New York University has updated its hate speech policy to reflect that substituting the word “Zionist” for the word “Jew” does not automatically prevent a student from violating university rules, NYU announced on Thursday.

With the word “Zionist” often being used as code for denigratory speech about Jews, companies like Meta have banned the use of the term as a cover for discrimination against Jews or Israelis on its platform, and now NYU appears to be the first college to regulate the exploitation of the term.

In its new student community standards shared on Thursday, the school wrote that “using code words, like ‘Zionist,’ does not eliminate the possibility that your speech violates the NDAH [Nondiscrimination and Anti-Harassment] Policy.

“For many Jewish people, Zionism is a part of their Jewish identity. Speech and conduct that would violate the NDAH if targeting Jewish or Israeli people can also violate the NDAH if directed toward Zionists,” the statement said.

It arrives on the cusp of a new academic year and amid concerns that widespread pro-Palestine protests will return to college campuses. At such protests, the term “Zionist” has been used to isolate students who support Israel in any capacity, with many pro-Palestine activists claiming that targeting “Zionists” is not antisemitic because not all Jews identify as such. But the term has been used interchangeably with “Jews” in protest settings, and many Jewish leaders have argued that support for the existence of a Jewish homeland is foundational to the value system of many diaspora Jews.

NYU’s statement alludes to this isolation of Zionist-identifying Jews, noting examples of when protesters have called for the death of Zionists, excluded them from open events, applied a “no Zionist” litmus test for participation in any NYU activity, made broad statements disseminating conspiracies about Zionists such as “Zionists control the media”, or invoked Holocaust imagery or symbols to harass or discriminate.

The NYU chapter of Jewish on Campus, a national antisemitism watchdog group, applauded the updated policy, posted on Instagram that it “makes it abundantly clear: Zionism is a core component of Jewish identity.”

The statement also addressed campus protests, noting that “encampments and overnight demonstrations are never permitted, indoors or outdoors.”

NYU was one of the many US colleges overtaken by pro-Palestine campus protests last spring, a national movement which forced many schools to reckon with subsequent violence and campus antisemitism. Last month, the university settled a discrimination lawsuit brought by Jewish students who claimed that other students at NYU burned an Israeli flag, made throat-slitting gestures and yelled “Gas the Jews” at a group of students participating in a vigil with the campus organisation Students Supporting Israel.