Nearly a dozen college students have been suspended for a yr from New York College (NYU) for demanding divestment from Israel as President Donald Trump’s no-nonsense method to larger training takes maintain.
“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 College professor William Jacobson advised Fox Information 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 implement the foundations that everyone else must stay by, they begin taking part in sufferer,” he mentioned.
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)
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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 a draconian case of collective punishment, NYU has issued blanket year-long suspensions to college students who participated in nonviolent protest on campus on December 11, 2024,” the group posted to its Instagram account. “As of at this time, not less than eleven college students have been suspended till January 2026.”
“The sit-in was to demand a gathering with administration officers relating to disclosure of and divestment from institutional investments in Israel,” the group said. “All college students recognized as collaborating in these actions have been charged with comparable violations of NYU’s code of pupil conduct.”
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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 peaceable.”
“Quite, it was the intentional disruption of a library, over the course of two days, at a essential educational second — on the eve of finals. This disruption was accompanied by threats of violence directed at senior members of the college neighborhood,” he mentioned.
“The disciplinary hearings in opposition to NYU pupil members that adopted, and the ensuing sanctions have been a consequence of the scholars’ disruptive conduct (not their speech): knowingly violating College and Library guidelines regardless of repeated warnings and makes an attempt at de-escalation over a number of hours,” he said.
“It’s improper for a small group of individuals — some not even in our neighborhood — to attempt to forestall or interrupt different college students from getting into the library or utilizing it to check for finals. Federal legislation prohibits universities from discussing particular person college students’ disciplinary data, however the College takes these violations of our guidelines and scholarly norms significantly.”
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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)
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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 “insist that the foundations be adhered to.”
“And people guidelines imply you can’t create hostile environments for sure spiritual teams or sure ethnic teams. And what we have seen on many campuses is that, notably pro-Israel college students, Jewish college students are being focused by these teams. They create so-called Zionist-free zones on campus. Properly, it isn’t your proper to try this,” he said.
“I am hoping that the Trump administration’s Division of Training, to a larger extent than the Biden administration’s Division of Training, will have a look at this stuff and can deal with these college students based on the foundations and never give them particular privileges like they have been used to to this point,” he mentioned.
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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.
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 “study these agreements and discover choices to impose actual penalties on colleges.”
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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.
“Schools will and should finish the antisemitic propaganda, or they may lose their accreditation and federal assist,” Trump beforehand mentioned at a marketing campaign occasion in September, based on Reuters.
In Might, Trump hinted at deporting unrelenting pupil protesters, telling The Washington Publish: “As quickly 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.
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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 “contemplate” 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 “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.