NYU withholds diploma of graduation speaker who condemned Gaza ‘atrocities’

New York University said it is withholding the diploma of a student who used his commencement speech to condemn Israel’s war in Gaza and what he referred to as the United States’ “complicity in this genocide.”

“The only thing that is appropriate to say in this time and to a group this large is a recognition of the atrocities currently happening in Palestine,” Logan Rozos, a graduating student from NYU’s Gallatin School, said in a speech Wednesday to cheers and applause.

Pro-Israeli groups demanded that NYU take action after footage of the speech was shared online.

The university issued an apology the same day and announced it would withhold the student’s diploma while it pursues disciplinary action against him.

NYU spokesman John Beckman said in a Wednesday statement that the student “lied about the speech he was going to deliver” and misused his role “to express his personal and one-sided political views.

“NYU is deeply sorry that the audience was subjected to these remarks and that this moment was stolen by someone who abused a privilege that was conferred upon him.”

Pro-Palestinian activism on college campuses – which ballooned last year and led to the arrest of scores of students, including at NYU – has become a key target of the Trump administration’s antisemitism task force, which has threatened to cut billions of dollars in funding from universities over the issue.

The administration hasn’t been explicit about what constitutes antisemitism, but federal agencies have penalized campuses where criticism of Israel’s government took place.

Rozos, an actor, studied cultural criticism and political economy at Gallatin School, a liberal arts school within NYU.

Rozos was named on Teen Vogue’s “20 Under 20” list of young LGBTQ people in media and activism in 2020.

His manager did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment Friday morning.

He appeared nervous as he began the commencement speech, which was just under three minutes long and did not directly name Israel, Gaza or Jewish people.

“The genocide currently occurring is supported politically and militarily by the United States, is paid for by our tax dollars and has been live-streamed to our phones for the past 18 months,” Rozos said, adding, “I do not wish to speak only to my own politics today, but to speak for all people of conscience, all people who feel the moral injury of this atrocity.

“I condemn this genocide, and complicity in this genocide,” he added, before thanking and congratulating the class of 2025.

Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants, says more than 50,000 people have been killed in the enclave since the war began. Israel has vehemently denied accusations of genocide throughout the war.

The New York and New Jersey branch of the Anti Defamation League wrote on X that it was “appalled” by the speech, adding: “We are thankful to the NYU administration for their strong condemnation and their pursuit of disciplinary action.”

Another group, #EndJewHatred, suggested the speech would violate the university’s student-conduct guidelines, which were updated last year in response to a lawsuit over three Jewish students’ allegations of antisemitism since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.

But there was also support for Rozos. In a statement Thursday, Afaf Nasher, the executive director of the New York branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations praised the student “for using this opportunity to demand an end to the bloodshed in Gaza” and demanded NYU end its disciplinary process against him.

President Donald Trump’s youngest son Barron is a student at NYU.

Since Trump took office in January, his administration has threatened federal funding to a number of major universities and this week cut $450 million in federal funding to Harvard University. It also detained and threatened to deport a number of college students on visas, including at Columbia University, which was at the center of campus protests last year.

Some schools have also taken their own action against student protesters, with Columbia University suspending and expelling some of those involved in occupying a campus building last year.

Earlier this year, Trump’s antisemitism task force said it would visit NYU and nine other universities over “allegations that the schools may have failed to protect Jewish students and faculty members from unlawful discrimination” – though NYU was not among of the dozens of universities that the Department of Education later warned could face “potential enforcement actions” under the Civil Rights Act.

In April, the former head of medical aid group Doctors Without Borders (MSF) alleged that there was a “climate of fear” among major universities after NYU canceled a lecture she was due to give. Officials at the NYU’s medical center told her references to the Trump administration’s cuts to foreign aid in her planned presentation could be seen as “anti-government” and “antisemitic,” she said.