NYU Law students remove bar association president who blamed Israel for Hamas attack
The ousted student lost a job offer and started a GoFundMe to pay for therapy, groceries and to support other pro-Palestinian students
Students at NYU Law School voted to remove Ryna Workman as president of the student bar association. Courtesy of Ryna Workman (portrait); Stan Honda/AFP/GettyImages (school)
By Beth Harpaz November 28, 2023
Students at New York University’s law school voted to remove the president of the student bar association, Ryna Workman, after Workman wrote a column in the group’s newsletter blaming Israel for Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks.
The vote was 707-428, according to an email sent Monday to students. NYU and Workman shared that email with the Forward.
“While I am disappointed in the outcome, I am not upset with my fellow students regarding this vote,” Workman said in an email to the Forward.
Workman, who uses nonbinary pronouns, wrote that they had already been “suspended” by the university from their duties as president prior to the vote, adding, “I blame the administration for taking extraordinary steps to remove me as President, when they did not elect me.”
The backlash for blaming Israel
The controversy began Oct. 10, three days after Hamas murdered 1,200 people and took another 240 hostage, when Workman wrote in the student group’s newsletter that “Israel bears full responsibility” for Hamas’ attacks. “This regime of state-sanctioned violence created the conditions that made resistance necessary,” Workman stated.
The board of the student bar association posted a statement on Instagram the same day saying that Workman’s message did not represent the organization and that steps were underway to remove them as president.
The next day, Oct. 11, the law school dean, Troy A. McKenzie, and trustee board chair, David Tanner, condemned Hamas for the Oct. 7 atrocities. They added, without naming Workman, that “any statement that does not recognize this brutality does not reflect the values of NYU Law.”
Workman also lost a job offer from the Chicago-based firm Winston & Strawn, which said that Workman’s comments “profoundly conflict with Winston & Strawn’s values.“
On Oct. 16, Workman issued a statement acknowledging that their original “message came across as insensitive to the suffering of Israelis during a time of crisis and that is not what I intended.” Workman cited Jewish Voice for Peace doctrine about the roots of violence in Israel and a Haaretz editorial blaming Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as inspiration for their position. Workman said they were “surprised and disheartened that so many have read malicious intent” into what they said, adding that “some of the loudest calls for acknowledgement of Israeli pain are ignoring the loss of Palestinian children in Gaza.”
Israel’s bombing campaign in Gaza has killed nearly 15,000 people, many of them children, according to Gaza officials. The hostilities have been paused in the last few days while Gaza frees hostages, a few at a time, in exchange for the release of Palestinians from Israeli prisons.
Death threats and GoFundMe
Workman also said they had gotten death threats and were being subject to harassment targeting “all facets of my identity — the fact that I am Black, the fact that I am queer, the fact that I am nonbinary.”
On Oct. 25, Workman launched a GoFundMe campaign to raise $10,000 to pay for therapy, groceries and a “safety net as I look for other employment opportunities.” Workman also pledged to use any money raised to support other students who “suffered financially after expressing solidarity with Palestine.” The campaign had raised $2,265 as of Tuesday.
The day the GoFundMe was set up, Workman was shown tearing down posters of Hamas’ hostages in a video posted on the social media platform X and also gave an interview to ABC in which they reiterated their commitment to “Palestinian human rights.”
Campus conflicts nationwide
NYU is one of dozens of colleges and universities nationwide where pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli students and faculty have clashed. The conflicts have included massive protests, graffiti, vandalism, the removal of instructors and in a few cases, violence and physical harassment.
Jewish philanthropists have pulled funding from Ivy League schools whose response to pro-Palestinian activism was deemed insufficient; employers have blacklisted students who expressed support for Hamas; and numerous complaints alleging antisemitism and other forms of bias have been brought to the U.S. Department of Education.
On Saturday, three Palestinians studying in the U.S. were shot in Vermont, though the accused gunman is not connected to the schools they attend.
Several campuses have shut down chapters of Students for Justice for Palestine, despite free speech groups like the American Civil Liberties Union defending SJP’s right to protest and speak out for their cause.
Free speech vs. antisemitism
Education Secretary Miguel Cardona has said colleges could lose federal funding if they fail to address antisemitism and other bigotries on campus. Cardona made the warning after meeting with Jewish leaders alarmed by rising antisemitism sparked by the Israel- Hamas war.
At the same time, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a free speech advocacy group, warned NYU against launching an investigation of Workman after the law school told The New York Times that it could not comment “on the specifics of any current student who may be under investigation” — hinting, without confirming, that Workman’s initial message had prompted a university probe.
FIRE said NYU “should not publicly launch investigations where allegations are comprised of nothing more than pure political expression.” Even when investigations ultimately resolve in the accused’s favor, FIRE said, they can “deeply chill campus speech.”
The group added that “speech that may prompt a bias or harassment complaint often does not, in fact, come close to meeting the high legal bar for discriminatory harassment,” which the DOE’s Office for Civil Rights says must include more than “the mere expression of views, words, symbols or thoughts that some person finds offensive.’”
NYU did not immediately respond to a request for comment on FIRE’s letter.
FIRE called Workman’s statements “the very sort of passionate, core political speech one might expect on a college campus. They are wholly protected even if other students found them offensive or even hateful.”
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Correction: The name of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression was wrong in an earlier version of this story. This version has been updated with the correct name.
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