‘Mockery’: Sephardic Jewish Group Slams CUNY Over Antisemitic Commencement Speech

The Sephardic Community Alliance (SCA), a group representing thousands of Sephardic Jews from the New Jersey and New York City area, has written to City University of New York (CUNY) Chancellor Felix Matos Rodriguez to express their outrage over a commencement speech in which a law student alleged that Jewish money controls the school’s policy on Israel.

Fatima Mohammed, a CUNY Law student, gave the speech on May 12, saying, “our morality will not be purchased by investors.” She also accused Israel of “settler colonialism,” charging that it “continues to indiscriminately rain bullets and bombs on worshipers” and murder children and the elderly. Her claims, animated by a demagogic fervor, were applauded by law school administrators and staff sitting behind the podium.

“In its ceding the podium for expression of such bile, CUNY Law aided and abetted the efforts of Ms. Mohammed and others to dress up their antisemitic tropes in the guise of anti-Zionism and to further intimidate and threaten the Jewish community,” SCA said in a letter dated June 5. “The impression that CUNY law has given not only to the Jewish community but to all of its constituents and communities…is that CUNY Law endorses, supports, and encourages the political program espoused by Ms. Mohammed notwithstanding the hatred that fuels it and notwithstanding the violence that it implies. Advocacy such as this makes a mockery of CUNY Law’s stated mission.”

SCA added that “the enthusiastic reaction that Ms. Mohammed received from those representing CUNY on the stage at the commencement is further evidence of that support and encouragement” and noted that the incident was not aberrant but part of a pattern documented in numerous civil rights complaints and actions taken by school faculty, including the time CUNY School Law faculty endorsed the boycott, divestment, sanctions (BDS) movement.

With its letter, SCA joined dozens lawmakers and Jewish leaders who, in the days after Mohammed’s speech was posted online, criticized CUNY’s allegedly inept response to hostile anti-Jewish attitudes throughout its university system. Last Thursday, Congressman Mike Lawler (R-NY) proposed legislation that would prohibit colleges that host antisemitic events from receiving federal loans and grants, and on June 6, Congressman Josh Gottheimer (D-NY) called on the US Department of Education Office for Civil Rights (OCR) to investigate CUNY Law for possible violations of the Civil Rights Act.

Facing widespread criticism from Jewish groups and lawmakers, CUNY earlier this month issued a statement condemning Mohammed’s remarks as hate speech, a “public expression of hate toward people and communities based on their religion, race, or political affiliation.” The statement added that Mohammed’s speech was “particularly unacceptable at a ceremony celebrating the achievements of a wide diversity of graduates.”

City University of New York is currently under investigation by OCR for allegedly neglecting to discipline a student, Nerdeen Kiswani, who threatened to set fire to another for wearing an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) hoodie and for failing to protect another Jewish student from harassment. CUNY is also the subject of a Title VI complaint, filed in July 2022 by the American Center for Law & Justice (ACLJ), alleging that it has intentionally ignored “a sustained pattern of antisemitism.” It followed accusations of antisemitism at CUNY campuses aired during a New York City Council hearing held the previous month after the CUNY School of Law faculty endorsed a boycott of Israel.

Another investigation, launched in February 2022, is reviewing complaints that Jewish students enrolled in CUNY Brooklyn College’s Mental Health Counseling master’s program were browbeaten into denying their heritage and identifying as white. One student begrudged one of her Jewish classmates so much that she admitted in a WhatsApp group chat to fantasizing about strangling her, an anonymous student told The Algemeiner at the time.

In Sept. 2022, CUNY Chancellor Felix Matos Rodriguez acknowledged that “more needs to be done” to fight antisemitism at the university’s 25 campuses.

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.

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