Increased political turmoil has tested the inclusive front NYU purports, bringing into focus the university administration’s ties to private interests and far-right donors. NYU has built a reputation for fostering a globally inclusive and diverse environment. However, recent actions from the administration have tested NYU’s professed values and the influence of external political and financial pressures on its decision-making.
The past year has brought fierce conflict, with campus protests and extensive disciplinary actions, a contentious election and inauguration, and the first month of Trump’s presidency. The range of political events affecting major populations of students and faculty are united through a rare common theme: ineffective, often harmful responses from NYU’s administration.
NYU’s mission statement states that the university “seeks to … embrace diversity among faculty, staff, and students to ensure a wide range of perspectives, including international perspectives, in the educational experience.” Nowhere mentioned in the list are its conservative donors, interfering parents, and preemptive succumbing to political pressure, yet these entities appear to be a main influence on the NYU administration.
NYU has no historical shortage of far-right donors. Some notable recent figures are billionaire John A. Paulson, who donated $100 million in 2022, becoming the John A. Paulson Center’s namesake. Paulson gained a majority of his wealth when the housing market crashed in 2008, profiting billions from falling mortgages. In April 2024, Paulson hosted a fundraising dinner for Trump at his Palm Beach mansion, raising over $50.5 million for the president’s campaign. Similarly, in November 2024, NYU Langone Health received $10 million from the Home Depot Foundation. Kenneth Langone, its namesake, is a billionaire, co-founder of the Home Depot, and a GOP megadonor.
NYU Langone has been the subject of increased scrutiny following its response to President Trump’s executive orders. In late January 2025, two parents of transgender children stated that NYU Langone denied them access to puberty blockers because of Trump’s executive order that threatened to halt federal funding to institutions providing gender-affirming healthcare to youth under 19. This opposes New York State anti-discrimination laws, which protect the healthcare rights of transgender youth under 18 and was emphasized in a letter sent to healthcare providers from New York Attorney General Letitia James. In response, thousands of students, faculty, and community members have protested in front of the NYU building and at Union Square Park to call for NYU Langone to continue providing their services.
Another response that faced criticism was NYU Langone employees reportedly being given a memo stating “you should not try to actively help a person avoid being found by ICE.” When Trump signed ten executive orders relating to his anti-immigration agenda in the first week of his presidency, the Greater New York Hospital Association memo emphasized that ICE “may use persuasion and even intimidation at times.” A spokesperson from Maimonides Medical Center, working under the G.N.Y.H.A. guidelines, said “we will continue to do everything we can to ensure that every patient receives the care they need when they visit us, regardless of their immigration status.”
On Jan. 31, 2025, the NYU chapter of the American Association of University Professors released a report revealing close correspondence between President Mills and Elizabeth Rand, the founder of the Facebook group Mothers Against College Antisemitism. Rand began the group after her child was accepted to NYU, in response to pro-Palestinian organizing on university campuses. It soon became a space for parents to file complaints about students and faculty and discuss administrative responses to protests.
M.A.C.A. and Rand’s relationship with Linda Mills was brought to light after Rand reportedly posted a message encouraging the group’s 62,000 followers to deport students engaging with pro-Palestinian activism. Screenshots from the report read: “We now have a signed executive order authorizing the deportation of foreign students who support Hamas […] Please tell everyone you know who is at a university to file complaints about foreign students and faculty” and included a link to the ICE tip form.
Screenshots feature email threads between Rand and Mills after her child received a request regarding a disciplinary request from the Office of Student Conduct after reportedly being videotaped emerging from Bobst Library during a pro-Palestinian demonstration on Dec. 11, 2024. Rand’s child received the email for suspected involvement in the demonstration, however, the student conduct charges were handled completely differently, and Rand herself admitted, “I told them that 62,000 people knew about this and they were about to get media coverage. A half hour later, they emailed, apologized, and [the student] got something apologizing and removing it from his record.” The unconventional manner through which Rand’s child’s conduct charges were resolved is “egregious,” according to the A.A.U.P.
Though NYU ranks #11 in Niche.com’s “Most Diverse Colleges in America,” it also only received a 3.33 out of 100 free speech ranking score, falling into the “abysmal” category and ranking third in a list compiled by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression last September.
The university operates on a facade of inclusivity, democracy, and diverse expression — and it benefits from that front, attracting students from across the globe as the university with the highest number of international students in the nation. When President Linda Mills was appointed as president of the university in 2023, she released a letter to the community saying “[NYU] was a university designed to be different… Open to all and well-attuned to New York’s immigrant heritage… We are diverse, bold, and innovative.”
These actions are a clear failure to meet that promise. Rather than support its most vulnerable communities, the NYU administration and Linda Mills have succumbed to the pressure of powerful individuals with media or donor influence. NYU students and faculty are not represented in the thousands of Facebook parents or far-right billionaires. Instead, NYU comprises organizers and activists, queer and transgender individuals, and immigrants who create the diverse image the institution commodifies, all while the administration simultaneously threatens marginalized students’ health, safety, and rights.
The Zeitgeist aims to publish ideas worth discussing. The views presented are solely those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial board.
