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 no-nonsense 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.
“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
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 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.”
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.
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“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.”
Jacobson said that he believes that the Trump administration will require universities to “insist that the rules be adhered to.”
“And those rules mean you cannot create hostile environments for certain religious groups or certain ethnic groups. And what we’ve seen on many campuses is that, particularly pro-Israel students, Jewish students are being targeted by these groups. They create so-called Zionist-free zones on campus. Well, it’s not your right to do that,” he said.
“I’m hoping that the Trump administration’s Department of Education, to a greater extent than the Biden administration’s Department of Education, will look at these things and will treat these students according to the rules and not give them special privileges like they’ve been used to so far,” he said.
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.
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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 “examine these agreements and explore options to impose real consequences on schools.”
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.
In 2019, during his first term, Trump notably signed an executive order requiring federal agencies to “consider” the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism when investigating Title VI cases.
According to the IHRA definition, certain criticisms of Israel, such as “claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor,” 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.
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