A shocking investigation into possible Jewish discrimination at CUNY’s School of Law has been launched by the State of New York.
The state’s Division of Human Rights is looking into the faculty’s resolution from the previous year that supported the antisemitic BDS movement, accused Israel of “genocide and war crimes,” and demanded that the university cut all relations with Israel, according to a story in the New York Post.
The resolution condemned “both settler colonialism and systemic racism, supported politically, financially, and militarily by the US,” which it incorrectly described as the “unremitting military occupation and colonization of Palestine by the Israeli state.”
Antisemitic claims against CUNY date back a very long way.
A letter sent on February 16 to Jeffrey Lax, an Orthodox Jewish professor at Kingsborough Community College and co-founder of Students and Faculty for Equality at CUNY, confirmed the investigation (S.A.F.E. CUNY). His group has evolved into a watchful scout for hate crimes in the school.
DHR regional director Joyce Yearwood-Drury stated in the letter that “you will be contacted by the Human Rights specialist assigned to your case when the active investigation of your complaint commences.”
On July 5, S.A.F.E. CUNY wrote to the human rights organization claiming that the resolution passed by the CUNY Law School Faculty Council was a “discriminatory boycott” of Jewish staff and students.
In addition, the resolution called on CUNY to cut all ties with Israel and charged the university with being “directly complicit in the ongoing apartheid, genocide, and war crimes perpetrated by the State of Israel against the Palestinian people through its investments in and contracts with companies profiting from Israeli war crimes.”
In addition to joining the BDS campaign, the faculty demanded that the school end its student exchange programs with Israel.
Lax and S.A.F.E. CUNY informed The Post, “We are glad to see that NYSDHR will be investigating CUNY for implementing BDS policy at its law school, in blatant violation of New York State’s Discriminatory Boycott Statute.
The initial complaint stated that even though the faculty council and not the school administration enacted the resolution, CUNY and Law School officials are nonetheless accountable because the council plays a significant role in running the law school.
The complaint claimed that the CUNY School of Law’s faculty “makes policy for the institution and is involved in practically all areas of the school’s management, including grading, admissions, faculty hiring, and more.”
In addition to targeting Zionist Jews and Israeli CUNY students and staff, the discriminatory boycott also supplied links to names of alleged Israeli and Zionist Jews and identifiable personal information.
The document said, “The voted resolution even went so far as to promote boycott and eradication of Hillel, the most well-known Israeli and Jewish cultural student group inside CUNY, with a universally welcomed presence on over 850 college campuses throughout the US. It further supported the abolition of Israeli faculty fellowships and student exchange programs with any link to Israel or Israelis, a well-liked program by Israeli and Zionist Jews.
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