President Andrew Hamilton Absent from President’s Service Awards
Some students are saying his absence isn’t a simple scheduling conflict.
NYU held its annual President’s Service Awards on Wednesday afternoon with one notable absence — NYU President Andrew Hamilton. Students are saying these changes are due to the fact that Students for Justice in Palestine was one of the selected organizations to receive the award this year.
The award is meant to honor students and student organizations for their commitment to civic engagement and service or for their promotion of learning, leadership, and quality of student life at NYU. The ceremony also lacked a reading of the honored organizations which, along with the president’s attendance, has been a tradition for the ceremony.
“President Hamilton makes many University events, but he cannot make every one.” NYU Spokesperson John Beckman said in an email to Local. “He was unable to make this one.”
Student Government Assembly President Hüsniye Çöğür listed the names of organizations in her opening remarks because she became aware of the fact that the university would not recognize them.
The organizations and individuals who win the award every year are selected by a committee. This year’s honored organizations also included the Black Student Union, the Incarceration to Education Coalition (IEC), the SGA Diversity Committee, the SGA, Shades, the Black Student Nursing Association, and Generation Citizen among many others.
The controversy surrounding this year’s awards began when SJP announced it had been selected to receive the award. In a Facebook post following the announcement, the student group Realize Israel stated it was “outraged that the University would award an organization that has spent the last several years making Jewish and pro-Israel students feel unwelcome and unsafe on campus.”
However, members of SJP feel that the award is well deserved.
“I think Students for Justice in Palestine deserves this award,” NYU SJP member Rose Asaf stated. “Perhaps sometimes we are somewhat polarizing, but we are following our hearts, we’re doing what we believe in and it’s our opinion that we are on the right side of history. We are fighting for what is right.”
At Wednesday’s event, attendees reported a lack of the word “president” through any of ceremony, although the award is supposed to come from the president. This fueled speculation that the name of the event had been changed due to pressure from student groups like Realize Israel who have been calling on the university to rescind SJP’s award.
Outside of the the Kimmel Center, where the event was held, were a number of protestors expressing anger that SJP received the award. Realize Israel was among the groups present at the event, and a member of the group confirmed to Local that the group had in fact been in contact with the university. The member also stated that the group had successfully pursued NYU to change the name of the award and the award ceremony to exclude the word “president.” (Realize Israel had not returned a request for comment at the time of publication.)
However, SJP has received support from members of the NYU community. IEC organizer Matthew Perry tweeted in support that “NYU admin fundamentally does not care about students” because of the unannounced decision to not name any of the organizations.
Asaf called the changes to the ceremony were “a slap in the face to students and families.”
“This was a cowardly move, this was a pathetic move,” Asaf told NYU Local. “I have never been more disappointed in NYU.”
Additional reporting by Téa Kvetenadze
Correction: April 18, 2019, 12:49 p.m.
An earlier version of this article misstated Hüsniye Çöğür’s listing of organization names. It was during her opening remarks, not after the awards.
