Free Speech and CUNY Anti-Semitism
Earlier this month, retired federal judge Barbara Jones and former prosecutor Paul Shechtman issued a 24-page report summarizing their investigation into allegations of anti-Semitic behavior among CUNY students. The report was comprehensive and its defense of student organizations’ free speech sound, but its details also raised troubling questions about the state of affairs on CUNY campuses—and, by extension, at most colleges and universities.
The report made two principal findings. First, it clarified (there had been some debate about the incidents) the anti-Semitic conduct by some CUNY students. A November 2015 rally at Hunter College co-sponsored by the faculty union, the Professional Staff Congress (PSC), drew support from a variety of identity-politics student groups, including the Students for Justice in Palestine. Encountering a small group of pro-Israel students, protesters shouted “Jews Out of CUNY” and “Death to Jews”; one CUNY student told Jones and her staffers that “as he was leaving the rally, a person behind him said, ‘We should drag the Zionist down the street.’ ” He had to ask CUNY security officers for protection. Jones and Schectman made clear that if CUNY could identify any of the protesting students, they should be punished for issuing verbal threats.