Helga Tawil-Souri, an associated professor at New York University, has said school administrators gave conflicting reasons for the crackdown on pro-Palestine demonstrators, Al Jazeera reports.

“When they brought in the police — hundreds of policemen in riot gear — they charged us with trespassing, though we are NYU faculty and students. I don’t know how we trespass on our own campus but that was the charge against us,” she told Al Jazeera.

“I’ve been a professor at NYU for 20 years. I’ve never seen a crackdown of this nature and such an over-the-top response by campus security and then on the part of the NYPD [New York Police Department].

“It is reflective of attempts across the country to crack down on what is being called pro-Palestine speech,” Tawil-Souri said.