Zohran Mamdani vetoes school 'buffer zone' bill against wishes of major Jewish groups
Mayor Zohran Mamdani vetoed a “buffer zone” bill insulating “educational facilities” from protests on Friday morning, drawing the ire of a number of Jewish organizations that supported it.
The bill, introduced by Jewish City Council member Eric Dinowitz, was part of a legislative package proposed in response to a pair of pro-Palestinian protests outside synagogues in the fall.
In a statement — and an accompanying video — Mamdani said Dinowitz’s bill, Intro 175-B, posed concerns about limiting people’s right to protest, including “college students demanding their school divest from fossil fuels or demonstrating in support of Palestinian rights.”
The national student pro-Palestinian movement in 2024 had as its epicenter Columbia University in Manhattan’s Morningside Heights neighborhood, where protesters gathered even after the school closed the campus to outsiders.
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Another bill in the legislative package, introduced by Jewish Council Speaker Julie Menin, addresses protests outside houses of worship and passed in City Council with a veto-proof supermajority.
https://www.jta.org/2026/04/24/ny/zohran-mamdani-vetoes-school-buffer-zone-bill-against-wishes-of-major-jewish-groups
= new reply since forum marked as read
She only needs to flip four members, including one who abstained.
The first amendment argument asserted in the Mayor's Veto Notice is weak at best, conflating the establishment of buffer zones with the denial of the right to protest. The easiest fix is to limit "educational facilities" to those specifically mentioned in the definitions section, so that the concerns of those worried about "corporate symposiums [sic]" are assuaged.
Unfortunately, if the definitional fix is adopted, NYC's LGBTQ+ affirming specialized summer programs for youth will not be included, and bigots will still be free to interfere, harass, intimidate, and obstruct in the immediate area of the facility.
