Subject: 3,000+ Alumni Boycott NYU Due to Complicity in Genocide and Anti-Palestinian Repression

To Linda G. Mills and Evan Chesler,

We, the undersigned alumni of New York University, express our deepest disappointment in your administration’s continued complicity in the genocide in Gaza, and your response to NYU students, faculty, and staff peacefully and rightfully protesting this complicity. We are boycotting NYU - including withholding all donations and cutting all ties with the university - until the following demands are met.

We call on you, as university leadership, to immediately:

1. Condemn the murder of nearly 35,000 Palestinians including 13,800 children - roughly 1.5% of Gaza’s population; the forced displacement of over 1.9 million Palestinians; the catastrophic food insecurity impacting 1.1 million Palestinians; and the capture of approximately 9,500 Palestinians in Israeli prisons including 200 children. These horrifying statistics are as of May 2024 and only continue to rise. We call on you to issue a university-wide, public statement unconditionally condemning these genocidal and apartheid actions by the Israeli government in Palestine.

2. Protect students, faculty, and organizations advocating for Palestinian human rights from harassment, retaliation, and censorship at all NYU sites.

1. Reinforce their rights to freedom of speech and protest, in consistency with NYU’s expressed principles of free academic expression, including their ability to undertake direct actions, rallies, and banner drops on campus grounds. NYU’s decision to respond to peaceful anti-genocide protesters in April and May 2024 with violent police repression and hundreds of arrests egregiously contradicts the aforementioned principles. NYU must remove any police presence from campus and disclose all ties between NYU and the NYPD.

2. Establish clearer processes for report intakes, investigations, and determination of disciplinary action. Despite the University’s current policies and 10-point plan, we have seen NYU place institutional responsibility on the person targeted by a hate crime or harassment, in contravention of the University’s responsibilities as a beacon of free and protected speech and expression.

3. Ban prospective employers from recruiting on campus who dox and censor students engaging in Palestine activism, and publicly state that NYU will not tolerate employers on campus who attempt to censor, silence, and intimidate Palestinian, Arab, Muslim, and Jewish students as well as their allies.

3. Divest from companies and institutions active in the Israeli occupation and genocide in Palestine. There is a moral imperative to call for divestment from entities whose actions run contrary to the University’s established values. NYU has divested from fossil fuels and South African apartheid and must hold Israel to the same standard. We call NYU to:

1. Comply with the Associated Student Government’s 2018 vote to divest

2. Terminate all vendor contracts with companies playing active roles in the military occupation in Palestine and ongoing genocide in Gaza, namely Cisco, Lockheed Martin, Caterpillar, and General Electric

4. Re-evaluate the involvement of NYU, particularly the Tandon School of Engineering, in:

1. Arms research and development; cease research collaboration with arms manufacturers and terminate arms manufacturers’ access to job fairs and symposia; cease any chemistry research partnerships advancing chemical warfare weaponry

2. Artificial intelligence research, development, and ethics; cease any and all use of artificial intelligence in contexts pertaining to war and the military-industrial complex

3. The development of technologies used to violate civil liberties of citizenry through the expansion of digital surveillance

5. Shut down NYU Tel Aviv, a direct enabler of Israeli apartheid, which bars Palestinian students, faculty, and affiliates from accessing academic opportunities at the site because of their ethnicity. This exists as an academic inconsistency that violates NYU’s principles of academic freedom and egalitarianism. NYU must shut down the Tel Aviv site until there are sufficient guarantees for academic freedom, opportunity, and access for all prospective students, faculty, and affiliates, including Palestinians.

Our above demands are aligned with NYU Palestine Solidarity Coalition’s asks and have been co-signed by 30+ NYU groups. Until they are met, we as alumni will implement a complete boycott of NYU. We will withhold any donations or material support ($3.4M+ already having been withheld) to the university and reject any attempts made by NYU to engage with us, unless engagement is to meet our demands. 

Our collective humanity cannot be conditional, for indeed, all life is sacred. NYU must begin rectifying its wrongs by ceasing any further participation and complicity in the Israeli genocide in Gaza and the Israeli occupation in Palestine. 

In Peace and Power,

The 3,144 Undersigned NYU Alumni