A New York University student who was suspended for tearing down pro-Israel posters on campus is suing the school for allegedly sanctioning her unfairly, according to a complaint filed April 5 by the student’s lawyer.
The complaint alleges that NYU’s punishment of Hafiza Khalique was “arbitrary and capricious and not in accordance with the NYU Student Code,” and that some of the sanctions Khalique received were “excessive” in relation to her actions. Jonathan Wallace, Khalique’s lawyer, wrote in the filing that NYU initially told Khalique it would not suspend her for her actions, but did so anyway after succumbing to pressure from influential pro-Israel figures who are ostensibly donors.
Khalique, a first-year undergraduate student, was doxxed and reported to the university administration when she ripped down “Zionist propaganda posters” from the windows of a campus building on Oct. 16, the lawsuit says.
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“As a form of symbolic speech and protest, she showed her support for and protection of the victims in Palestine by tearing down a flyer herself,” the complaint reads, adding that the posters were unauthorized and unaffiliated with NYU, and would’ve been taken down anyway.
A video about her action went viral on X, and her identity was quickly spread across right-wing and pro-Israel pages such as LibsofTikTok, StopAntisemitism, Campus Reform, and Canary Mission, the filing states. Major conservative media like Fox News and The Megyn Kelly Show seized on the incident and further publicized Khalique’s identity, which invited harassment so intense the student did not feel safe enough to leave her room for meals, according to the complaint.
Khalique’s correspondence with the Dean of Students’ Office began one day after the poster-tearing incident. According to the student’s lawyer, Khalique reported the doxing and harassment to the dean’s office, requesting housing relocation for her own safety. She then received a letter from university administrator Jessica Mahmoud on Oct. 17 that claimed to offer support.
But, her lawyer said, the meeting with Mahmoud that followed was not about Khalique’s safety. It was about the viral video.
Mahmoud told Khalique that she may have violated the school’s destruction of property and non-discrimination policies, but that the university was not considering expulsion or suspension for her actions, the complaint says. Other university administrators reiterated that stance at a conduct hearing on Oct. 27, and Mathew Shepard, NYU’s Director of Student Conduct and Community Standards, told Khalique she may face an “educational” component as a result of the incident, the filing states.
But the university allegedly reneged. In a Nov. 11 email, Khalique was told she had been suspended for violating NYU’s code of conduct by vandalizing university property and expressing antisemitic speech, the complaint says. Barred from attending class, Khalique, a first generation student from a low-income background, lost her Pell Grant scholarship and her on-campus housing when she was banned from setting foot on university property from the end of 2023 until the start of the fall term in 2024.
Khalique was told that her sanctions had been escalated after “consultation with relevant University stakeholders.”
“This sanction letter actually contained somewhat apologetic language rather remarkably explaining that the sanction was much worse and more punitive than originally described because of the intervention of one or more mysterious ‘stakeholders,’” Wallace wrote in the complaint. His office declined to share this letter and the other disciplinary correspondence with The Daily Beast, citing concerns for Khalique’s safety.
He explained that those stakeholders are rumored to be wealthy donors who pressured the university into punishing students who express views they disagree with.
“In the NYU community, such ‘stakeholders’ are widely believed to be pro-Israel individuals external to the NYU community but placing NYU under great pressure, including wealthy donors threatening to withhold contributions,” Wallace wrote. “It is arbitrary and capricious if the University is allowing external forces, no matter how much pressure they apply, to dictate outcomes in individual student disciplinary cases.”
John Beckman, spokesman for NYU, said the school disputed Khalique’s case and argued it had been “very clear” about its expectations for student conduct. He did not address the alleged role of the outside stakeholder in escalating Khalique’s punishment.
“In the aftermath of Oct 7, NYU has been especially clear about its expectations for student conduct and its intent to follow its rules in order to maintain a campus climate where hatred and intimidation had no place and where NYU’s academic mission would carry on without disruption. We dispute the basis for this suit,” Beckman wrote.
In emails to the NYU community dated Oct. 12, Oct. 17, and Oct. 20, university administrators outlined rights to protest, which include the ability to “peacefully demonstrate, express dissent, or express their point of view” but not to commit “violence, vandalism, intimidation, or harassment.” Khalique’s lawyer has argued her actions do not constitute vandalism of university property because the fliers were not authorized by the university and not its property.
Jamila Hammami, National Organizing Director of Wallace’s legal group Parachute Project, told the Daily Beast that pulling down a pro-Israel flyer was well within Khalique’s First Amendment right to protest. She added that NYU’s punishment of Khalique was part of an alarming attack on free speech across college campuses.
“NYU’s punitive and undue sanctions against Khalique are part and parcel of a national trend, the New McCarthyism, targeting, punishing, and repressing students and faculty across the U.S.,” Hammami wrote, “for First Amendment-protected pro-Palestinian dissent, criticism of Israel, and maintaining a principled stance against the occupation of Palestine and genocide in Gaza.”
Khalique’s case is the latest example of ongoing battles over free speech on college campuses since the start of Israel’s war on Gaza, which pro-Palestine groups see as a deliberate attempt to silence them. Pro-Israel groups have countered that the universities are not doing enough to quash antisemitism on campus; NYU has also been sued by Jewish students who claim it failed to protect them from antisemitic speech and harassment since Oct. 7.
Khalique’s lawyers also accuse the school of failing to support Khalique when she was a victim of doxing, which NYU explicitly told students can be against university policy in its Oct. 20 message.
According to her lawyers and a GoFundMe post she wrote on Dec. 6, Khalique has been subject to Islamophobia, racism, sexism, and fatphobia in the form of “disturbing and vile messages” on every social media platform. “During a time of need for support, my university abandoned me all while discriminately targeting and disciplining me,” she wrote in December.
“As a first-year student, my entire college experience thus far has been any Muslim student’s nightmare.”
