BY THE VILLAGE SUN | Following in the footsteps of such high-profile alumni as Spike Lee, Rudy Giuliani and Lady Gaga, Barron Trump is attending New York University.
According to news reports, the youngest son of former President Donald Trump arrived at N.Y.U.’s Stern School of Business for his first day of classes on Wednesday. Photos showed the 6-foot-7-inch Barron being accompanied around the Greenwich Village campus by what appeared to be private security. He reportedly will be living off campus.
“He’s always been a very good student, he’s smart,” Donald told the New York Post.
Meanwhile, in other N.Y.U. news, amid the surge of college campus anti-Semitism after Hamas’s savage Oct. 7 attack that sparked the ongoing Israel Gaza war, the university spent this summer preparing to deal with potential campus protests and to head off any harassment of Jewish students.
During the previous school year, the N.Y.U. campus saw some students cold-heartedly rip down posters of Israeli hostages kidnapped by Hamas. Meanwhile, the N.Y.U. Law School Student Bar Association president publicly blamed the Jewish state for the terrorist group’s bloody attack, and was herself videoed off campus ripping down Israeli “Kidnapped” posters.
In April, a pro-Palestinian “tent city”-style occupation sprung up on Gould Plaza but was short-lived after the university called in police to break it up. The next month, police were again called in to arrest protesters, this time on the Greene Street walkway west of the new Paulson Center, between Bleecker and Houston Streets; N.Y.U. President Linda Mills said clearing out the encampment was necessary after 500 May Day marchers had converged at the site, creating a volatile situation that campus security warned could erupt into “widespread violence.”
To avoid any summer-recess occupations, during at least some points over the past few months, N.Y.U. plaza areas were kept fenced off and manned by security.
“Preparing for challenges in the fall has been a focus of sustained attention over the summer for N.Y.U.’s leadership,” said university spokesperson John Beckman. He added that most students and faculty are “looking for a reset.”
For starters, last week the university issued an updated version of its Guidance and Expectations on Student Conduct document.
In addition, over the summer, N.Y.U. held more than 20 listening forums involving roughly 300 faculty, students and staff. These sessions, according to Beckman, included “community members who have been deeply involved with post-October 7 issues.”
“What we heard is that the vast majority are looking for a reset — that includes listening and productive engagement,” he said of the forums. “Between now and early in the semester, we will be sharing the key findings from those sessions.”
N.Y.U. administration will also “provide training to faculty and staff on conflict and difficult conversations that arise in the classroom,” the spokesperson added.
Building on the listening forums, the university will continue to commit itself to “meaningful and powerful engagement: having difficult conversations in ways that do not discriminate or exclude, and that take on the world’s toughest questions.”
America’s largest private university, with more than 65,000 students, N.Y.U. will “remain vigilant” and strive to keep the focus on education instead of “disruption,” Beckman said.
“The majority of the N.Y.U. community is here to pursue scholarly aims — learning, teaching, obtaining their degrees, conducting research,” he said. “University leadership is committed to and focused on 1) minimizing disruption to our academic mission; 2) keeping our campus and people safe; and 3) maintaining a campus environment free from discrimination, harassment, intimidation, threats and violence.
“Free expression and dissent are bedrock principles, but they are subject to time, place and manner rules,” he continued. “Protest and dissent cannot violate civil rights laws or N.Y.U.’s policies on discrimination and harassment, including anti-Semitism and other forms of hate.
“N.Y.U. has zero tolerance for violence, threats of violence or incitement of violence. N.Y.U. rejects vandalism and destruction of property. Our response to these will be prompt and decisive.”
Over the summer, university leadership, along with Campus Safety, Student Affairs and the Office of Student Conduct, met frequently to practice and prepare for “disruptive incidents,” including by doing tabletop exercises — simulations of potential situations that could arise.
“This will enable us to respond more promptly, more effectively and with better coordination when incidents do occur,” the spokesperson said of the preparedness exercises.
In addition, N.Y.U. is bolstering its compliance with civil rights laws, notably Title VI, along with its efforts against anti-Semitism. Title VI, part of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, bars discrimination at institutions that receive federal financial assistance, such as universities. To that end, N.Y.U. will for the first time hire a “Title VI coordinator,” whose focus will be to ensure that the university’s non-discrimination and anti-harassment policies are fairly and equally applied.
Other recent hires will also aid in this effort, Beckman said, noting, “There are a number of new faculty and other hires who we believe will help in understanding and combating anti-Semitism”
On top of all this, all students must take training to combat all forms of discrimination.
“We are creating new non-discrimination and anti-harassment training for all students that will be required this fall,” Beckman said. “It will cover all forms of discrimination, including anti-Semitism.”
The same goes for N.Y.U. employees.
“We will be updating existing employee trainings to cover all forms of discrimination,” he said, “including anti-Semitism.”
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