The City University of New York has become a “pervasively hostile environment for Jewish students,” according to a newly filed complaint to the US Department of Education that alleges violations of the Civil Rights Act.
“Some of the harassment on CUNY campuses has become so commonplace as to almost be normalized,” according to the complaint by the American Center for Law & Justice in Washington DC., which cites a litany of harassment going back to 2013.
Court papers cite incidents at Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn where a Jewish professor “found swastikas carved into the door and her keyboard drenched in urine” and another Jewish professor from Israel was asked how many people she had killed.
The college’s former interim president complained there were “too many Jews” among the school’s faculty, The Post reported.
At Brooklyn College in 2016, students interrupted a Faculty Council meeting “to demand the removal of all Zionists from campus,” the Center said in its complaint, which noted students called the council’s chairman, who was wearing a yarmulke, a “Zionist pig.”
Among more recent incidents, a John Jay College student in May 2021 posted a picture of Adolf Hitler on Instagram with a message saying, “We need another Hitler today,” according to the document, which noted the college president did not publicly condemn the act.
And in December, CUNY’s Law Student Government Association passed a resolution to ban Hillel and other Jewish institutions from campus. Faculty at the law school voted to endorse the pro-Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel.
The City Council last month heard testimony about anti-Semitism at the public university system. CUNY Chancellor Felix Matos Rodriguez was criticized for failing to attend the hearing.
CUNY said the university has “consistently and strongly condemned all forms of bigotry and discrimination, including anti-Semitism.”
