MANHATTAN — Following the launch of a campaign by the Islamic Center at NYU against new reports of police surveillance of their group and other Muslim college student associations in the city and in other states, NYU president John Sexton expressed his "dismay" over the monitoring in a Thursday letter to Police Commissioner Ray Kelly.
Surveillance of the Islamic Center "based on religion alone" is "troubling and problematic," Sexton wrote in the letter, which the Islamic Center distributed on its listserv.
"I must report our community's alarm over the reports of this activity, and that we stand in fellowship with our Muslim students in expressing our community’s dismay," he wrote.
NYPD detectives tracked events planned at NYU and monitored the websites, blogs and forums of Muslim student groups at 16 universities in the city and state, including NYU, Columbia University and City College of New York, according to an Associated Press report published Feb. 19.
Sexton did not ask Kelly for more details about the surveillance, as the Islamic Center requested of NYU administrators in an email to students, alumni, faculty and locals sent Tuesday.
Chief NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said at a press briefing Thursday that surveillance of Muslim students has been in compliance with the law, the New York Daily News reported Friday morning.
“There's been a suggestion that what we are doing doesn't comport with legal requirements, and that's not the case,” Browne said. “Everything we're doing is done constitutionally.”