionism with antisemitism, promoting the idea that criticizing an ideology is tantamount to attacking a religion. The NYU administration is not innovative in doing this; Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’ government in Israel, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and Anti-Defamation League in the United States have promoted this conflation for decades. ADL CEO Jonathan Goldblatt has argued that “anti-Zionism is genocide,” and reports released by the ADL — and then utilized by mainstream U.S. media and other organizations — claim a large increase in “antisemitism on campuses.” Jewish parents are logically worried about these kinds of reports. Indeed, any act of antisemitism should be investigated, but what the ADL and Mills have done in conflating the chants of anti-Zionism with being antisemitic is dramatically inflating the percentage of so-called “antisemitism on campuses.”
This is easily confirmed by observing any one of dozens of protests at Washington Square Park: On nearly every occasion has been a strong presence of Jewish activists of Jewish Voice for Peace, IfNotNow, and Palestinian keffiyeh-wearing members of Neturei Karta — or Satmar — Orthodox Jewish groups. While members of the Israeli government and dominant Jewish organizations in the United States attempt to discredit these Jews by calling them self-haters or not real Jews, prominent Jewish activists like Naomi Klein, Peter Beinart and Simone Zimmerman have spoken out and organized events. Politicians and mainstream media studiously ignore the involvement of these Jews at protests because it threatens their characterization of these protests as antisemitic if there are hundreds of Jews participating in the chants.
So Mills’ claim about the “hate” of these protests is part of this larger goal of shifting focus away from Palestinian rights advocacy, anti-genocide positions and the anti-Zionist nature of these protesters. Would we, at a university, accept the claim made by such luminaries as U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene that criticism of the ideology and policies of “Make America Great Again” Republicanism is tantamount to anti-Christian hate?
The university is exactly the place where we are supposed to assess and critique; we have the theoretical and methodological tools to deconstruct the claims of ideologues and governments. A university is certainly the place wherein people of all sides, anti-Zionist and Zionist, can debate and lay out their positions, and hold various kinds of events on these issues — but that needs an atmosphere of critical thinking, academic inquiry, freedom of speech and freedom to organize.
However, Mills has worked hard to prevent this kind of academic atmosphere. Furthermore, what the university has offered are highly staged and vapid “Around Our Campus: A Week of Connection, Care, and Community” and “NYU in Dialogue” events that are designed to appear as if the topic is being deliberated. Outside consultants and speakers are brought in, despite the fact that NYU has an array of top-notch specialists in nationalism, genocide, the Middle East and Israel and Palestine. Changes to the student conduct guidelines to further these ideological goals of the Mills administration and the recent appointment of David Krieger as NYU’s Title VI Coordinator are examples of the death knell of future freedom of speech and organization on campus. And the height of absurdity and doublespeak is that Mills, who enabled the repression and arrest of students and faculty, sat next to Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor at an April 8 event.
Mills’ policies have dramatically affected the character of NYU, demoting it to a kind of partisan think tank or lobbying organization found on K Street in Washington, D.C. In reaffirming the false narrative that “anti-Zionism equals antisemitism,” she has heightened the fear felt by Jewish students, faculty and staff. But it is not enough to explain Mills’ behavior as just acting in response to and on behalf of the powerful role of donors and activist parents. As leaked communications have indicated, along with years of private statements Mills has made to administrators, staff, faculty and students, she is ideologically and personally invested in this cause. She is a true believer.
We are not saying that an administrator can’t have political commitments; certainly, the anti-genocide and Palestinian protestors do. But Mills has mischaracterized and suppressed those whose politics are not her own; even before becoming president, based on her ideological position she has punished students and closed opportunities to them. This person being the president of a university is equivalent to having a flat earther as director of NASA.
Our mission enables us to see beyond the parochial boundaries and interests within which many specialists and departments may operate. We teach students to critically compare governments, ideologies, and policies around the world, to become multilingual, to recognize and connect global trends.
While there are many staff, administrators and faculty around the university who have voiced their support of academic freedoms, many others remain — rightfully — afraid and stay silent. Some of these people advise “don’t stick your neck out” or, recently, “don’t draw further Trumpian attention to NYU.” While these sentiments are understandable they deny the role that we, as a community of pedagogues and researchers at a world-class academic institution, are bound to perform.
We in Liberal Studies are contract faculty, without the protections of tenure, and we already know that we are at great risk as Mills is out for retribution. While Mostov didn’t necessarily agree with every position, statement or event made by LS faculty and students, she respected our rights to do so. As an esteemed political theorist, she encourages criticism of nationalism and autocracy. She intervened when the administration was being too heavy-handed or unreasonable in punishments. She ultimately didn’t “play ball” with the Mills administration. For these crimes, she was targeted.
We faculty, staff and administrators of conscience, we who believe in critical inquiry, freedom of speech and the right to protest, will continue to resist the forces of repression, silence and anti-intellectualism. We demand the reinstatement of Mostov. We also reiterate our call for Mills to resign — there is no place at a university for someone who promotes such an unacademic and ideological agenda.
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Contact the concerned LS faculty at [email protected].
