NYU Admin – Your response to bravery is immoral and unacceptable
NYU Administration: President Linda Mills, Board Chair Evan Chesler, Provost Gigi Dopico, Gallatin Dean Victoria Rosner, Associate Dean of Students Craig Jolley
We write as members of the Coalition of Action for Higher Education, and for people of conscience everywhere, in solidarity with NYU student leader Logan Rozos for his brave, principled expression of moral courage and academic freedom.
Logan’s condemnation of the mass murder of more than 50,000 Palestinians, including more than 18,000 children, has resonated with thousands of people around the world who have watched his courageous Gallatin School address. Your decision to withdraw his diploma in retaliation for his freedom of speech is a shocking act of moral cowardice and academic malpractice. We also note that Logan was selected by his peers to be commencement speaker. You have made a mockery of that democratic process.
In effect, you have taken the side of genocide and mass murder, while sullying the good name of your students, faculty, and employees. You have also aligned yourself with an authoritarian U.S. state that continues to arrest, violently detain, disappear, and deport many of our best and brightest students. You have demonstrated that you would rather bully your students than stand up for the principles of academic freedom and free speech at a critical moment in our country.
The university should be a place where students are empowered to speak truth to power—not punished for it. The attempt to silence Logan for courageously naming genocide is not only a violation of academic freedom, it is a reflection of how higher education has been co-opted by corporate interests. When universities operate like businesses, truth becomes a liability and student voices are managed as PR risks instead of being uplifted as agents of justice. And we do not take lightly Logan’s positionality as a Black trans student—voices like his must be protected, not punished. The world doesn’t change unless the margins are heard at the center.
We pledge today to continue to amplify, celebrate, and respect the moral and intellectual courage of Logan Rozos. We the undersigned commit to standing in principled alliance with the hundreds of faculty and thousands of students at your University whose lives, reputations, careers you put at risk of violent recrimination and further repression. We believe your actions violate not just principles of free speech and academic freedom but also basic human decency.
We will continue to protest against the NYU administration until all charges, threats, and slander against Logan Rozos have been dropped. We urge you to act now.
Sincerely,
The Coalition for Action in Higher Education and the Undersigned:
Sponsored by
To:
NYU Administration: President Linda Mills, Board Chair Evan Chesler, Provost Gigi Dopico, Gallatin Dean Victoria Rosner, Associate Dean of Students Craig Jolley
From:
[Your Name]
We write as members of the Coalition of Action for Higher Education, and for people of conscience everywhere, in solidarity with NYU student leader Logan Rozos for his brave, principled expression of moral courage and academic freedom.
Logan’s condemnation of the mass murder of more than 50,000 Palestinians, including more than 18,000 children, has resonated with thousands of people around the world who have watched his courageous Gallatin School address. Your decision to withdraw his diploma in retaliation for his freedom of speech is a shocking act of moral cowardice and academic malpractice. We also note that Logan was selected by his peers to be commencement speaker. You have made a mockery of that democratic process.
In effect, you have taken the side of genocide and mass murder, while sullying the good name of your students, faculty, and employees. You have also aligned yourself with an authoritarian U.S. state that continues to arrest, violently detain, disappear, and deport many of our best and brightest students. You have demonstrated that you would rather bully your students than stand up for the principles of academic freedom and free speech at a critical moment in our country.
The university should be a place where students are empowered to speak truth to power—not punished for it. The attempt to silence Logan for courageously naming genocide is not only a violation of academic freedom, it is a reflection of how higher education has been co-opted by corporate interests. When universities operate like businesses, truth becomes a liability and student voices are managed as PR risks instead of being uplifted as agents of justice. And we do not take lightly Logan’s positionality as a Black trans student—voices like his must be protected, not punished. The world doesn’t change unless the margins are heard at the center.
We pledge today to continue to amplify, celebrate, and respect the moral and intellectual courage of Logan Rozos. We the undersigned commit to standing in principled alliance with the hundreds of faculty and thousands of students at your University whose lives, reputations, careers you put at risk of violent recrimination and further repression. We believe your actions violate not just principles of free speech and academic freedom but also basic human decency.
We will continue to protest against the NYU administration until all charges, threats, and slander against Logan Rozos have been dropped. We urge you to act now.
Sincerely,
The Coalition for Action in Higher Education and the Undersigned: