Almost a dozen students have been suspended for a year from New York University (NYU) for the demand of Israel’s disinvestment as President Donald Trump’s No-nonsense approach to higher education is going.
“I think the most important thing, and it seems to go with NYU, is not that schools are hard on certain students, is that they enforce the rules evenly,” Cornell University Professor William Jacobson Fox News Digital told. “The problem with the anti-Israeli demonstrators on campuses is that they do not want to obey the existing rules. They do not want to live according to the rules that everyone lives. Whether it disrupts the library, whether it is blocking the campus stream of pedestrians.
“And as soon as you force the rules where everyone should be needed, they start playing victim,” he said.
The US President-Elect Donald Trump with his son, Barron, aboard a US Air Force aircraft on the way 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 officers arrested students at New York University and the new school that demand that universities of Israel are alternated. (Selcuk Acar/Anadolu via Getty images)
In a statement after the University’s ruling to suspend the student demonstrators, NYU’s faculty for justice in Palestine (FJP) argued that the group participated in anti-war protests and acted non-violent. On December 11 and 12, a group of NYU students and Faculty of Flyers and Hung Pro-Palestinian banners dropped in the Bobst library, and others fed a sit-in on the floor of the library.
“In a draconian case of collective punishment, NYU has issued NYU General suspensions of the year to students who participated in non -violent protest on the campus on 11 December 2024,” The group posted To his Instagram account. “From today, at least eleven students were suspended until January 2026.”
“The sit-in was to demand a meeting with administration officers with regard to disclosure and disinvestment of institutional investments in Israel,” the group said. “All students who were identified as participation in these actions were accused of comparable violations of NYU’s Code of Student Conduct.”
Hundreds of anti-Israel agitators are organizing 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 December 11 and 12 were ‘not peaceful’.
“Instead, it was the intentional disturbance of a library, over the course of two days, at a critical academic moment – on the eve of the final. This disturbance was accompanied by threats of violence aimed at senior members of the university community, “He said.
“The disciplinary hearings against NYU student participants who followed, and the resulting sanctions were a result of the disturbing behavior of the students (not their speech): consciously violating university and library rules despite repeated warnings and attempts to de-escalation for several hours , “he said.
“It is inappropriate for a small group of people – some not even in our community – to try to prevent or interrupt other students to enter or use the library to study for the final. Federal law prohibits universities to the Disciplinary files of individual students, but the university takes these violations of our rules and scientific standards seriously.
Hundreds of anti-Israël agitators organize a demonstration outside of Nyu’s Stern School of Business in Manhattan, New York on Monday, April 22, 2024. The demonstrators organized a tent camp for the school because 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 the Cornell Law School and publisher of Legal Insurrection Blog. (Fox News Digital)
Jacobson said he believes that The Trump Government Universities will require ‘to be complied with the rules’.
“And those rules mean that you cannot create hostile environments for certain religious groups or certain ethnic groups. And what we have seen on many campuses is that, in particular pro-Israeli students, Jewish students are the target of these groups. Create so-called Zionist free zones on campus.
“I hope to a greater extent than the Education Department of the Trump administration than the Department of Education of Biden AdministrationWill look at these things and these students will treat according to the rules and do not give them special privileges as they are used to so far, “he said.
President Donald Trump speaks during a press conference in Mar-A-Lago, Tuesday, January 7, 2025 in Palm Beach, FLA. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
Department of Education Civil Rights Configurations
More than 100 American colleges and school districts continue to research due to alleged anti -Semitism or Islamophobia After the attack of 7 October 2023. Some settled with federal researchers of civil rights in the weeks prior to Trump’s second term.
The violations of civil rights fall under title VI, which prohibits discrimination or intimidation on the basis of race, color and national descent to colleges and universities that receive federal financing.
Settlements at the Civil Rights Branch of education have been piled up in recent weeks with the University of Washington, the University of California, Johns Hopkins, Rutgers and the University of Cincinnati. They follow other voluntary agreements signed by Brown and Temple Universities, together with the University of Michigan.
The flurry of settlements with the Ministry of Education of the Biden administration led to the indignation of those who believe that universities get “from the hook” for their behavior.
Rep. Tim Walberg, R-Mich., Chairman of the House Education and Workforce Committee, said that the settlements are “toothless” and het colleges responsible for allowing anti-Semitism. In a statement he said that the Trump government “must investigate these agreements and investigate options to impose real consequences to schools.”
The police will go to the UCLA campus in Los Angeles on Thursday 2 May 2024 at the demonstrators. (AP Photo/Ryan Sun)
Flashback: Trump on campus protests
Trump has heavily criticized institutions for allowing such protests and promised to stop unmanageable protests.
“Colleges will and must put an end to the anti -Semitic propaganda, or they will lose their accreditation and federal support,” Trump said earlier during a campaign event in September, According to Reuters.
In May, Trump hinted in order to deport and tell unprotecting student demonstrators The Washington Post: “As soon as they hear that, they will behave.”
On Wednesday, The New York Post Reported that Trump was expected to sign a executive order that instructs all federal agencies to identify civil and criminal authorities that are available to combat anti -Semitism.
The order would require that office and department heads give the White House recommendations within 60 days and plan plans for the Ministry of Justice to investigate Pro-Hamas Graffiti and intimidation, De Post reported.
The executive order also calls for universities to deport students protesters who were involved in the widespread protests after the attacks of 7 October, which are in the US on Studentvisa.
US President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden greet President-Elect Donald Trump and Melania Trump while they arrive at the White House in Washington, DC, on January 20, 2025, before they leave for the American Capitol where Trump is sworn in as the 47th US President. (Jim Watson/AFP via Getty images)
In 2019, during his first term, Trump in particular signed an executive order that requires federal agencies to “consider the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti -Semitism in investigating Title VI cases.
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According to the IHRA definition, certain criticism of Israel, such as “claiming that the existence of a state of Israel is a racist part”, are considered anti -Semitic.
Fox News Digital has contacted the University of Washington, Rutgers, the University of Cincinnati, Brown University and the University of Maryland for comments.
The Associated Press has contributed to this report.
