NYU Students To Protest Trump Advisor John Paulson

GREENWICH VILLAGE, NY — NYU students are planning a protest on Wednesday afternoon to voice their opposition to Trump advisor John Paulson's place on the school's board of trustees.

The billionaire hedge fund manager was one of the first Wall Street tycoons to back President Donald Trump during the campaign and quickly became a policy advisor to Trump. Paulson is a graduate of NYU's business school and trustee. Paulson, the head of Paulson & Co., gave $20 million to his alma mater in 2009, earning him an auditorium and lobby named after him in Tisch Hall.

Students, organized by Student Labor Action Movement at the school, plan to occupy NYU's Bobst Library on Wednesday afternoon. The protestors are demanding that students be added to the university's board.

"President Hamilton says that putting students on the board would be a conflict of interest, yet Trump's economic advisor John Paulson sits on our board of trustees," event organizers wrote. "This must change. We need students on the board to hold our university accountable."

"NYU does not comment on the political activities or beliefs of its trustees," a university spokesman said in an email to Washington Square News last year.

In an open letter to the school's president Andrew Hamilton published earlier in February, activists with the Student Labor Action Movement called for student representatives on the university's board and criticized Paulson's place there.

"It’s difficult to not draw a connection between NYU’s refusal to become a sanctuary campus and the presence of John Paulson, one of President Donald Trump’s top economic advisors, on our board," they wrote.

Student activists have demanded that NYU be officially declared a "sanctuary campus," and that voluntary collaboration between school authorities and immigration officials be prohibited. Hamilton has stopped short of officially naming the campus a sanctuary space, but has promised that campus police will not ask about the immigration status of students and that the school will not permit federal officials to gather information on campus absent a court order.

The students' protest is scheduled to begin at 1 p.m. on Wednesday.

Lead image via Patch.