Dissecting Mayor Mamdani’s veto message on legislation relating to protests at educational institutions

Both parts that ring true and parts that ring false raise issues of concern. At the same time, any claims on the Council side that the legislation would materially change police procedure are without basis. Did Speaker Menin have a more subtle, supplemental motive in pushing the legislation?

Apr. 27, 2026 — As is often the case with advocacy concerning proposed legislation, much of the rhetoric for and against a bill relating to New York Police Department procedures to prevent protests from interfering with, intimidating, or physically obstructing people coming, going, and using educational facilities in New York City – while at the same time protecting the First Amendment rights of protesters – has had little to do with the actual language in the bill.

This particular bill, passed by the City Council on Mar. 26, 2026 by a (non-veto-proof) margin of 30-19, vetoed by the Mayor on Apr. 24, 2026, and now pending a possible override vote in the Council, is denominated Int. 175-B.

While framed in neutral terms, the genesis of both the school-protests bill and the religious-institution-protests bill (the latter passed by the Council on Mar. 26, 2026 by a vote of 44-5 and going into effect because the Mayor did not veto it within the time allotted) were protests — described depending on viewpoint as pro-Palestinian, anti-Zionist, or antisemitic — that in the view of many did in fact interfere with, intimidate, or physically obstruct people in connection with coming, going, and using such places (see definitions of these terms in sidebar, next page). Whether particular conduct constituted free speech or crossed the line into conduct violative of civil or criminal law are questions beyond the scope of this article. 

Less than meets the eye 

Even the original versions of the bills, which made explicit reference to a required plan from the NYPD that contemplated “security perimeters” (sometimes colloquially referred to as “buffer zones”) of up to 100 feet, explicitly stated, “The police commissioner retains discretion under such plan to determine the [relevant institutions] at which such perimeters shall be established and the hours during which such perimeters shall be maintained.” (The provision was identical in the schools-bill and the religious-institutions-bill.)1 

As the (highly accelerated for the City Council) legislative process continued, the bills were watered down. Other than requiring the NYPD to develop a plan that set forth considerations for how to handle protests, including stakeholders who should be consulted, and requiring the police commissioner to “provide to the general public a point of contact for the department regarding the final plan,” the legislation did not place any specific requirements on the substance of the NYPD plan.2

Indeed, at the Feb. 25 hearing, prior to the development of the final versions of the bills, Michael Gerber, NYPD’s Deputy Commissioner for Legal Matters, stated that the formal policy “memorializing the considerations that go into our operational planning” that the NYPD would issue to comply with the bills “will not alter our practices, but rather will articulate and describe what we are already doing.”3 

Gerber already had no problems with the version of the religious-institution-protests bill then circulating (Int. 1-A) and was satisfied with the school-protests bill (then Int. 175-B) except for the fact that “[a]s drafted, the bill would apply to police activity on both public property and private property, which raises concerns. These are distinct issues, both legally and operationally, and we look forward to addressing that distinction in discussions with the Council.”4 

The Council heeded Gerber’s concern, and in Int. 175-B, the version of the school-protests bill the was passed, the scope of the term “entrances and exits” (the places where security perimeters could be established) was limited in relation to police activity on private property: “For educational facilities located on private property, the entrances and exits are where a person may enter or exit the private property from the public domain, for purposes of such plan.”5 In other words, the plan would have to encompass locations like the gates to the Columbia campus on Amsterdam Avenue and 116th Street or Broadway and 116th Street but would not have to encompass the on-campus entrance to Hamilton Hall or other buildings entered while already on campus. (Disclosure: I attended Columbia as an undergraduate, law student, and graduate history student, and have occasionally taught there as well.) 

In short, the school-protests legislation (like its religious-institution-protests twin) might have modest transparency value, but in no way requires the NYPD to do anything more or different. (As far as the “point of contact” for the public “regarding the final plan,” it is entirely unclear what operational or informational use that will play.) There may have been an additional motive for Council Speaker Julie Menin’s pushing these bills, but that discussion is best left for after the Mayor’s veto is examined.

Exaggerating potential First Amendment harm

The first thing to observe about the Mayor’s veto message is a critical fact that is omitted: while the legislation calls for the police commissioner to produce the plan, that police commissioner works at the direction of the Mayor. That is, it is the Mamdani NYPD that would produce a plan. Presumably, that plan would need to be approved by the Mayor and would, at least in its final iteration, accord with the Mayor’s views. 

Second, as discussed earlier in the article, the legislation does not have a substantive provision that even purports to require security perimeters anywhere or at any time that NYPD’s application of its own considerations would not call for such measures. 

The Mayor has another an explanatory problem given that the religious-institution-protests bill, which he did not block, and the school-protests bill, which he is blocking, are equivalent (except for one provision in the school-protests bill that, unlike the religious-institution-protests bill, narrows the entrances and exits that are the subject of the bill to those that involve moving from public land to private land or vice versa). 

So, the Mayor came up with a series of distinctions. All but two don’t hold up at all; the two that might be said to in part are awfully shaky but quite revealing of the Mayor’s viewpoint. 

The criticism that the bill “frames student protest as primarily a security concern”1 is, to say the least, odd. The bill’s focus (exactly like its religious-institution-protest counterpart) is on security concerns because its topic is limited to seeking to prevent legitimate free-speech activity from crossing the line into interference, intimidation, etc. Exactly like its religious-institution-protests counterpart, the plan called for by Int. 175-B requires that steps to “address and contain the risk of physical obstruction, physical injury, intimidation, and interference” be planned for “while preserving and protecting the rights to free speech and assembly, and protest.”2 

The Mayor’s veto message also complains that the term “educational facility” is described “expansively.”3 He is correct that the definition encompasses any “building, structure, or place where educational programming takes place.”4 But he doesn’t explain why New Yorkers should not be protected from the narrow types of conduct that could bring security perimeters into play while preserving protesters’ ability to be heard and seen by their targets, let alone why the long-established legal principle that time, place, and manner restrictions on protests are permissible anywhere (they are) would not apply to an expansive range of “educational facilities,” including schools.

Private versus public and other concerns

To the extent that the Mayor focuses on that which is “private” as opposed to “public” (he gives the example of a “private event space” as part of his concern about the bill’s breadth),5 the explanation still doesn’t compute. The final version of the school-protests bill does not seek a plan for implementing time, place, or manner restrictions on protests except in connection with entrances and exits where one traverses from public space to private space or vice versa. As such, even a disruptive protest within a school or hospital or community-center campus or building is not the subject of the bill. 

As the Mayor’s Deputy Commissioner for Legal Affairs at the NYPD explained, the current practice (which is what would go into the Council-required plan) recognizes that: 

Critically, any such restriction must allow for ample alternative channels of communication for the protesters to convey their message to their intended audience. This means that protesters have a right to sight and sound, that is, to be seen and heard by those that they are protesting against.6 

So, unless his own police department is blowing smoke, any limitations would not impede the transmission of the protest message – and nothing in Int. 175-B requires otherwise. 

The Mayor’s stated concern that the time, place, and manner restrictions that the NYPD could memorialize in the required planning document would have “particular impact on the ability of unions and other labor activists to organize”7 disregards the explicit disclaimer in the final version of the school-protests bill that “[n]othing in this section shall be construed or interpreted to infringe upon rights granted under the national labor relations act or the labor law,”8 and the assurances from the NYPD Deputy Commissioner that the ability to be seen and heard would be respected (quoted above). 

To the extent that the Mayor is concerned that his successor could misuse the legislation (not something he specified in the veto message) that type of concern – often a legitimate one because one can’t legislate assuming that tools will only be wielded by the good and wise – is not applicable here. If a future administration wanted to increase restrictions on protests, it could do so, with or without the legislation (subject, of course, to legal challenge).

The interests the Mayor appears not to see

The clearest kind of counterpoint Mamdani developed to explain why he wasn’t vetoing with the religious-institution-protests bill but was vetoing the school-protests bill (there’s not a reporter, I think, who hasn’t pointed out a more obvious difference between the two bills – one had a veto-proof margin; the other didn’t), is the way he framed whether “countervailing” rights to the right to protest existed. 

In the religious-institution-protests bill, he identifies the right to worship as a constitutional right that has to be weighed against the scope of the right to protest. In contrast, he asserts, “there is no equivalent and countervailing constitutional right” when “people protest outside a school or another educational facility.”1 

This is extraordinary both in terms of what is said and what is not said. 

In the context of a public institution such as the City University of New York, the obligation to provide equal protection to a protected-class group being targeted because of race, religion, or similar categories does indeed rise to the level of a constitutional right. That is not an insignificant thing to get wrong.

More broadly, though, the Mayor ignores the various statutory requirements – federal and local – that are designed to protect against harassment, a broader range of activity than is covered either by Int. 1-B or Int. 175-B. That includes Title VI on the federal level and the New York City Human Rights Law on the local level. 

New York City has been in the forefront of extending protection against denial of “full and equal enjoyment, on equal terms and conditions, of any of the accommodations, advantages, services, facilities or privileges of the place or provider of public accommodation”2 to anything and everything that interacts with the public. This means blanket coverage of place and providers of public accommodation, including educational institutions. The definition encompasses: 

providers, whether licensed or unlicensed, of goods, services, facilities, accommodations, advantages or privileges of any kind, and places, whether licensed or unlicensed, where goods, services, facilities, accommodations, advantages or privileges of any kind are extended, offered, sold, or otherwise made available. Even beyond this, there is the question about the ability to go about one’s business in the context of utilizing educational facilities.3 

Finally, in those circumstances where a constitutional right isn’t implicated, or where the challenged context may not neatly fall into a discrimination-law category, is there not a public interest in not allowing some people to interfere with the freedom of movement of others? In not allowing some people to put others in reasonable fear of physical harm to themselves or to another individual? In not rendering ingress to or egress from an educational facility impassable, or unreasonably difficult or hazardous? It seems like the Mayor’s answer is “no.”

What was Speaker Menin hoping for?

It is common City Council practice to seek a legislative solution to a problem and, if a genuinely substantive goal is beyond reach, to settle for an information-providing law. Everyone is able to go home and say that at least something got done. (The irony, of course, is that, where the Council, for whatever set of reasons, is unable to bind a mayor or the NYPD as tightly as it might wish, the most powerful tool, requiring no legislation, is ongoing, intense oversight of what the administration is doing or failing to do, making sure, where necessary, to utilize the Council’s too-seldom-invoked subpoena power.) 

Here, the Speaker reached the transparency goal in the enactment of the religious-institution-protests bill. But she has another potential accomplishment – essentially pinning down the Mayor’s position – an accomplishment (or “win”) that has already been secured in part by the issuance of the Mayor’s veto. Fuller clarification of the Mayor’s position depends in significant part on whether the press will follow up on some obvious questions for him in light of his veto. 

Are there no circumstances where he believes that security perimeters should be used in connection with demonstrations at schools and other educational facilities? 

If there are some circumstances, how narrowly should those circumstances be drawn? 

Would he have been satisfied if the Int. 175-B did not go beyond schools in defining educational facilities? 

Whether or not one agrees with the Mayor’s assessment of particular instances of police overreach, it certainly is the case that, historically, police going beyond the careful balancing policy that Deputy Commissioner Gerber described has been a non-trivial problem. Does the Mayor not have any ideas– in the context of the NYPD, not the alternative context of a Department of Community Safety – of how to erect more secure guardrails against police overreach?

Next steps

We will find out promptly whether Speaker Menin will attempt to corral the four more Council Members needed to override the veto (presuming that the original 30 “yes” votes stay on board).  But the larger picture will take months or years to be seen clearly. It is a picture that will be drawn by demonstrators — some of whom will surely be encouraged by the Mayor’s reluctance to draw any lines or see any “countervailing” values in the context of educational facilities, and some of whom will surely test the boundaries that are of concern to those supporting Int. 175-B — and by the response or lack of response on the part of the NYPD. I’d rate the chances of these questions fading away as highly contentious issues as approximately zero.

Please click on “Description” to sequence the documents in the order intended.