Statement from NYU President Andrew Hamilton

Washington Square Arch

"I found it quite objectionable that the student speaker chose to make use of the Graduate School of Arts and Science doctoral graduation to express his personal viewpoints on BDS and related matters, language he excluded from the version of the speech he had submitted before the ceremony.  We are sorry that the audience had to experience these inappropriate remarks.  A graduation should be a shared, inclusive event; the speaker's words - one-sided and tendentious - indefensibly made some in the audience feel unwelcome and excluded.  


"Let me use this occasion to reaffirm the University's position - NYU rejects academic boycotts of Israel, rejects calls to close its Tel Aviv campus, and denounces efforts to ostracize or exclude those in the University community based on their location in Israel, their Israeli origin, or their political feelings for Israel."

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John Beckman
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