The New School’s Student Senate has announced that they are freezing all student group funds until the institution divests entirely from Israel.
The University Student Senate (USS) voted on Aug. 23 to approve the withholding of student funds by a margin of 16-1. The measure effectively prevents all university student groups from being able to access any funds until the university agrees to remove all investments from Israel and disclose all future investments.
The national leadership of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) celebrated the news on social media.
“TNS SJP thanks the University Student Senate for upholding the demands of the academic intifada, and calls on other University governing bodies across the country to follow their steadfastness in supporting the Palestinian cause,” SJP posted on X/Twitter.
As the fall semester has commenced, student governments at several schools have found themselves taken over by anti-Israel activists. These activists subsequently have blocked all distribution of student funds to campus groups until their universities adopt policies intended to punish Israel for a war the Jewish state did not start.
The University of Michigan’s student government recently announced that it would not distribute any funds until the university agrees to withdraw all investments fromIsrael as well.
The New School has become a poster child for anti-Israel activism in the months following the Hamas terrorist group’s Oct. 7 slaughter of Jews. Students and faculty erected an encampment in the campus’s University Center to show “solidarity” with the terrorists’ cause. The cohort of faculty and students demanded that New School divest entirely from all 13 companies in their portfolio that do business with Israel. The agitators also demanded that the school cut ties with the New York Police Department (NYPD) and remove all disciplinary charges from students’ records.
“The movement started by our brave students must continue, and it is incumbent upon us as faculty to heed their calls, and help finish what they started,” a representative for New School’s Students for Justice in Palestine told the New York Post.
NYPD had previously arrested 40 New School students for participating in the unsanctioned encampment chaos.
The student senate acknowledged that its decision to withhold funding from campus groups will come at a significant inconvenience to the student body.
New School has stated that they will skirt around the student government’s protest by distributing funding directly to student groups themselves.
“To ensure continued access and support for all students on campus, we will temporarily transfer the responsibility of managing this university fee to the Division of Student Success,” New School said in a statement, “This decision was made with careful consideration, as this fee is crucial to the work of student leaders on campus.”
