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Who is Eve Tuck? NYU appoints anti-Israel professor to lead new center dedicated to indigenous studies

Eve Tuck signed a letter on October 26 blaming Israel for the current conflict triggered by the October 7 Hamas attack

NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK: New York University has appointed an influential academic-activist Eve Tuck, who has often decried the "Israeli apartheid regime in Palestine" in the past, as the one to lead a new center dedicated to indigenous studies. NYU's most recent hire is prompting resentment from top leaders at the school.

Tuck, who was a professor of critical race and indigenous studies at the University of Toronto, was hired on October 9, just a couple of days after Hamas militants killed 1,400 Israeli civilians.

On October 26, Tuck signed an open "solidarity" letter blaming Israel for "dispossessing and occupying Palestine," adding that "Colonized peoples have the right to defend themselves and to resist colonial violence."

Although her work is mainly focused on native people, she has found common cause with Palestinians' struggle in Gaza. She has defended Hamas’ deadly attack that led to Israel's brutal retaliation, New York Post reports.

What did Eve Tuck say about Palestine?

“Unprovoked is a dishonest framing. A free Palestine is possible because of how Palestinians have worked to keep alive and remake other framings, other futures,” Tuck said in an October 7 post to Bluesky, a liberal social media network. She also called Hamas’ “resistance” to Israel “affirming" just a few days later. 

Eve Tuck signed letter blaming Israel for current conflict

The open letter that Tuck signed on October 26 stated: “The past two weeks of horrific violence in Gaza resulted from 75 years of Israeli settler colonial dispossession. The atrocities of the Israeli apartheid regime in Palestine are relentless, illegal under international law, and consistent with settler-colonial projects globally."

It continued, "It has been heartbreaking and unsurprising to see the colonial powers in Canada, the United States, Australia, New Zealand, and Europe line up behind this genocide. Israeli settler colonialism, apartheid, and occupation are only possible because of international support." 

“Colonized peoples have the right to defend themselves and to resist colonial violence. We support Palestinian liberation and their right as an oppressed people to resist colonialism and genocide,” it concluded, before listing a series of demands, like an immediate ceasefire, medical aid and rescue in the Gaza region, and the end of international military aid to Israel.

Board members of NYU issued statements after Eve Tuck was hired

“I am appalled that her hiring continued in the middle of this toxic atmosphere,” said Elliott Bross, a board member of NYU’s Stern School of Business. “I call for the NYU to terminate her contract immediately.”

Stan Polovets, a board member of NYU’s Tandon School of Engineering, said, “This type of rhetoric fuels antisemitism, and I urge Ms. Tuck to reconsider her support for the statement.”

In the aftermath of the deadly October 7 attack, pro-Hamas academics tweeted “decolonization is not a metaphor” which is a direct reference to a paper of the same title co-authored by Tuck.

It has already been reported before that NYU students have been caught ripping down signs with faces of Israeli hostages taken by Hamas as pro-Palestinian protests have taken on an increasingly antisemitic color.

NYU declines to condemn Eve Tuck

In a statement that declined from outrightly condemning Tuck, the  institution's spokesman John Beckman said, “NYU’s perspective is that terrorism is immoral; that there is no justification to commit acts of terrorism, ever; and that laying the blame on victims of terrorism is indefensible."