New York University updated the nondiscrimination and anti-harassment policy in its code of conduct to note that substituting the word “Zionist” in the place of the word “Jew” does not automatically prevent a student from violating university rules, NYU announced to students on Thursday.
“Using code words, like ‘Zionist,’ does not eliminate the possibility that your speech violates the NDAH Policy,” the conduct guide reads. “For many Jewish people, Zionism is a part of their Jewish identity. Speech and conduct that would violate the NDAH if targeting Jewish or Israeli people can also violate the NDAH if directed toward Zionists.”
That NDAH policy defines discrimination as “adverse treatment based on an actual or perceived protected characteristic,” while harassment is “an unwelcome verbal or physical conduct based on an actual or perceived protected characteristic that, from the viewpoint of a reasonable person under all the relevant circumstances, would create an intimidating, hostile, or offensive academic or residential environment or otherwise adversely affect the individual’s academic opportunities or participation in an NYU program, activity, or benefit.”
Individuals associated with NYU would violate that policy “when discrimination or harassment is based in racism, colorism, antisemitism, Islamophobia, xenophobia, sexism, transphobia, ableism and other forms of bigotry involving protected characteristics covered by the policy.”
NYU offered examples of when the use of a code word for Jews like “Zionists” would violate the university’s policies.
“Excluding Zionists from an open event, calling for the death of Zionists, applying a ‘no Zionist’ litmus test for participation in any NYU activity, using or disseminating tropes, stereotypes, and conspiracies about Zionists (e.g., ‘Zionists control the media’), demanding person who is or is perceived to be Jewish or Israeli to state a position on Israel or Zionism, minimizing or denying the Holocaust, or invoking Holocaust imagery or symbols to harass or discriminate” would constitute behavior prohibited by the university.
NYU spokesman John Beckman told National Review in an emailed statement that the policies in place are meant to prevent situations in which protest becomes antisemitic harassment or discrimination.
“NYU is fully committed to academic freedom, and free expression and dissent are bedrock principles; however, protests and demonstrations are and have long been subject to time, place, and manner rules,” Beckman said. “Moreover, protest and dissent cannot violate our policies on discrimination and harassment, including antisemitism and other forms of hate, nor can they disrupt NYU’s teaching, learning, and research activities, or University events, or any of the other operations vital to fulfilling NYU’s academic mission.”
Beckman wrote that the updated guidelines offer a clearer description of the conduct that would violate the university’s policies. As NR reported in the spring, students at an anti-Israel protest just outside NYU property chanted “we don’t want no Zionists here” and “we don’t want no two-state, we want all of it,” which, if directed toward an individual student, would seemingly represent a contravention of the NYU code of conduct.
“To that end, what we shared with NYU students yesterday — the Guidance and Expectations on Student Conduct — provides greater clarity about our standards, rules and policies, along the lines of what our community has requested of us,” Beckman continued. “it’s one part of an ongoing effort to set a new, more productive, constructive and respectful tone for the coming academic year. We’ll also be communicating with he University community in the near future about improving discourse and engagement, about required non-discrimination and anti-harassment training, and about what we heard during the Listening Forums we held over the summer.”