CUNY, like Columbia, Harvard, UCLA, and dozens of other universities, has been wracked with anti-Israel demonstrations, their participants chanting that “From the river to the sea/Palestine will be free,” which means that Israel must disappear, and be replaced by a 23rd Arab state. Some also call for murderous violence against not just Israelis, but all Jews, with the cry of “globalize the intifada.” Jews have been harassed and beaten on CUNY campuses. You would think the Chancellor of CUNY, Felix Matos Rodriguez, would have noticed these displays of antisemitism on his campus. But he is apparently unable to discern a single antisemite on his 25 campuses. When asked at a hearing of the New York City Council that had been called to discuss antisemitism at CUNY, Rodriguez was asked if he thought there were any antisemites among the students and faculty at CUNY. Despite the mobs chanting for Israel to be destroyed, calling for violence be visited on Jews, engaging in harassment and physical attacks on Jews, Rodriguez answered the question about antisemites on camps with a laconic “I don’t know.” More on his response can be found here: “A culture of antisemitism at CUNY: Is Chancellor Rodriguez protecting hate? – opinion,” by Jeffrey Lax, Jerusalem Post, December 5, 2024:
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….
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….
Having hired as his chief diversity officer someone, Saly Abd Ala, who is a former director of the antisemitic and anti-Israel CAIR, either Rodriguez is grossly ill-informed, or stupid, or is himself an antisemite. I would guess all three.
Rodriguez is the chancellor of CUNY, with twenty-five campuses and 233,000 students. He knows there have been endless anti-Israel and antisemitic demonstrations throughout the past year. He must know the chants —“From the river to the sea/Palestine will be free,” that call for Israel’s disappearance and replacement by a 23rd Arab state. He surely has had reports on the calls for violence against Jews everywhere — “globalize the intifada.” He knows that Jewish students have been harassed on campus, and that CUNY students have physically attacked Jews, not necessarily students themselves, who have made the mistake of crossing CUNY campuses wearing kippahs.
And when it came time to appoint someone to be the chief diversity officer at CUNY, he appointed someone, Saly Abd Alla, who had previously worked for the antisemitic CAIR. It’s time for him to admit his mistake in hiring Abd Alla, to fire her and replace her with someone who is capable of recognizing, and wiling to constrain, the antisemitism now flourishing at CUNY. And the City Council holding its hearings on antisemitism at CUNY should consider whether Felix Rodriguez himself ought to be let go. He is, after all, the one who answered a question about whether he knew If there were any antisemites on the CUNY campuses with “I don’t know.” He should be replaced by someone who does.