New York lawmakers—both state and city—are seeming increasingly successful in their push to create so-called “protest buffer zones,” around houses of worship and educational facilities.

Opponents of the legislation include free-speech advocates who condemn it as a “strike at the heart of our right to express our views,” and those who see the legislation as a transparent move to increase the crackdown on pro-Palestine demonstrators. 

The city council’s original version of the bill, which was introduced by Bronx Council Member Eric Dinowitz (D-Riverdale) on January 29, would order the police commissioner to establish a “buffer zone” at every entrance and exit of public and private schools, college campuses and educational facilities and to come up with a plan to address protests in those spaces. This bill passed 30-19.

A different bill, which originally mandated a 100-foot protest buffer zone around any house of worship, was watered down and sponsored by City Council Speaker Julie Menin (D-Upper East Side). This version lowers the buffer zone to be 25-feet, and passed 44-5.

It leaves Mayor Zohran Mamdani in a difficult position. His allies in the Democratic Socialists of America, Council Members Tiffany Cabán (D-Astoria), Alexa Avilés (D-Sunset Park), Shahana Hanif (D-Park Slope), Chi Ossé (D-Bed-Stuy) (and Kayla Santosuosso (D-Bay Ridge), who is not in DSA) were the sole votes against the houses of worship bill. That bill passed with a veto-proof majority, and if it is not struck down, will become law. 

However, the bill that restricts protests around educational facilities falls short of such a majority, and could be effectively vetoed by Mayor Mamdani—if he wants to do so. 

Mamdani, both himself and through his spokespeople, has expressed disapproval of the current laws. On Friday, during a press conference for an unrelated event, he stated “When it comes to this legislation, I’m aware of the serious concerns that New Yorkers have raised regarding these bills limiting New Yorkers constitutional rights, and I will consider those concerns in my decision making.” However, he did not commit to vetoing the bill. 

City Hall chief counsel Ramzi Kassem said in an interview with NY1 that Mayor Mamdani “does not view protest as a security concern, and he does not think that there is any kind of contradiction between prayer and protest in New York City, both rights coexist, and we can continue to uphold both rights.”

Unlike their mayor, the DSA condemned the bills in no uncertain terms. The group released messaging which states that “These bills expand the capacity of the NYPD to police and surveil Black, brown, and immigrant New Yorkers, jeopardizing the safety of protestors exercising their first amendment rights and students attending school. In a time of rising repression, it is crucial that our representatives safeguard the right to protest, not erode it.”

The bill restricting protest outside education institutions was also condemned as unnecessary and “so vague as to invite political weaponization” by a coalition of higher education unions at the City University of New York, the State University of New York, NYU, The New School, Columbia, St. Johns and the School of Visual Arts. 

The higher ed unions also rejected a provision that carves out an exemption for workers who protest under the National Labor Relations Act. 

“We cannot support a bill that deprives our students and community allies of their First Amendment rights in exchange for our own,” they said. 

The buffer zone laws come after a mid-January protest outside a synagogue in Kew Gardens, Queens where an event selling stolen Palestinian land was taking place. At one point, protestors voiced a chant expressing support for Hamas, which politicians condemned far and wide—almost never with a condemnation of the stolen land sales that prompted the chanting.

Vetoing the two bills would put Mamdani directly at odds with Menin and the majority of the city council. Supporting the protest restrictions would anger most of his base, overwhelmingly pro-Palestine progressives, including his own political home, DSA.

Shraddha, an organizer with PAL-AWDA, which arranged the protest, speaking on behalf of her organization, said that “it was obviously very frustrating, but one can say unsurprising, because we know that the city and state government have failed to respond to meaningful demands about stopping the sale of stolen land,” regarding the buffer zone laws. 

“It is very alarming, because it has implications on not just our movement, but movements all across the city,” she said. “The solution for that, to us, is to just keep mobilizing, to continue engaging and to continue showing up to show we will not be silent or deterred, regardless of what the sort of repressive kind of state responses are to our principled acts of protest.”

PAL-AWDA’s view is shared by several other organizations that say they are deeply concerned about the free-speech implications of these bills, including New York Civil Liberties Union, Planned Parenthood, and Jewish Voice for Peace. 

All organizations listed above said such bills are fundamentally unconstitutional, and would increase the power of the NYPD to suppress acts of protest. 

For their part, NYPD has “no objections” to the bills, and maintains that on-the-ground policing practices involving protest wouldn’t change. NYPD would post online their plans for using a “security perimeter,” and for engaging with protestors.

Still, it undoubtedly also hands more power to the New York Police Department, as the bill allows the NYPD to arbitrarily create and enforce the parameters in which protests can take place.

On the state level, Governor Kathy Hochul included her own buffer zone proposal in the executive budget, which would greatly increase regulation and charges for obstruction and violence outside both houses of worship and reproductive health sites.

In a statement condemning the bills, the NYCLU pointed out that they may very well lead to protests being banned in huge swaths of New York. “The proposals might capture worship that takes place on sidewalks or in parks, like candlelight vigils, public memorials, prayer circles, and other public or mobile expressions of devotion. With the stroke of a pen, protest could be outlawed on countless blocks—and even whole neighborhoods—across the state.”

“It is allowing or requiring the police commissioner to develop and implement these plans which presents serious danger, because materially, it’s allowing the police commissioner to have full authority and discretion to decide the extent and enforcement of these buffer zones,” said Shraddha.

In a press release, Jews for Racial and Economic Justice said “We take no reassurance in the bills’ stipulation that enactment will be at the discretion of the NYPD, an institution that has repeatedly shown itself to be hostile to individuals and groups exercising their First Amendment rights in our city.”

The press release went on to note that when houses of worship host political, non-religious events—such as the sale of Palestinian land in occupied Jerusalem in the Kew Gardens synagogue, or a similar settler-recruiting event at Park East Synagogue in November 2025 that encouraged immigration to the West Bank—houses of worship “are making a choice with the knowledge that they might be protested for doing so.”

“Our perspective [PAL-AWDA’s] is [that] any sort of restriction on our meaningful right to protest the literal war crimes that are happening in our neighborhoods is absolutely non-negotiable,” said Shraddha. “We have so many allies outside of the Palestine movement, and organizations like the New York Civil Liberties Union have been extremely vocal about the fact that these buffer zones are unconstitutional. They are great violations of protected political speech, protected dissent and just the right to protest and assemble peacefully.”

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