Thursday, April 30, 2026. Manahatta, Lenapehoking (Manhattan, New York City) – On Wednesday, April 22, 2026, the second anniversary of the first “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” at New York University (NYU) and the Gould Plaza arrests, Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine (FSJP) at NYU held a press conference outside NYU to announce the launch of a year-long Tribunal on Academic Freedom and Campus Repression at NYU.
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Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine at NYU said, “The Tribunal will investigate how the university has disciplined students, faculty, and staff for Palestine-related speech and activism, especially since the start of the genocide in Gaza in October 2023.”
FSJP adds, “Those who would like to contribute and share testimony, documentation or a written statement – be it as an individual or as a campus group – please contact us at nyutribunal@proton.me. You can also express interest (anonymously if you wish) through this secure form.”
Below is the press release from NYU Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine.
Second anniversary of the first “Gaza Solidarity Encampment”
On Monday morning, April 22, 2024, students and faculty began the first “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” at Gould Plaza, demanding NYU to divest from companies with ties to the terrorist state of Israel. There were hundreds of protesters inside and outside the encampment.
The Gaza Solidarity Encampment was organized by the NYU Palestine Solidarity Coalition, which included students and faculty from Students for Justice in Palestine, Faculty for Justice in Palestine, Law Students for Justice in Palestine, Shut it Down NYU, Jews Against Zionism and more than 20 other on-campus groups, according to a press release.
“We are in solidarity with our comrades at Columbia, who have demonstrated the principled action we all must take nationwide. Inspired by our peers, we take action in solidarity with Gaza and call on NYU to divest from and fully boycott Israel and all the entities that profit from Israeli apartheid, genocide and occupation. We encourage all those invested in collective liberation and the liberation of Palestine to stand in solidarity and take action across the city,” the press release read.
NYU administrators called the New York City Police Department (NYPD) to arrest peaceful pro-Palestine, anti-genocide students and faculty. NYPD officers in riot gear entered the plaza at around 8:30 PM and arrested at least 130 peaceful demonstrators. NYPD officers pepper sprayed protesters, journalists and legal observers in the street.
From October 2023 to October 2025, NYPD officers arrested thousands of peaceful pro-Palestine, anti-genocide New Yorkers. NYPD officers also arrested journalists covering demonstrations, including me.
Former New York City “Black mayor,” zionist Eric Adams, a member of the Democratic Party, said on Tuesday, April 23, 2024 that “outside agitators” who were not students were taking part in protests on school campuses, including at NYU. “We can’t have outside agitators come in and be destructive to our city,” corrupt Eric Adams told reporters.
Supporter of apartheid, genocide and ethnic cleansing Eric Adams called peaceful pro-Palestine, anti-genocide, anti-war, pro-peace New Yorkers “outside agitators,” but Adams met with Israeli Prime Minister, war criminal, baby killer, corrupt, terrorist Benjamin Netanyahu during his trip to Israel in August 2023, in September 2025 during the United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York City and in November 2025, during his second visit to Israel as mayor. Corrupt Eric Adams visited Israel several times, including two official trips in August 2023 and in November 2025. “I wanted to come back here to Israel and let you know that I served you as the mayor,” Adams told zionists in November 2025.
On April 23, 2024, NYU built a wall with plywood around the Stern School of Business’ Gould Plaza, where the encampment was to ensure students and faculty would not return. Why does NYU love so much the zionist, apartheid entity? NYU cares more about Israel than about its students, faculty, and staff who oppose genocide.
Pro-Palestinian students, faculty and staff demand that their schools in New York, including NYU, Columbia University (named after colonizer, criminal Christopher Columbus), the City University of New York (CUNY), the State University of New York (SUNY), The New School, the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) and others, cut ties with the terrorist state of Israel over its genocide, ethnic cleansing against Indigenous Palestinians and its occupation of Palestine.
Israel is still stealing Palestinian land and committing genocide, ethnic cleansing against Indigenous Palestinians in April 2026. Reports from prisoner rights groups and organizations indicate that the number of Palestinian HOSTAGES (prisoners) in zionist concentration camps are more than 10,000. On March 30, 2026, Israel’s parliament passed the “Prisoner Execution Law,” a death penalty law that solely targets Palestinians. For nearly 78 years, Israel has been an apartheid regime.
Protests to commemorate the NAKBA 78 will be in Washington Square Park, Manhattan, on Friday, May 15, 2026, and in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, on Saturday, May 16, 2026. Click here for more information.
Tribunal on Academic Freedom and Campus Repression at NYU
PRESS RELEASE by NYU Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine.
“NEW YORK, April 21 – Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine (FSJP) at NYU is holding a press conference on Wednesday, April 22, 10:30 am on the corner of W4 and Mercer, to announce the launch of a year-long Tribunal on Academic Freedom and Campus Repression at NYU. The Tribunal will investigate how the university has disciplined students, faculty, and staff for Palestine-related speech and activism, especially since the start of the genocide in Gaza in October 2023.
The date of the launch, April 22, marks the second anniversary of the day senior NYU administrators called in the NYPD to arrest more than one hundred students and faculty during the first Gaza solidarity encampment at Gould Plaza.
Starting in fall 2026 and continuing through at least spring 2027, the Tribunal will hold a series of hearings on forms of repression such as the disciplining of student and faculty activists through arrests, suspensions, and persona non grata (PNG) declarations; the punitive non-renewal of adjunct faculty and postdoc contracts; the weaponization of Title VI investigative processes against faculty, staff, graduate workers, and students; the censorship of student- and faculty-organized events on campus; and the repression of speech and other forms of expression at graduation ceremonies.
A mandate for the Tribunal issued by FSJP declares that “There is a crisis of academic freedom at NYU, centered on the repression of pro-Palestine speech and activism” and that “the administration has refused transparency and accountability for these egregious actions.”
FSJP has begun the process of soliciting testimony from current and former NYU students, faculty, and staff who have been disciplined, repressed, censored, or threatened for their Palestine-related expression. There will be procedures for affected individuals to offer public testimony as well as procedures for closed-door or other means of testimony for those who want to speak confidentially or remain anonymous.
FSJP will invite a panel of internal and external experts to participate in the Tribunal’s hearings and write its final report. The panel will evaluate NYU’s repression of pro-Palestine speech and activism in the context of genocide and according to principles of academic freedom, First Amendment rights, NYU’s disciplinary policies, and norms developed by other relevant bodies, including the AAUP, other institutions of higher education, and international human rights instruments. The panel will release a final report that will share the Tribunal’s findings and make recommendations for future actions.
The press conference on Wednesday, April 22 will feature organizers of the Tribunal as well as several current or former NYU faculty members who have been punished for their pro-Palestine or anti-Zionist speech and activism on campus.
Sinan Antoon, a faculty member at Gallatin who was arrested at the Gould Plaza encampment on April 22, 2024, said: “One would expect this university, and others, to be a space where critical thinking and freedom of speech and expression were welcome and one where community members are protected when they exercise their rights. But since the genocide in Gaza, it has become a space of coercion and crude censorship in and outside classrooms and where expressions of solidarity with dying and starving civilians are severely punished and the NYPD is invited on campus to arrest faculty, staff, and students. A university that claims to be ‘in the public service’ but whose administration is in the service of donors and political elites, must be held accountable.”
Sonya Posmentier, an Arts & Science faculty member who was abruptly banned from campus buildings and then arrested during a protest outside Bobst library on Dec 12, 2024, remarks, “I hope the tribunal will hold the university responsible for their illegitimate use of state power against students, staff, faculty during the encampments and in December 2024. I also hope we can learn more about how excessive disciplinary measures and quieter forms of ongoing suppression—cancelled speakers, censored posters, interference in classroom activities from university bureaucrats, even redesigned public spaces—have created a chilling effect on campus. Even if the administration refuses accountability, we need to create a record of how these walls got here.”
Kathy Engel, a faculty member at Tisch who was arrested at the Gould Plaza encampment, added: “On April 22, 2024, we were all made unsafe by the actions of the NYU administration and the NYPD. On the campus where we study the history of social movements, purport to practice open dialogue, and where we teach about public engagement; after a day of enacting shared commitment addressing a crisis affecting the whole world; a militarized police force in riot gear was called in by our school’s administration. There can be no safety when police are called in to handcuff, rough up and arrest students, faculty, staff who are engaged in non-violent protest. The decision of the university to call in the police and arrest students and faculty ruptured any possible sense of health and safety. This is the Palestine Exception at work and we need to hear from all affected.” Click here and here for more information.
Click here to watch a video of the full press conference on Wednesday, April 22, 2026.
Zionist democrat and republican politicians
Some of the zionist democrat and republican politicians from New York that have been to the zionist, terrorist, apartheid, fascist state of Israel: former NYC mayor Abe Beame (Democratic Party), former NYC mayor John Lindsay (Republican Party), former NYC mayor William O’Dwyer (Democratic Party), former NYC mayor Ed Koch (Democratic Party), former NYC mayor David Dinkins (Democratic Party), former New York state governor Andrew Cuomo (Democratic Party), New York state governor Kathy Hochul (Democratic Party), former NYC Comptroller Scott Stringer (Democratic Party), former NYC mayor Rudy Giuliani (Republican Party), former NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg (Republican Party), former NYC council speaker Corey Johnson (Democratic Party), etc.
US president, zionist, war criminal, terrorist Harry S. Truman was the first world leader to officially recognize Israel as a Jewish state on May 14, 1948, just 11 minutes after Israel’s declaration of “independence.” Harry Truman was a member of the Democratic Party. Truman used atomic bombs to bomb Japan (Hiroshima on August 6, and Nagasaki on August 9, 1945). Harry Truman, the Democratic Party, the US murdered hundreds of thousands of people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
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