NYU Demands Law Students Renounce Protests or Be Barred from Sitting Final Exams

New York University School of Law barred pro-Palestine law school students from campus facilities and demanded that they sign away their right to protest in exchange for being allowed to return If the students deemed personae non grata or PNG don t renounce their right to protest on campus they will be unable to sit for final exams You may not participate in any protest activity or disruptive activity on Law School property says the so-called Use of Space Agreement sent to the students which explicitly lays out conditions for being allowed to return to key campus buildings during the school s exam period The law students who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid further repercussions from the school are accused of participating in sit-ins a time-honored form of nonviolent demonstration that is allowed according to NYU program The sit-ins on March and April took place respectively at the school s Bobst Library and outside the office of the law school dean NYU did not instantly respond to requests for comment What we ve seen is a complete violation of our campus norms Barring the students from campus and demanding they refrain from protesting represents a dramatic escalation against NYU students involved in demonstrations against Israel s war on Gaza latest with school protocol and upending precedents for disciplinary procedures reported seven of the PNG students who spoke with The Intercept as well as other NYU students and faculty What we ve seen is a complete violation of our campus norms stated Andrew Ross a sociology professor who was himself barred from campus buildings in December before the school reversed the decision three weeks later If you take a step backward and see the walled-off campus spaces and heavily-patrolled entrances to buildings the uniformed prevention personnel everywhere this advanced safeguard infrastructure and all these new rules that have been established on the fly regarding speech and conduct this is a very very exceptional violation of every kind of campus norm that we were accustomed to Vague and Arbitrary According to emails to the students obtained by The Intercept they are barred from campus while under examination for failing to comply with directives from citizens safety including to leave the areas of their sit-ins and of disruptive conduct NYU conduct policies say any protests at libraries are disruptive but the law students pointed out that they were protesting outside NYU president Linda Mills s office on the top floor of Bobst Library The school s policies are vague and arbitrary enough to be wielded in any situation against any kind of speech the university looks down upon particularly pro-Palestine speech declared a law attendee who received a PNG notice The school alleges protests are banned in the library which is conveniently where the main administrative offices including the Office of the President are located While at the protests the students were handed fliers quoting from the failure to comply and disruptive conduct rules according to photos reviewed by The Intercept No site or forum is acceptable to the university when it comes to pro-Palestine speech The school explicitly outlines sit-ins as permitted explained a second novice But as soon as they don t like the sit-in or protest happening they tell people to stop and when they don t they then hand people policies on failure to comply with orders So in essence they are communicating that they can instantly make any protest they want a violation of the rules based on whether they are amenable to the content NYU students and faculty pointed to past protest actions that did not upshot in similar repressive sanctions as evidence that pro-Palestine organizers are being disproportionately punished because of their political beliefs In for instance a group of students staged a die-in in the library over Black Lives Matter but did not face disciplinary consequences That same year students staged a sit-in on the th floor of Bobst calling for the university to divest from fossil fuels Students were granted a meeting with board of trustee members after the sit-in and the school eventually divested from fossil fuels in The divestment sit-in at the same location in Bobst led to actual divestment from fossil fuels announced the first PNG novice There have been dozens of sit-ins in campus libraries since October of with no punishment meted out Yet it seems the proximity of our action to the president s office and the clarity of our demands made the university more eager to apply the rules to our group The truth is that no site or forum is acceptable to the university when it comes to pro-Palestine speech The Law Novice Sit-Ins The PNG law students were themselves protesting NYU s decision to suspend a group of undergraduate students and graduate students in December The suspended students had participated in a sit-in protest at the university president s office in Bobst Library demanding that NYU divest from Israel For months NYU s administration stonewalled organizers who sought to intervene on behalf of the suspended students Then on March the law students staged their own peaceful -hour sit-in at Bobst in promotion of the suspended students Later that day Craig Jolley the associate dean of students at NYU emailed law students who had allegedly participated in the sit-in to say that the protest violated university conduct guidelines and they had been referred to NYU School of Law s executive committee for formal disciplinary review The email noted the students were prohibited from accessing any university locations for any purpose aside from attending a scheduled class or entering an assigned residence hall Students barred from campus after the March protest commented the swipe function on their IDs was disabled as soon as they received Jolley s email They directly began encountering issues accessing their assigned residences medical services the gym and religious centers Among the group were Muslim students who were denied access to the NYU Islamic Center during Ramadan Read our complete coverage Chilling Dissent On March Jolley clarified that the barred students should be permitted to access robustness centers but with ID swipe disabled students commented access was permitted on an ad hoc basis by campus safety officers After they were stopped and questioned by campus prevention at least one barred apprentice missed an appointment for gender-affirming care at the robustness center an appointment granted only after getting off a monthslong waitlist On March the law school notified PNG students they could now access religious centers provided they email the school outlining specific dates times and information on their intended religious practice On April a separate group of law school students who had not received PNG notices staged another sit-in this time outside the law school dean s office Two days later on May three of those law students received PNG notices and all PNG law students received emails from the school demanding that they renounce protesting so that they would be allowed to return to the campus facilities and sit final exams Making Up Its Own Rules The law school s disciplinary process has historically been autonomous from the broader university with more due process baked into its policies The law school nonetheless appears to not have followed even its own rules in the affair of the pro-Palestine protesters the students say they were never served with the required formal complaints and the -day window for the university to investigate the alleged misconduct expired more than a month ago There s tremendous inconsistency across the schools and sometimes even within the schools about how things are done and the law school does seem to be making up its own rules right now about how things are done noted Sonya Posmentier an English professor at NYU who along with Ross was one of two tenured faculty members that received PNG sanctions related to the December sit-in Universities have started to make this very erratic on the fly punitive response to protest really really commonplace At this point there is not one place on campus private property where students can protest without fear of pretty draconian repercussions At this point there is not one place on campus private property where students can protest On April attorneys for specific of the law students pressed law school administrators on the decision to impose PNG restrictions which as an ostensibly interim measure violates NYU law school requirements for due process the students lawyers announced The lawyers also revealed administrators had failed to adhere to the law school protocol s timeline In response according to an email exchange obtained by The Intercept a lawyer with NYU s general counsel disclosed that the school was conducting only a preliminary factual inquiry to determine whether any rule had been violated and determine if a formal or informal disciplinary process was required According to a framework guide formal disciplinary processes are reserved for severe violation of university or Law School plan such as serious violations of academic integrity or threats or acts that imminently endanger members of the locality William Miller the lawyer with the general counsel s office wrote that the preliminary examination into what kind of process to undertake obviates the objection The -day timeline that you reference in your letter is therefore not applicable Miller did not without delay respond to a request for comment Miller explained in the email that NYU had retained the firm Latham Watkins to assist in the review of the PNG students one of the Big Law titans that cut a deal with the Trump administration to carry out millions of dollars of pro bono work The Dean s Office Another group of law students met with NYU Law School Dean Troy McKenzie on April to demand explanations for their fellow students PNG status and raise concerns that the school s partnership with Latham Watkins could potentially imperil pro-Palestine students Students noted they felt they were granted the interview because they did not request it under the auspices of Law Students for Justice in Palestine and instead focused the intent of the meeting on novice disciplinary proceedings Even so the students stated McKenzie did not offer answers He abdicated any sort of agency he had in the decision-making process disclosed one law novice at the meeting We declared We hear you what can you offer us And he revealed absolutely nothing That s when law students decided to stage the second sit-in outside of McKenzie s office on April It lasted around four hours McKenzie did not promptly respond to a request for comment On May three law students who participated in the second sit-in received notice that they too were now under PNG status due to particularly egregious conduct and another law students received a warning that they were under examination The students bristled at having their conduct called egregious noting that the protesters left the office area before p m when it closed The total PNG students then received an email that their interim access restrictions would continue unless they signed the Use of Space agreement that announced they cannot access the academic buildings where their final exams are held unless they pledge not to participate in protests at the law school Exams which count for percent of a scholar s final grade start Monday One law attendee and pro-Palestine organizer who was declared PNG in March noted that selected students pro bono work including deportation defense and civil rights lawsuits is carried out in a building that they are now unable to access unless they sign the agreement Not being able to put our full power and do client meetings announced the apprentice as an official legal services provider is not only impeding our ability to comply with our professional responsibilities as legal representatives but also putting our clients lives at exposure Targeting Leaders As of May nearly NYU students alumni and society members as well as groups like the graduate trainee union NYU Law Latinx Law Students Association and NYU Law Jews for Palestine signed an open letter to the administration expressing concerns over the school s indefinite use of PNG status with no due process Ross the sociology professor noted that the use of disciplinary actions seems to be part of a national strategy to target leaders in pro-Palestine movements on campus The point of the suspensions is to take out aspirant leaders to withdraw them from the field of deployment and they ve been very effective at doing this explained Ross At NYU the ranks of trainee leaders have really been depleted by this strategy over the last year While particular of the responses have been inconsistent and seemingly random he explained I do think they have been aimed overall at targeting the leaders The post NYU Demands Law Students Renounce Protests or Be Barred from Sitting Final Exams appeared first on The Intercept