Art critic Aruna D’Souza renounced her degrees from New York University today, Thursday, May 15, after the institution condemned a graduating student’s pro-Palestine commencement speech and said it would pursue disciplinary action against him.
In remarks for NYU’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study ceremony yesterday, a student identified as Logan Rozos characterized Israel’s attacks on Gaza as a United States-funded genocide, a charge supported by major human rights organizations in accordance with codified international human rights law.
“The only thing that is appropriate to say at this time and to a group this large is a recognition of the atrocities currently happening in Palestine,” Rozos said, to the crowd’s loud cheering and applause.
“I do not wish to speak only to my own politics today, but speak for all people of conscience, all people who feel the moral injury of this atrocity,” Rozos said. “I condemn this genocide and complicity in this genocide.”
In response, NYU spokesperson John Beckman published a statement denouncing Rozos’s two-minute speech as a “one-sided” abuse of his opportunity to speak at commencement. The university claimed Rozos “lied about the speech he was going to deliver” and apologized to the audience for being “subjected to these remarks,” adding that their diploma would be withheld as the school pursues disciplinary measures.
D’Souza, who contributes to 4Columns and the New York Times, earned a Master’s in Arts from NYU in 1993 and a PhD in Art History in 1999. Those degrees, the critic wrote in an email sent to NYU President Linda Mills and shared on Instagram, are “valueless” in the wake of university-sanctioned crackdowns on pro-Palestinian expression. D’Souza asked Mills to consider the email as a formal renunciation of her degrees.
It is unclear whether the university will officially revoke D’Souza’s degrees. NYU spokesperson John Beckman has not yet responded to Hyperallergic’s request for comment. Hyperallergic has attempted to contact Logan Rozos.
Based on the university’s condemnation of the speech, D’Souza said on Instagram that she expected Rozos to have made “some radical statement,” but she found the student’s remarks to be far from such.
“Logan Rozos acted bravely, and at much personal risk, in deciding to speak from their conscience at their graduation ceremony — the least alumni can do is act in kind,” D’Souza told Hyperallergic in an email.
NYU has facilitated the arrest of student and faculty demonstrators for their roles in protests at the height of major national pro-Palestinian encampments last year. The university suspended Palestinian adjunct professor and Decolonize This Place co-founder Amin Husain for statements he made in class. NYU also declared professors who participated in a December library sit-in “personae non gratae.”
D’Souza told Mills in her email, which was also sent to spokesperson Beckman and NYU Institute of Fine Arts Director Joan Kee, that she would no longer refer to herself as “doctor” and will remove all mentions of the institution from her curriculum vitae.
In her email, D’Souza told Hyperallergic her decision was “long coming” based on the university’s actions related to pro-Palestine expression.
“I didn’t go to graduate school to get technical training; I went to learn how to think critically about the world,” D’Souza said. “NYU is making clear that it does not want such critical thinking to happen on their campus — as such, their imprimatur is meaningless.”
