As students and faculty in the U.S. return to campuses for the fall semester, there are innumerable reasons to continue demonstrating against institutional complicity with Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza. The need for those protests is as urgent as it’s ever been.
University and college administrations, however, are not only signaling plans to treat pro-Palestinian speech with intellectual dishonesty, they’re making clear they plan to use their specious logic to inflict evermore repressive intolerance.
Tucked into a document purportedly offering clarification on school policy, the new NYU guidelines introduce an unprecedented expansion of protected classes to include “Zionists” and “Zionism.” Referring to the university’s nondiscrimination and anti-harassment policy, known as NDAH, the updated conduct guide says, “Speech and conduct that would violate the NDAH if targeting Jewish or Israeli people can also violate the NDAH if directed toward Zionists.”
the new NYU guidelines introduce an unprecedented expansion of protected classes to include “Zionists” and “Zionism.”
History books are going to be written on how the stars aligned to make a political view qualify as a protected class, and how it turned out.
It’s a grim irony that the gains made by progressives to safeguard civil rights are now being used as a cudgel to crush free speech.
What could possibly go wrong? First we educate the young people about all the abuse and how it’s been successfully fought in the past. Then we do the thing we taught them to resist. No possible problems here!
