An administrator at the State University of New York (SUNY) Purchase was assaulted by a student on Tuesday for displaying an Israeli flag in his office, National Review has learned.
Paul Nicholson, who leads the Educational Opportunity and Merit Access programs at SUNY Purchase, wasn’t injured in the attack, according to a fellow administrator who was told about the incident by Nicholson.
“Today, a student took issue with him having the Israeli flag, and they got into an altercation, and the student physically attacked him,” the administrator, who asked not to be identified, told National Review. “The university police got involved, and, to the best of my knowledge, the student was arrested.”
The administrator, Paul Nicholson, leads the Educational Opportunity and Merit Access programs at SUNY Purchase but could not be reached for comment. Nicholson, an American Jew, is a SUNY alumnus who previously attained degrees at New Paltz and Oneonta, according to his school profile.
According to the administrator, a personal acquaintance of Nicholson’s who has known him for over two decades, he was instructed by campus police chief Dayton Tucker “to go home and try to shake it off.”
“I don’t think he was physically injured,” the administrator added. “I can only imagine that he is emotionally distraught.”
SUNY Purchase did not respond to a request for comment by press time.
Apart from the physical altercation involving Nicholson, the administrator told National Review that the campus has been relatively quiet since the Hamas atrocities of October 7.
“There was a pro-Palestinian gathering, maybe three or four weeks ago, right outside my building. You know, a group of students chanting the usual ‘From the river to the sea,’ kind of thing and wearing their colors.” The event lasted about an hour or two and ended uneventfully, though the administrator acknowledged that she planned out an escape route in case the demonstration went sideways. “I was sort of at the ready to leave if I needed to. There’s a back door that I could scoot out, and I was prepared to go.”
The attack that occurred on Tuesday was unlike anything the veteran administrator has seen in her years at the college.
“I cannot think of another time that this sort of thing happened, on a global level like this with an international conflict,” she reflected. “I mean, maybe around 9/11, people actually did the opposite; they kind of came together.”