On December 11 and 12, NYU students and faculty peacefully demonstrated in support of Palestine. Police intervened at the request of the administration, making arrests, and three faculty members were declared “persona non grata” (sic) on campus, an unprecedented, arbitrary, and outrageous sanction.
Dear Ms President
It has come to our attention that two NYU faculty members have been arrested while supporting students in peaceful pro-Palestine protests on campus, and that three of them at least have been declared “personae non gratae” without due process, without any stated reason, and reportedly without adequate notification.
AURDIP, the Association of Academics for Respecting International Law in Palestine, stands by the AAUP position that when they speak or write as citizens, faculty should be free from institutional censorship or discipline. We also want to point out that such practices bring into question the very status of NYU as a university. Universities are places of mutual learning, where teaching and research happen in an intellectual atmosphere free of coercion, and professors and students learn from each other. They are not buildings, however richly endowed with equipment and amenities they may be. They are not military schools, where obeisance and conformity are part of the training. They are not states, professors are not envoys from foreign powers, which may be declared personae non gratae at whim. Dwight Eisenhower, at the time president of Columbia University, opened a speech by addressing the faculty as “employees of the university”, and was interrupted by Isidore Rabi, who said “Mr. President, we are not employees of the university. We are the university.”
He should, of course, have added the students. The centuries-old tradition that brings faculty and students together in freedom is still alive throughout the world, and the attempts by NYU to bring police into internal debates and to treat faculty as envoys from a foreign power will cut it from the international academic community.
Respectfully yours
Ivar Ekeland
President of AURDIP
Former President, the University of Paris-Dauphine