A group of Pro-Palestinian students from The New School occupied the entrance to one of the Big Apple college’s main buildings Monday as they protested the school’s interim president for “condoning genocide.”
The roughly 40 students blocked the entrance to The New School University Center — which holds classrooms, a library, dining hall and studios — for two hours Monday afternoon while waving Palestinian flags and donning keffiyeh scarves.
The protesters sat down in front of the electronic gates as part of a week-long action planned by New School Students for Justice in Palestine nearly two months after the war between Israel and Hamas began.
Other students who tried to get into the building through the turnstile had to get in another way.
“Donna, Donna you can’t hide, you’re condoning genocide,” students chanted inside the building, in reference to New School Interim President Donna Shalala, who was also a congressperson for one term.
Students also directed their condemnation at their fellow classmates.
“New School students don’t you hide, you cannot ignore genocide,” the group shouted.
One student told The Post she was trying to go to the library when protesters encircled her and began yelling.
“I didn’t know this was going on. I went in there to study in the library. It’s finals week, I have finals due tonight and tomorrow,” said Layla Lari, a strategic design and management student.
“I went in there and I tried to use my voice and I had them all gather in a circle and scream at me,” Lari added. “They were saying I’m a colonizer.”
She believes the protesters are spreading “antisemitic propaganda” that dates back to the Holocaust and before Israel was created.
“It’s been like this since the attacks on October 7th. Instead of being allowed to mourn, I feel as if I have to defend myself. I feel attacked,” Lari said.
Protests against Israel have exploded on college campuses across the country since Hamas terrorists slaughtered 1,200 Israelis leading the Jewish state to launch a military campaign in Gaza.
New School protesters demanded the college protect organizers from censorship or punishment and called on the school to acknowledge Israel as a “settler colony,” that there is an apartheid in Palestine and ongoing genocide happening in Gaza, according to a poster at the rally.
Demonstrators also want the school to cut ties with the Israel Conservatory for Music in Tel Aviv and disclose any financial connections to the Jewish state.
There has been simmering tension between members of the Students for Justice in Palestine and the administration over the last two months, including a previous sit-in outside Shalala’s office, The New School Free Press, a student publication, reported last month.
School leaders last month committed to not punishing students who protest and made clear the school continues to mourn the innocent lives lost in the conflict, the newspaper reported.
But the school rejected calls to stop its partnership with the Israel Conservatory or the group’s disinvestment demands, per the publication.