FROM ACADEME BLOG: “On December 12, the NYU administration invited the NYPD to arrest two faculty members supporting students in a nonviolent protest at the main library. The university also designated these and three other faculty members as Personae Non Gratae (PNG), barring them from access to campus buildings. Several students were subjected to the same form of disciplining. No reasons for the injunctions were provided, and none of the campus procedures for faculty disciplinary action were followed.”
Please consider signing this open letter to the NYU administration. The text is below. Click the preceding link to access the form and add your name.
On December 12, the NYU administration invited the NYPD to arrest two faculty members who were supporting students involved in a nonviolent protest at the main library. The university also designated these and three other faculty members as Personae Non Gratae (PNG), barring them from access to campus buildings. Several students were subjected to the same form of disciplining.
No reasons for the injunctions were provided, and none of the campus procedures for faculty disciplinary action were followed. According to a national AAUP statement on December 12, “The AAUP has long considered denying faculty members the right to carry out their key duties as a major sanction, second only to dismissal in severity. An administration should take such a step only after demonstrating adequate cause in an adjudicative hearing of record before an elected faculty body. No such hearing has taken place [at NYU].”
In the course of the crackdown on pro-Palestinian speech and action on university campuses, we have seen many clear violations of academic procedure and custom. The PNG measures at NYU mark a new escalation of this repression; they trample on basic academic rights. The prospect of other administrations following this precedent threatens all who depend on academic freedom as a core principle of public speech and education, both on campus and in society. This is especially true for those expressing political solidarity with Palestinians.
We are scholars, artists, writers, journalists, students, faculty, and staff outraged at the genocide and violent displacement of Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon; the Israeli decimation of Palestinian educational and cultural institutions; and the complicity of the United States in this enduring and unconscionable violence. Universities and other liberal institutions must stop silencing those who speak out against Israeli apartheid and genocide.
As one immediate measure, we demand that NYU leadership immediately drop charges against faculty arrested by the NYPD, withdraw sanctions against those they have designated PNG, and stop persecuting students, faculty, and staff who raise their voices against the historic crimes now ongoing in Palestine.
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Jennifer Ruth is a film professor in the School of the Arts at Portland State University.
Cover photo courtesy Democracy Now!
