New York University School of Law barred 31 pro-Palestine law school students from campus facilities and demanded that they sign away their right to protest in exchange for being allowed to return. If the students — deemed “personae non grata,” or PNG — don’t renounce their right to protest on campus, they will be unable to sit for final exams.

“You may not participate in any protest activity or disruptive activity on Law School property,” says the so-called “Use of Space Agreement” sent to the students, which explicitly lays out conditions for being allowed to return to key campus buildings during the school’s “exam period.”

The law students, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid further repercussions from the school, are accused of participating in sit-ins, a time-honored form of nonviolent demonstration that is allowed according to NYU policy. The sit-ins on March 4 and April 29 took place, respectively, at the school’s Bobst Library and outside the office of the law school dean. (NYU did not immediately respond to requests for comment.)

Barring the students from campus and demanding they refrain from protesting represents a dramatic escalation against NYU students involved in demonstrations against Israel’s war on Gaza — breaking with school policy and upending precedents for disciplinary procedures, said seven of the PNG students who spoke with The Intercept, as well as other NYU students and faculty.

“What we’ve seen is a complete violation of our campus norms,” said Andrew Ross, a sociology professor who was himself barred from campus buildings in December before the school reversed the decision three weeks later. “If you take a step backward and see the walled-off campus spaces and heavily-patrolled entrances to buildings, the uniformed security personnel everywhere, this advanced security infrastructure, and all these new rules that have been established on the fly regarding speech and conduct — this is a very, very exceptional violation of every kind of campus norm that we were accustomed to.”

“Vague and Arbitrary”

According to emails to the students obtained by The Intercept, they are barred from campus while under investigation for failing to comply with directives from public safety, including to leave the areas of their sit-ins, and of disruptive conduct. NYU conduct policies say any protests at libraries are disruptive, but the law students pointed out that they were protesting outside NYU president Linda Mills’s office on the top floor of Bobst Library.

“The school’s policies are vague and arbitrary enough to be wielded in any situation against any kind of speech the university looks down upon, particularly pro-Palestine speech,” said a law student who received a PNG notice. “The school claims protests are banned in the library, which is conveniently where the main administrative offices, including the Office of the President, are located.”

While at the protests, the students were handed fliers quoting from the “failure to comply” and “disruptive conduct” rules, according to photos reviewed by The Intercept.

“The school explicitly outlines sit-ins as permitted,” said a second student. “But as soon as they don’t like........

© The Intercept