After joining pro-Palestinian sit-in, Andrew Ross and Sonya Posmentier were declared ‘personae non gratae’

Two professors declared “personae non gratae”, or PNG, by New York University have accused the university of escalating suppression of pro-Palestinian speech under pressure from donors, politicians and pro-Israel groups.

NYU has barred the two tenured faculty members, Andrew Ross and Sonya Posmentier, from entering some buildings after they joined a sit-in at the library and other protests over two days last week to demand the university make public its investments in companies tied to Israel and close its campus in Tel Aviv. On the second day, they were arrested and charged with trespassing and disorderly conduct, relatively minor offences that do not result in a criminal record.

The university also imposed PNG orders against students who took part in the protest as well as non-tenured faculty including Chenjerai Kumanyika, an assistant professor of journalism. Kumanyika said on Bluesky that NYU had not provided guidance on how long the designation would last or how it could be appealed.

The American Association of University Professors described the PNG orders as tantamount to suspension and “part of a distressing pattern of repression of pro-Palestinian speech on college campuses”.

Ross, a sociology professor, said scores of NYU students had been declared PNG and barred from university buildings for taking part in pro-Palestinian protests in recent months but this is the first time a member of the faculty had been subject to the sanction.

“This is a disturbing new development. I’ve been teaching at NYU for more than 30 years. I was at Princeton for eight years before. I’ve been around the block and have never seen anything remotely like this crackdown over the last year. It’s completely unprecedented and it’s solely about Palestine,” he said.

Posmentier, an associate professor of literature, described the move against her as part of the “Palestine exception” on NYU and other US campuses to suppress criticism of Israel despite purporting to support free speech.

“Students held a huge die-in over Black Lives Matter in 2015, taking over the entire floor of the library. It was incredibly powerful. I don’t think the administration was very happy about it. I’m not going to say there was no resistance but, as far as I recall, there were no disciplinary consequences for anyone involved,” she said.

NYU accused last week’s protesters of disrupting students studying in the library for their finals by chanting, blocking entry and making “violent threats”.

“This was not peaceful protest. It was the intentional disruption of a core scholarly building, our library,” said university spokesperson John Beckman.

Ross accused NYU of acting under pressure to crack down on pro-Palestinian protests at campuses across the US.

“University administrations are very susceptible to outside pressure from donors and from Congress, and Congress has been particularly aggressive in its threats to police and punish campuses. Donors have been very vocal about their ability and willingness to cut off their donations to universities, and there are very well-organised, pro-Israeli pressure groups that bombard administrators with threats and lawsuits,” he said.

Ross, a member of NYU’s Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine, described the university’s decision to have the New York City police arrest them as “unconscionable” but said that it reflected a retreat by NYU’s leadership from its responsibility to protect free speech in favour of using the campus security office to curtail protests.

After the arrests, the university’s president, Linda Mills, sent a message to students saying that “accepting assistance from police” had been necessary to protect access to the library.

Last year, Mills called in the NYPD to clear out two encampments in support of Palestinians under attack from Israel’s war in Gaza following the 7 October 2023 Hamas attack in which about 1,200 Israelis were killed and hundreds abducted. In retaliation for that action, Israel has killed more than 45,000 Palestinians in Gaza, a majority of them civilians. The international criminal court has indicted Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and its former defence minister, Yoav Gallant, for war crimes alongside the Hamas military leader Mohammed Deif, whom Israel claims is now dead.

The university has filed more than 180 disciplinary cases against students and faculty for protests over Gaza since the war began. NYU has also suspended some students for actions inside university buildings.

In August, NYU issued “guidance” warning that the pejorative use of the word “Zionist” could be considered discriminatory in certain circumstances because it is part of the identity of many Jews.

“Excluding Zionists from an open event, calling for the death of Zionists, applying a ‘no Zionist’ litmus test for participation in any NYU activity, is not allowed,” it said.

Posmentier said the guidance has had a “chilling effect” inside and outside the classroom.

“I know people who have not taught things they were planning to teach, particularly among more vulnerable colleagues who don’t have tenure,” she said.