NYU Grade Refusal Pledge – Grad Workers
Fill out this form to pledge to withhold grades until NYU meets our demands. We will not share any names, courses, or identifying information of those who pledge to strike from grading with the administration, only aggregate numbers. This form is for grad workers only (described variously as Teaching Assistant, Adjunct Instructor, Course Assistant, Grader, and Recitation Leader positions in different contracts).
On Monday, April 22, a group of NYU students engaged in nonviolent protest on Gould Plaza to express support for the Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank. In the late evening, the protest was raided and disbanded with brutal violence by the NYPD, at the request of NYU administration. 120+ arrests were made, including students, student workers, and faculty, in a direct violation of a number of provisions in the various contracts and collective bargaining agreements between the University and its workers. On Friday, April 26, within an hour of the second encampment going up, NYU once again brought in the NYPD, armed with riot gear. Our members and their students faced pepper spray, metal chairs and tables thrown at them, and other forms of brutality at the hands of the police as they forcibly swept the encampment. This violent repression of student protest has continued across the city, with hundreds of police brutally shutting down encampments at CCNY and Columbia on April 30. We reject this kind of action on our campus and beyond.
As a graduate student worker, I pledge to withhold final grades at the end of this semester, in response to the University’s repression and brutal arrests of its members.
In the past six months, our members have faced censorship, repression, discipline, expulsion, and termination simply for speaking out or acting against the genocide in Palestine. Members of each of these constituencies have mobilized all available formal means at their disposal to push back against arbitrary administrative decisions and against the general crackdown on freedom of speech at the University. All our demands have been ignored, met with silence, or dismissed. The administration has stalled, argued on a bad faith basis, or entered into never-ending investigations. NYU has systematically disregarded its faculty, adjuncts, researchers, student workers, and its students, putting them at risk, compromising their health and safety, and creating hostile working conditions.
We are withholding grades to communicate that the threat to our community is clear.
1. We demand cops off our campus
2. We demand amnesty for all students, faculty, and graduate workers involved in the encampment and for all those previously fired or disciplined for political speech and action
3. We demand that NYU administration substantively negotiate with students over their demands for disclosure, divestment, and a full academic boycott of Israel.
Have questions? Read our FAQ here. Not teaching this semester but want to show support? Sign the support pledge.
