New York University administrators kicked off an investigation of over 2,000 fliers surreptitiously slipped under student dormitory doors bearing a pro-Palestinian message that included an “eviction notice,” authorities said.
Shafeka Hashash, co-president of Students for Justice in Palestine at NYU, said the group was simply trying to raise awareness of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and that the fliers “are very, very obviously fake looking,” The Associated Press reported.
Jewish leaders weren’t amused.
They said the notifications were “disturbing” and “intimidating,” not to mention anti-Semitic. The vice president of the university’s pro-Israel student group, TorchPAC, added that the fliers weren’t accurate and that they created a “hostile campus environment,” AP reported.
And NYU spokesman John Beckman said free speech is one thing, but those fliers were intended to “simply provoke,” AP reported.
Fliers with the heading “eviction notice” and secretly slid under student dorm doors in the darkness of the night “is not an invitation to thoughtful, open discussion,” he said, in a statement. “It is disappointingly inconsistent with standards we expect to prevail in a scholarly community.”
He also said school officials would “follow up appropriately” with the students involved.
• Cheryl K. Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.
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