CUNY leaders are intentionally ignorant about anti Semitism on campus and cowards to boot

CUNY’s leaders can’t answer basic questions on campus antisemitism: They ALL need to go

https://nypost.com/2024/11/26/opinion/cunys-leaders-cant-answer-basic-questions-on-campus-antisemitism-they-all-need-to-go/

City Council members rightly blasted CUNY Chancellor Félix Matos Rodríguez on Monday over his vacuous testimony on campus antisemitism — proving that it’s time for new leadership at City University.

Members Eric Dinowitz, Kalman Yeger, Inna Vernikov and Julie Menin all roasted the chancellor’s inability to articulate CUNY’s response to Judge Jonathan Lippman’s report that (among other Captain Obvious findings) said the school’s system for reporting antisemitism need to be “completely overhauled.”

Neither Matos Rodríguez nor his deputies could say how many complaints were made or what the most common type of anti-Jewish discrimination reported was.

Asked how many (if any) faculty or students had been disciplined for antisemitic behavior, he replied, “I don’t know.”

What would he do to prevent future harassment and intimidation? Promote “dialogue.”

He couldn’t even give specific examples of actions CUNY has taken since Oct. 7, 2023, to protect Jewish students.

Pathetic: As Menin said, it’s “outrageous that when we’re having this hearing on such an important topic that the most rudimentary questions you’ve been unable to answer.”

The whole crew of admin hacks walked in unprepared to answer basic questions about handling Jew-hate — even after seeing Ivy League presidents having their heads handed to them in House hearings. 

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Jewish CUNY students recall horrifying antisemitism on-campus as chancellor grilled over response: ‘Not enough just to show up’

It wasn’t even clear if any of them had read the entire Lippmann report.

The chancellor whined that he needs “additional resources” to hire more staff to investigate “the complaints so we can get back on a timely manner” to complainants.

As Yeger noted, CUNY is “a $4.2 billion enterprise” that has received $500,000 from the council to combat campus hate.

Adding insult to injury, the chancellor didn’t stick around to hear later testimony from Jewish students about horrifying antisemitism on campus, nor ample evidence that a big part of the problem is CUNY faculty.

Whether Matos Rodríguez simply holds the City Council in contempt or just doesn’t care about out-of-control hate on his campuses doesn’t much matter. 

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Published Nov. 26, 2024, 7:50 p.m. ET