An Independent study Governor Cathy Hochul has ordered that the City University of New York must “significantly” modify and update its policies to deal with the level of anti-Semitism and discrimination that exists on its campuses.
CUNY campuses have been hotbeds of pro-Palestinian activism for years, which Jewish students and elected officials have said sometimes manifests as anti-Semitism. Since the Hamas attack on Israel last October, dozens of pro-Palestinian demonstrators have been arrested on CUNY campuses. In a camp City College was shut down by city police in April.
Criticism, was commissioned Ms. Hochul’s release Tuesday followed a spate of hate and discrimination incidents last October that documented inconsistencies and a lack of oversight in how CUNY’s 25 campuses handled complaints of bigotry and other biases among students and staff.
But the review, which included interviews with more than 200 people over 10 months, found it was a “small, vocal minority of individuals” responsible for antisemitic incidents and was not a widespread problem.
Author of the report, Jonathan LipmanNew York’s former chief justice made a dozen recommendations to improve campus climate, including the creation of a new CUNY center dedicated to efforts to combat hate.
CUNY said it has already begun implementing some of the recommendations, including recognizing an anti-hate center. Center for Inclusive Excellence and Belonging. Ms. Hochul said Tuesday that she would direct CUNY to implement all of them.
“We look forward to working to implement Judge Lipman’s recommendations to redouble our efforts and build on our progress to create a more inclusive campus environment for students, faculty and staff,” CUNY Chancellor Félix V. Matos RodrÃguez said in a statement.
While his investigation focused on policy deficiencies and did not provide resolution of antisemitic complaints, Judge Lippmann wrote in a letter to Ms. Hochul, “There have been numerous and unacceptable antisemitic incidents targeting members of the CUNY community.”
However, he wrote, “The vast majority of students and members of the CUNY community do not engage in any form of bigotry or discrimination, but simply want access to the quality education that CUNY provides.”
The report was one of several anti-Semitic studies on university campuses released after the campus protests, including a pair of reports about Columbia University. The CUNY report follows a recent federal investigation by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights that found CUNY mishandled numerous complaints of anti-Semitism and other biases since 2019.
For example, in 2021, several Jewish students at Hunter College on the CUNY campus complained that students and faculty disrupted an online class that “called for the decolonization of Palestine.” Without interviewing any studentsHunter College concluded that the disruption did not violate the students’ rights and closed the matter.
In a settlement with the Office for Civil Rights announced in June, CUNY agreed to resume investigations into such complaints and train staff who conducted these investigations. Judge Lipman recommended additional measures to allow complaints to be handled more fairly.
One problem he found is that each CUNY campus handles complaints of discrimination independently with insufficient oversight. He also called CUNY’s online portal for filing discrimination complaints a “black box.”
More generally, while CUNY should be commended for its highly diverse student body, “at some schools, this diversity does not translate into an environment of tolerance and respect,” he wrote.
Instead of promoting peaceful solutions to disagreements, he suggested, the organization should “increase efforts to recruit and hire people who foster inclusive dialogue.”
Judge Lipman’s statement was more important than many previous statements because federal guidance had changed, and criticisms of Zionism, the movement for a modern Jewish state in its ancestral homeland, were now more likely to be viewed as discriminatory than they had been. past years.
A 2016 Report on Anti-Semitism at CUNYFor example, provocative slogans led by pro-Palestinian groups, particularly the Students for Justice in Palestine chapter, are widely protected as free speech, even if some find it offensive.
Yehudit Meira Biton, 40, welcomed the report’s recommendations. She said she dropped out of Brooklyn College in 2022 after repeatedly hearing from instructors in her mental health counseling master’s program that Jews were white oppressors and therefore not welcome to talk about their own history of oppression. Mrs. Biden is Afro-Latina and an Orthodox Jew; He said that despite filing a complaint, nothing happened.
“I’m really glad they’re finally doing something,” he said.
But Parima Khadikar, a third-year student at CUNY School of Law and a member of the law school’s Students for Justice in Palestine, dismissed the statement and the effect it could have at a time when universities are cracking down on student protests.
“This report slanders student activism and threatens to reverse the rights of students calling for the lives and liberation of Palestinians,” he said.
