Almost a lots pupils have actually been put on hold for a year from New York University (NYU) for requiring divestment from Israel as President Donald Trump’s practical technique to college holds.
“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 teacher William Jacobson informedFox 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.
“And as quickly as you impose the policies that everyone else requires to obey, they begin playing target,” 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 university’s ruling to suspend the student protesters, NYU’s Faculty for Justice in Palestine (FJP) argued that the group was participating in anti-war protests and acted nonviolently. 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 an exorbitant instance of cumulative penalty, NYU has actually provided covering year-long suspensions to pupils that joined pacifist objection on school on December 11, 2024,” the group posted to its Instagram account. “As these days, at the very least eleven pupils have actually been put on hold up until January 2026.”
“The sit-in was to require a conference with management authorities pertaining to disclosure of and divestment from institutional financial investments in Israel,” the group said. “All pupils recognized as taking part in these activities were billed with comparable offenses of NYU’s code of pupil 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 calm.”
“Rather, it was the deliberate interruption of a collection, throughout 2 days, at a crucial scholastic minute– on the eve of finals. This interruption was come with by risks of physical violence guided at elderly participants of the college area,” he said.
STUDENTS WHO SAW CAMPUSES DEVOLVED INTO ANTI-ISRAEL CHAOS WITNESS FIRST-HAND SUCCESSES OF ABRAHAM ACCORDS
“The corrective hearings versus NYU pupil individuals that complied with, and the resulting permissions issued of the pupils’ turbulent conduct (not their speech): purposefully breaking University and Library policies regardless of duplicated cautions and efforts at de-escalation over a number of hours,” he said.
“It is inappropriate for a little team of individuals– some not also in our area– to attempt to stop or disrupt various other pupils from getting in the collection or utilizing it to examine for finals. Federal regulation restricts colleges from talking about specific pupils’ corrective documents, however the University takes these offenses of our policies and academic standards 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)
William A. Jacobson is a clinical professor of law at Cornell Law School, and publisher of Legal Insurrection Blog. (Fox News Digital)
Jacobson said that he believes that the Trump administration will require universities to ” firmly insist that the policies be stuck to.”
“And those policies suggest you can not produce aggressive atmospheres for sure spiritual teams or particular ethnic teams. And what we have actually seen on lots of schools is that, especially pro-Israel pupils, Jewish pupils are being targeted by these teams. They produce supposed Zionist- totally free areas on school. Well, it’s not your right to do that,” he said.
“I’m really hoping that the Trump management’s Department of Education, to a better degree than the Biden management’s Department of Education, will certainly check out these points and will certainly deal with these pupils according to the policies and not provide unique benefits like they have actually been utilized to until now,” he claimed.
President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference at Mar-a-Lago, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
Department of Education civil rights violations allegations
More than 100 U.S. colleges and school districts remain under investigation over alleged antisemitism or Islamophobia following the Oct. 7, 2023 attack. Some settled with federal civil rights investigators in the weeks leading up to Trump’s second term.
The civil rights violations fall under Title VI, which bars discrimination or harassment on the basis of race, color and national origin at colleges and universities that receive federal funding.
Settlements with the Education Department’s civil rights branch have piled up in recent weeks with the University of Washington, the University of California, Johns Hopkins, Rutgers and the University of Cincinnati. Those follow other voluntary agreements signed by Brown and Temple universities, along with the University of Michigan.
JEWISH HIGH SCHOOLERS FIGHT HATE WITH COMMUNITY SUPPORT, FACE HARROWING PROSPECTS FOR COLLEGIATE FUTURE
The flurry of settlements with the Biden administration’s Department of Education prompted outrage from those who believe that universities are getting ” off the hook” for their behaviors.
Rep. Tim Walberg, R-Mich., chair of the House Education and Workforce Committee, said the settlements are ” toothless” and fail to hold colleges accountable for permitting antisemitism. In a statement, he said the Trump administration should ” check out these contracts and check out alternatives to enforce genuine repercussions on institutions.”
Police advance on demonstrators on the UCLA campus Thursday, May 2, 2024, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Ryan Sun)
Flashback: Trump on campus protests
Trump has harshly criticized institutions for allowing such protests, promising to halt unruly protests.
“Colleges will and must end the antisemitic propaganda, or they will lose their accreditation and federal support,” Trump previously said at a campaign event in September, according to Reuters.
In May, Trump hinted at deporting unrelenting student protesters, telling The Washington Post: “As soon as they hear that, they’re going to behave.”
On Wednesday, The New York Post reported that Trump was expected to sign an executive order instructing all federal agencies to identify civil and criminal authorities available to combat antisemitism.
The order would require agency and department heads to provide the White House with recommendations within 60 days and outline plans for the Department of Justice to investigate pro-Hamas graffiti and intimidation, the Post reported.
The executive order also calls for universities to deport student protesters, who were involved in the widespread protests following the Oct. 7 attacks, who are in the U.S. on student visas.
US President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden greet President-elect Donald Trump and Melania Trump as they arrive at the White House in Washington, DC, on January 20, 2025, before departing for the US Capitol where Trump will be sworn in as the 47th US President. (Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images)
In 2019, during his first term, Trump notably signed an executive order requiring federal agencies to ” formerly claimed at a project occasion in ” the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism when investigating Title VI cases.
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According to the IHRA definition, certain criticisms of Israel, such as “, State.(* ),Israel meant deporting relentless pupil militants, informing” are considered antisemitic.
Fox News Digital has reached out to the University of Washington, Rutgers, the University of Cincinnati, Brown University and the University of Maryland for comment.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
