Letter from NYU Prof. Gianpaolo Baiocchi
Following Police Attack on Nonviolent
Student Demonstration Opposing Genocide

Dear NYU President Mills and Provost Dopico,

(Aprill 24,   2024) — I was one of the faculty who was violently arrested last night for trying to protect our students’ right to speech at Gould Plaza.  I believe I am owed an apology, as is the entire campus and surrounding community.

Not only was the decision to send riot police to break up a peaceful expression of political opinion entirely at odds with what it means to be a university in the public service, the email your office sent out afterwards was disingenuous and unbecoming of university leadership.

Neither of you were at the encampment yesterday, so let me share with you what I experienced.

The encampment started in the morning and the day was mostly a joyous one.  There were children playing and there was singing and chanting at various points.  There was no expression of anti-semitism, bigotry, or any hate speech, and a number of Jewish faculty and students who were there can attest to that.  There was a Seder.   This is very important to establish as a fact.   Yes, there were expressions of political opinion critical of Israeli policies, and there were counter-protestors across the street with Israeli flags at various points.  But this all falls well within protected speech.

If anything, campus security was acting inconsistently and nervously throughout the day, arbitrarily changing the rules at times, such as about who could go in and out, bathroom trips and so on.  Campus security actively escalated the tension throughout the day, but it was faculty negotiation that kept the day going smoothly.

Things got much worse in the evening. Shortly before 8 pm faculty were called to help protect the students because NYU staff announced they would be calling NYPD.  We were expecting that you or someone from the administration would come speak with us before calling the police.  I was one of about twenty faculty who arrived at the scene.  We came with the express purpose to protect students from arrest and violence, fulfilling our duty to our them and to protect the university’s mission.   I brought my faculty ID thinking it would offer me some protection.

Riot police in full gear arrived on the scene during evening prayers, seeming to follow the directions of head of NYU security who was off to the side as they stormed in.  We the faculty formed a double line of faculty in the mistaken assumption we would be at least heard.

Although instructions were being played from a speaker at this point there was no way to disperse and no clear timeline.   When it was clear we were about to be assaulted I remembered to take off the lanyard around my neck as a choking hazard, and I am glad I did.

I hope you get to see the body cam footage to see the kind of treatment you visited upon your faculty yesterday.    Faculty were handled very roughly, in one instance being shaken and thrown around.  Another one was shoved.

Next to me was a visibly older faculty member.  He was very roughly handled and his hands were tied so tight he complained of not being able to feel his fingers, obviously harmful treatment.  I sat next to him and we complained about this for the next two hours until he was processed.  When I left the police facility many hours later, he was still there.

I was upset and disappointed with the institution and the administration by the time I arrived home at 3:30am but only read your email this morning.  It is full of inaccuracies and disingenuous statements and the AAUP has already challenged those claims.   But most of all there was absolutely no “hate, disruption, and intimidation” at the student protest.  

You understand that vague and false allegations like these expose faculty like me, who did not hide my face to doxxing and threats.    As a faculty member I feel completely unprotected by the university.  I worry in particular about my untenured and insecure colleagues who were there and about what kind of climate we will have at the university moving forward.

I have been a faculty here for ten years, and have been teaching for more than twenty, and was a student for a decade before that. I have never been so disappointed and ashamed of my administration as I am now.   You are not being called on to agree with the criticisms the students are leveling of Israeli aggression or of the colossal loss of life in Palestine.  You are being called on to defend academic freedom and the idea of a university as a place for debate and dissent.  This is one of the crucial roles of a university needs to play in a democracy and your actions yesterday have fundamentally undermined our confidence that NYU can play that role.  You need to work to earn our trust again.

Sincerely
Gianpaolo Baiocchi