New York City Mayor Eric Adams defended the response of the city’s police department to various college protests, stressing the importance of free speech while keeping the city safe.
Adams’s defense comes after Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) wrote on X that the increased police presence on college campuses, along with the arrests of “hundreds of students,” go against the idea of education being a cornerstone of the United States’s democracy. Adams, a fellow Democrat and former police officer, showed off a flier found at a protest, which included the phrase “death to America,” and warned how younger people protesting are being infiltrated with radicalization.
“This has left a point of advocating for a particular item, and as I say over and over again, there’s a real attempt to radicalize our young people, and when you look at some of the information and some of the people who are there, we need to be clear that we cannot take this lightly,” Adams said.
Adams also warned against those who are not college students from protesting on college campuses, stating that they are free to protest wherever they want in the Big Apple but that protesting on campuses as a non-student makes them an “outsider.” He added that those who train people to do “destructive things” are an “agitator.”
“And so I’m not trying to be politically correct,” Adams said. “I’m trying to be correct for the City of New York as we make sure the city continues to be safe.”
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The mayor’s office has claimed that 29% of those arrested from the protests were unaffiliated with Columbia University, one of the campuses predominately affected by the protests. However, a review of police records and interviews showed that only nine people out of the dozens of protesters arrested at Columbia had no ties to the campus, and had also protested at other universities.
The mayor also expressed hope that colleges in the city should be allowed to host their graduation ceremonies this year, stating that the city will ensure these ceremonies are held “in a peaceful manner.” The statement comes after several colleges across the country have canceled their plans for graduation ceremonies due to the pro-Palestinian protests.
