A culture of antisemitism at CUNY: Is Chancellor Rodriguez protecting hate? – opinion

The most stunning moment at Monday’s City Council hearing on Judge Jonathan Lippman’s report into antisemitism at City University of New York (CUNY) came when Councilman Kalman Yeger asked Chancellor Felix Matos Rodriguez the simplest possible question about students and faculty at CUNY: “Do you think any [of them] are antisemites?”

To this, in a university of 25 campuses and hundreds of thousands of students and faculty, Rodriguez incomprehensibly said, “I don’t know.” Yeger astutely retorted, “That may be part of the problem.”

Indeed.

The chancellor has already publicly admitted that antisemitism is a serious problem at CUNY. He has seen his own faculty members chant “Zionism out of CUNY” and students chant “globalize the intifada.” He saw vigils – vigils! – for civilian Jews slaughtered by Hamas on October 7 protested.

He saw a Kingsborough/CUNY student beat a Jewish man in a kippah with a bat while yelling, “Kill all Jews, free Palestine.” He has seen CUNY students harass Jewish schoolmates. He has seen the EEOC and the DOE Office of Civil Rights substantiate and excoriate the antisemitism at CUNY. And on and on and on.

Yet he doesn’t know if there are any antisemites at CUNY? Is this a serious person?

Institutional antismeitism 

And then there’s the antisemite that Rodriguez directly hired himself: Saly Abd Alla. Abd Alla holds the most powerful discrimination position at CUNY. She is the top chief diversity officer overseeing 25 campuses at CUNY.

Her credentials? Graduation from one of the worst law schools in the country, unauthorized to practice law in New York (or even in Minnesota, where she was admitted).

She was a former director at the virulently anti-Zionist organization Council on American-Islamic Relations, where she headed the antisemitic Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Movement at its extremist Minnesota chapter.

How can this person be in charge of overseeing antisemitism complaints across CUNY? And why is no one in government screaming their heads off about this? Even the City Council wouldn’t speak of her outrageous continuing employment at CUNY. No, not even after I testified about it before them last Monday.

Why not?

As for the chancellor, if you can’t recognize a virulent antisemite when you see one and you are actively hiring some, like Abd Alla, to work directly for you, then the problem at CUNY starts with you.

At this point, the denialism is so outlandish – not one antisemite at CUNY?! – that one can’t help but wonder whether Rodriguez truly doesn’t understand the problem, or whether he himself might actually support these antisemites.

After all, it was Rodriguez who, in defending Abd Alla in a private email obtained by my organization, S.A.F.E. Campus, stated that CAIR’s work “is consistent with [CUNY’s] commitment to foster an environment of inclusion and respect for each other.”

CAIR’s work is consistent with CUNY’s?

It’s time to step down or be pushed out, chancellor. And take Abd Alla, whose hate has no place at CUNY, with you.

The writer is a CUNY professor, department chair, and a founder of Students and Faculty for Equality at CUNY (S.A.F.E. CUNY), a non-partisan group of CUNY students and faculty who advocate for systemically discriminated against and excluded Zionist Jews at CUNY.