Almost a dozen students have been suspended for a year from New York University (NYU) for demanding divestment from Israel as President Donald Trump’s strict approach to higher education takes hold.
“I think the key thing, and it seems to be going on at NYU, is not that schools come down hard on particular students, is that they enforce the rules evenly,” Cornell University professor William Jacobson told Fox News Digital. “The problem with the anti-Israel protesters on campuses is they don’t want to obey the existing rules. They don’t want to have to live by the rules that everybody else lives by. Whether it’s disrupting the library, whether it’s blocking the campus flow of pedestrians.Â
“And as soon as you enforce the rules that everybody else needs to live by, they start playing victim,” he said.
COLUMBIA STUDENTS CONFRONT ANTI-ISRAEL PROTESTERS WHO STORMED CLASSROOM WITH ANTISEMITIC FLYERS
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump with his son, Barron, board a U.S. Air Force aircraft en route to Dulles, Virginia on January 18, 2025 in West Palm Beach, Florida. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
Students and faculty members march after New York Police Department officers arrest students at New York University and The New School who are demanding universities divest from Israel. (Selcuk Acar/Anadolu via Getty Images)
In a statement following the suspension of student protesters at NYU, NYU’s Faculty for Justice in Palestine (FJP) argued that the protesters were participating in nonviolent anti-war protests. On Dec. 11 and 12, a group of NYU students and faculty dropped flyers and hung pro-Palestinian banners throughout the Bobst Library, and others conducted a sit-in on the floor of the library.
“In a draconian case of collective punishment, NYU has issued blanket year-long suspensions to students who participated in nonviolent protest on campus on December 11, 2024,” the group posted to its Instagram account. “As of today, at least eleven students have been suspended until January 2026.”
“The sit-in was to demand a meeting with administration officials regarding disclosure of and divestment from institutional investments in Israel,” the group said. “All students identified as participating in these actions were charged with similar violations of NYU’s code of student conduct.”
Hundreds of anti-Israel agitators stage a demonstration outside of NYU’s Stern School of Business in Manhattan, New York on Monday, April 22, 2024. (Julia Bonavita/Fox News Digital)
In a statement to Fox News Digital, NYU spokesperson John Beckman said that the protests on Dec. 11 and 12 were “not peaceful.”
“Rather, it was the intentional disruption of a library, over the course of two days, at a critical academic moment — on the eve of finals. This disruption was accompanied by threats of violence directed at senior members of the university community,” he said.
STUDENTS WHO SAW CAMPUSES DEVOLVED INTO ANTI-ISRAEL CHAOS WITNESS FIRST-HAND SUCCESSES OF ABRAHAM ACCORDS
“The disciplinary hearings against NYU student participants that followed, and the resulting sanctions were a consequence of the students’ disruptive conduct (not their speech): knowingly violating University and Library rules despite repeated warnings and attempts at de-escalation over several hours,” he said.
“It is improper for a small group of people — some not even in our community — to try to prevent or interrupt other students from entering the library or using it to study for finals. Federal law prohibits universities from discussing individual students’ disciplinary records, but the University takes these violations of our rules and scholarly norms seriously.”
Hundreds of anti-Israel agitators stage a demonstration outside of NYU’s Stern School of Business in Manhattan, New York on Monday, April 22, 2024. The protesters staged a tent encampment in front of the school as they demanded a permanent cease-fire between Israel and Gaza. (Julia Bonavita/Fox News Digital)
