Over the past year, NYU has repeatedly violated the expressive rights of students and faculty who engage in pro-Palestinian speech. This unmistakable pattern of viewpoint discrimination signals that its commitments to free expression mean nothing when it comes to controversial speech. Over the last year, while FIRE has asked NYU many times to keep its promises, NYU has maintained a shameful silence.
NYU must be held accountable for its campaign of censorship. Like most schools, NYU promises its regional accrediting agency that it will protect free expression, no matter who is speaking. But sometimes, accreditors need to be prompted to do their jobs. It is time to tell NYU’s accreditor that enough is enough.
Here are just some of NYU’s free speech violations over the last year:
- NYU publicly investigated a student merely for sending an email to the student body arguing that Israel bore responsibility for instigating the October 7 attacks. (FIRE urged NYU to end the investigation.)
- NYU publicly suspended and investigated an adjunct professor for public comments he made about the Israel-Hamas war. (Again, FIRE wrote to NYU, urging it to end its investigation into the professor’s political speech.)
- NYU denied public access to an event hosted by Students for Justice in Palestine because the event’s speakers were “contentious.”
- NYU mandated thought reform for pro-Palestinian protestors arrested after police cleared a campus encampment.
- NYU moved to codify ideological censorship by singling out the use of the term “Zionist” for discipline in its policies.
FIRE is not taking silence for an answer—but we need your help to hold NYU accountable.
FIRE recently wrote to NYU’s accreditor, the Middle States Commission on Higher Education (MSCHE). We explained how NYU’s violations of policies intended to protect the expressive rights of its students and faculty also violate MSCHE’s requirement that accredited institutions demonstrate “a commitment to academic freedom, intellectual freedom, [and] freedom of expression.”
But getting MSCHE to take action against a wealthy and powerful institution like NYU is a tough task. That’s why FIRE needs your help! You can write to NYU’s accreditor too. Send an email to the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, urging them to require NYU to recommit to freedom of expression today.
