Aslı Peker
@aslipeker.bsky.social
NYU prof, teaching and research in comparative and regional politics, statecraft, Middle East pols, critical security studies.
Big win at the AAUP v. Rubio case
Judge Young: "This case ... squarely presents the issue whether non-citizens lawfully present here in United States actually have the same free speech rights as the rest of us. The Court answers this Constitutional question unequivocally 'yes, they do.' 'No law' means 'no law.'"
September 30, 2025 at 6:59 PM
Big win at the AAUP v. Rubio case
This is beyond outrageous. In their eagerness to appease, our universities have completely lost sight of their mission.
1/ I represent 5 anti-zionist students and faculty challenging the outrageous claim that the Palestine Solidarity Encampment was a "Jew exclusion zone". UCLA refused to defend. Today they agreed to pay millions instead. I can't overstate how dangerous this is. 🧵
www.latimes.com/california/s...
www.latimes.com/california/s...
UCLA to pay $6.45 million to settle suit by Jewish students over pro-Palestinian protests
UCLA agreed to settle a lawsuit by Jewish students who alleged the university aided a 2024 pro-Palestinian encampment, which the lawsuit alleged illegally discriminated against Jewish people.
www.latimes.com
July 29, 2025 at 11:01 PM
This is beyond outrageous. In their eagerness to appease, our universities have completely lost sight of their mission.
NYC folks, see you Thursday!
April 16, 2025 at 4:37 AM
NYC folks, see you Thursday!
Reposted by Aslı Peker
What does this even mean
March 10, 2025 at 2:34 AM
What does this even mean
Reposted by Aslı Peker
BREAKING 🚨 🚨 🚨
US added to international watchlist for rapid decline in civic freedoms
Civicus, an international non-profit, puts country alongside Democratic Republic of Congo, Italy, Pakistan and Serbia
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
US added to international watchlist for rapid decline in civic freedoms
Civicus, an international non-profit, puts country alongside Democratic Republic of Congo, Italy, Pakistan and Serbia
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
US added to international watchlist for rapid decline in civic freedoms
Civicus, an international non-profit, puts country alongside Democratic Republic of Congo, Italy, Pakistan and Serbia
www.theguardian.com
March 10, 2025 at 2:04 AM
BREAKING 🚨 🚨 🚨
US added to international watchlist for rapid decline in civic freedoms
Civicus, an international non-profit, puts country alongside Democratic Republic of Congo, Italy, Pakistan and Serbia
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
US added to international watchlist for rapid decline in civic freedoms
Civicus, an international non-profit, puts country alongside Democratic Republic of Congo, Italy, Pakistan and Serbia
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
DOJ’s antisemitism task force led by ex-Fox News Leo Terrell begins its witch-hunt against pro-Palestine student activists with a tour of 10 campuses. “We are going to put these people in jail—not for 24 hours, but for years,” Terrell has said in a recent interview.
www.justice.gov/opa/pr/feder...
www.justice.gov/opa/pr/feder...
Federal Task Force to Combat Antisemitism Announces Visits to 10 College Campuses that Experienced Incidents of Antisemitism
The Federal Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism announced that it will be visiting 10 university campuses that have experienced antisemitic incidents since October 2023. Created pursuant to President T...
www.justice.gov
March 1, 2025 at 12:40 AM
DOJ’s antisemitism task force led by ex-Fox News Leo Terrell begins its witch-hunt against pro-Palestine student activists with a tour of 10 campuses. “We are going to put these people in jail—not for 24 hours, but for years,” Terrell has said in a recent interview.
www.justice.gov/opa/pr/feder...
www.justice.gov/opa/pr/feder...
Reposted by Aslı Peker
Out of the 12,000 civil rights complaints the Education Department has put on hold since Trump took office:
• 6,000 relate to mistreatment of disabled students
• 1,000 are specific to sexual harassment/violence
• 3,200 pertain to racial discrimination
• 6,000 relate to mistreatment of disabled students
• 1,000 are specific to sexual harassment/violence
• 3,200 pertain to racial discrimination
“We’ve Been Essentially Muzzled”: Department of Education Halts Thousands of Civil Rights Investigations Under Trump
Since Inauguration Day, the Office for Civil Rights has only opened about 20 investigations focused on Trump’s priorities, placing more than 10,000 student complaints related to disability access and…
propub.li
February 19, 2025 at 3:00 AM
Out of the 12,000 civil rights complaints the Education Department has put on hold since Trump took office:
• 6,000 relate to mistreatment of disabled students
• 1,000 are specific to sexual harassment/violence
• 3,200 pertain to racial discrimination
• 6,000 relate to mistreatment of disabled students
• 1,000 are specific to sexual harassment/violence
• 3,200 pertain to racial discrimination
Reposted by Aslı Peker
Elon Musk's DOGE team of misfits have fired everybody at the Federal Aviation Administration ✈️ who is a probationary employee
Thinking they have got rid of all the new hires
It turns out many of these were experienced technicians, recently promoted and were on probation for their new senior role
Thinking they have got rid of all the new hires
It turns out many of these were experienced technicians, recently promoted and were on probation for their new senior role
February 16, 2025 at 9:50 PM
Elon Musk's DOGE team of misfits have fired everybody at the Federal Aviation Administration ✈️ who is a probationary employee
Thinking they have got rid of all the new hires
It turns out many of these were experienced technicians, recently promoted and were on probation for their new senior role
Thinking they have got rid of all the new hires
It turns out many of these were experienced technicians, recently promoted and were on probation for their new senior role
Reposted by Aslı Peker
soon enough, the mere presence of black and latino students on campus will be illegal racial discrimination against white students www.insidehighered.com/news/diversi...
Trump admin threatens to rescind federal funds over DEI
In a sweeping and unprecedented letter issued over the weekend, the Office for Civil Rights declared race-based scholarships, cultural centers and even graduation ceremonies illegal.
www.insidehighered.com
February 16, 2025 at 2:02 PM
soon enough, the mere presence of black and latino students on campus will be illegal racial discrimination against white students www.insidehighered.com/news/diversi...
Reposted by Aslı Peker
The only hope for higher ed is the academic labor movement. Join this @higheredlabor.bsky.social call next week to plan our fight us06web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...
Welcome! You are invited to join a webinar: Fund Don't Freeze: National Higher Education Strategy Call. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email about joining the webinar.
Join higher education workers from around the country on 2/13 at 8 PM Eastern / 7 PM Central / 6 PM Mountain / 5 PM Pacific for a national strategy call on the federal attack on higher education and h...
us06web.zoom.us
February 8, 2025 at 3:44 PM
The only hope for higher ed is the academic labor movement. Join this @higheredlabor.bsky.social call next week to plan our fight us06web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...
Reposted by Aslı Peker
🚨BREAKING. From a program officer at the National Science Foundation, a list of keywords that can cause a grant to be pulled. I will be sharing screenshots of these keywords along with a decision tree. Please share widely. This is a crisis for academic freedom & science.
February 4, 2025 at 1:26 AM
🚨BREAKING. From a program officer at the National Science Foundation, a list of keywords that can cause a grant to be pulled. I will be sharing screenshots of these keywords along with a decision tree. Please share widely. This is a crisis for academic freedom & science.
Reposted by Aslı Peker
This is the group that posted 100s of hateful messages under a book award I got, not bc they knew my politics, but bc of my Arab face. The reporter who wrote about it then told a good-people-on-both-sides story. Glad they’re exposed for the hate group that they are
theintercept.com/2025/01/31/n...
theintercept.com/2025/01/31/n...
A Well-Connected NYU Parent Is Trying to Get Students Deported
The founder of Mothers Against College Antisemitism says her 62,000-member Facebook group is influencing NYU policy.
theintercept.com
February 3, 2025 at 12:55 AM
This is the group that posted 100s of hateful messages under a book award I got, not bc they knew my politics, but bc of my Arab face. The reporter who wrote about it then told a good-people-on-both-sides story. Glad they’re exposed for the hate group that they are
theintercept.com/2025/01/31/n...
theintercept.com/2025/01/31/n...
Reposted by Aslı Peker
AAUP-NYU has issued a report about the egregious correspondence between NYU President Linda Mills and Elizabeth Rand (founder of the anti-Palestinian group MACA), which threatens academic freedom and reflects gross corruption of NYU procedures
AAUP-NYU Report: NYU’s President Mills Interfered With Student Disciplinary Process at Request of Islamophobic Anti-Palestinian Group - NYU AAUP
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE NEW YORK, January 31, 2025 – AAUP-NYU has issued a report regarding correspondence between NYU President Linda Mills and Elizabeth Rand, the founder of a controversial anti-Pales...
www.nyu-aaup.org
February 1, 2025 at 12:20 AM
AAUP-NYU has issued a report about the egregious correspondence between NYU President Linda Mills and Elizabeth Rand (founder of the anti-Palestinian group MACA), which threatens academic freedom and reflects gross corruption of NYU procedures
Did someone say ‘outside agitators’?
theintercept.com/2025/01/31/n...
theintercept.com/2025/01/31/n...
A Well-Connected NYU Parent Is Trying to Get Students Deported
The founder of Mothers Against College Antisemitism says her 62,000-member Facebook group is influencing NYU policy.
theintercept.com
February 1, 2025 at 12:18 AM
Did someone say ‘outside agitators’?
theintercept.com/2025/01/31/n...
theintercept.com/2025/01/31/n...
NYU’s ‘campus without walls’ yet many fences; lest its faculty and students dare to congregate.
January 19, 2025 at 12:06 AM
NYU’s ‘campus without walls’ yet many fences; lest its faculty and students dare to congregate.
Reposted by Aslı Peker
It is utterly shocking how a scholar of her standing and reputation was silenced and hounded out by her home institution for the temerity to speak out about the genocide in Gaza. Academic freedom in the US is in severe crisis. Join your local AAUP and any other unions you can.
Here is a statement by my colleague Katherine Franke about the end of her time teaching at Columbia. Please read it. drive.google.com/file/d/1i4cO...
Statement from Katherine Franke.pdf
drive.google.com
January 11, 2025 at 10:06 AM
It is utterly shocking how a scholar of her standing and reputation was silenced and hounded out by her home institution for the temerity to speak out about the genocide in Gaza. Academic freedom in the US is in severe crisis. Join your local AAUP and any other unions you can.
Columbia and NYU continue to outbid each other in their race to the bottom...
"I have come to the view that the Columbia University administration has created such a toxic and hostile environment for legitimate debate around the war in Israel and Palestine that I can no longer teach or conduct research at Columbia." Full statement here: drive.google.com/file/d/1i4cO...
January 11, 2025 at 12:12 AM
Columbia and NYU continue to outbid each other in their race to the bottom...
NYU suspends students for an entire year for “significant and coordinated disruption” in the library, which refers to some students in keffiyehs studying quietly in the lobby, others sitting on the admin. floor asking for a meeting, a few holding banners, and some flyers dropped from an upper level…
🚨 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 🚨- NEW YORK, January 8, 2025.
Press Release: New York University Launches Unprecedented Campaign of Collective Punishment Against Students Protesting Genocide
facultyforpalestine.education/2025/01/08/j...
🧵
Press Release: New York University Launches Unprecedented Campaign of Collective Punishment Against Students Protesting Genocide
facultyforpalestine.education/2025/01/08/j...
🧵
January 8, 2025. Press Release: New York University Launches Unprecedented Campaign of Collective Punishment Against Students Protesting Genocide
NYU Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine Press Inquiries: medianyufjp@proton.meIG: @nyu_fsjpX: @NYUFJPalestine FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE NEW YORK, January 8, 2025 – In a draconian case of collect…
facultyforpalestine.education
January 9, 2025 at 1:35 PM
NYU suspends students for an entire year for “significant and coordinated disruption” in the library, which refers to some students in keffiyehs studying quietly in the lobby, others sitting on the admin. floor asking for a meeting, a few holding banners, and some flyers dropped from an upper level…
Reposted by Aslı Peker
The bar for hospitals to lose protected status under international law is set very high. Those conditions were not met for any of the 36 hospitals in Gaza that Israel destroyed.
mondoweiss.net/2024/05/how-...
mondoweiss.net/2024/05/how-...
How Israel turned hospitals into ‘military targets’ by lying about international law
The bar for hospitals to lose protected status under international law is set very high. Those conditions were not met for any of the 36 hospitals in Gaza that Israel destroyed.
mondoweiss.net
January 9, 2025 at 1:00 PM
The bar for hospitals to lose protected status under international law is set very high. Those conditions were not met for any of the 36 hospitals in Gaza that Israel destroyed.
mondoweiss.net/2024/05/how-...
mondoweiss.net/2024/05/how-...
Reposted by Aslı Peker
Because killing educators and blowing up universities is bad?
January 9, 2025 at 12:24 PM
Because killing educators and blowing up universities is bad?
“NYU’s expansion of what constitutes discrimination is too broad and will inevitably infringe on lawful, important academic discussions and debates on campus about Palestine and Israel — it’s dangerous and puts academic freedom principles at risk.”
www.nyclu.org/press-releas...
www.nyclu.org/press-releas...
NYCLU Cautions Campuses Against Policies Stifling Student Speech - NYCLU
www.nyclu.org
January 8, 2025 at 12:36 PM
“NYU’s expansion of what constitutes discrimination is too broad and will inevitably infringe on lawful, important academic discussions and debates on campus about Palestine and Israel — it’s dangerous and puts academic freedom principles at risk.”
www.nyclu.org/press-releas...
www.nyclu.org/press-releas...
When one student’s Sunday night anxiety over an incomplete grade inadvertently shatters the university’s unshaken record of keeping its entire faculty from talking to each other, and an infinite loop of ‘remove me from this thread’ with an occasional ‘free Palestine’ and ‘let’s unionize’ ensues…
omg a student somehow accidentally wrote an email addressed to a faculty-wide NYU listserv and my inbox is now a master class on who understands the difference between a listserv and an email chain
December 30, 2024 at 8:03 PM
When one student’s Sunday night anxiety over an incomplete grade inadvertently shatters the university’s unshaken record of keeping its entire faculty from talking to each other, and an infinite loop of ‘remove me from this thread’ with an occasional ‘free Palestine’ and ‘let’s unionize’ ensues…
Over 1500 scholars, artists, writers, scientists, students sign open letter to NYU admin condemning the arrest of faculty members and the declaration of faculty and students as Personae Non Gratae (PNG) for participation in nonviolent protests.
facultyforpalestine.education/2024/12/23/d...
facultyforpalestine.education/2024/12/23/d...
December 23, 2024. Open Letter Signed by More Than 1500 External Scholars Opposing NYU’s Treatment of Faculty and Student Protesters
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE NEW YORK, Dec. 23, 2024 – Over 1500 scholars, artists, writers, scientists, students, and academic staff, mostly from outside NYU, have signed and sent an open letter to NYU a…
facultyforpalestine.education
December 24, 2024 at 5:07 AM
Over 1500 scholars, artists, writers, scientists, students sign open letter to NYU admin condemning the arrest of faculty members and the declaration of faculty and students as Personae Non Gratae (PNG) for participation in nonviolent protests.
facultyforpalestine.education/2024/12/23/d...
facultyforpalestine.education/2024/12/23/d...
“Organizing for labor protections and academic freedom is crucial to combat higher education’s creeping authoritarianism.” Indeed.
"The protests over Gaza have catalyzed resistance to the corporatization of the university. Yet in the long term, the most effective challenge to the creeping authoritarianism in higher education may be organizing for labor protections in tandem with academic freedom."
truthout.org/articles/its...
truthout.org/articles/its...
It’s Becoming Harder to Protest Gaza War on Campus — and Also to Teach About It
Organizing for labor protections and academic freedom is crucial to combat higher education’s creeping authoritarianism.
truthout.org
December 22, 2024 at 2:50 PM
“Organizing for labor protections and academic freedom is crucial to combat higher education’s creeping authoritarianism.” Indeed.