At least 50 City University of New York (CUNY) professors quit the faculty union after it passed a resolution condemning Israel as an “apartheid” state last month.
While the New York Post reported earlier this week that 50 professors had left the union, a new report by the Washington Free Beacon notes that some professors believe more than 100 faculty members may have quit the union in response to the Professional Staff Congress’ “Resolution in Support of the Palestinian People” last month.
The union’s statement came after renewed tensions between Israel and the terrorist group Hamas earlier this year.
Jeffrey Lax, the first professor to resign from the union, which is CUNY’s chapter of the American Federation of Teachers, told the outlet that the union’s statement is inconsistent because it claims that Israel is a “diverse nation-state.”
“Which one is it? Either you’re a diverse nation-state or an apartheid state. They’re talking out of both sides of their mouth,” Lax said.
New York state senator Anna Kaplan, a Democrat, and a group of nearly 1,000 rabbis have expressed support of the professors who quit the union.
CUNY has faced accusations of anti-Semitism for years. Most recently, a pro-Palestinian professor and a group of students hacked into a Hunter College Zoom lecture in June and recited anti-Semitic tropes.
In 2017, the Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy chose former Women’s March co-chair Linda Sarsour, who has been repeatedly accused of anti-Semitism, as its commencement speaker. That same year, CUNY awarded a top faculty honor to Beth Baron, an advocate of boycotts against Israel.
The report details the experiences of Jewish professors who have experienced attacks from union leadership, colleagues and students.
While professors have had their tires slashed, family photos destroyed and Israeli flags stolen, the university has not responded to professors’ complaints, despite an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission report in February confirming that the system had fostered a hostile environment for Jews.
Kingsborough adjunct business professor Michael Goldstein told the outlet that vandals slashed his tires and defaced a photo of him and his father, who served as president of the college for nearly three decades.
The professor said that he has had a public safety officer accompany him around campus for three years as pro-Palestinian activist students have gone as far as to physically attack Jews on campus.
“These are students that are agitated and indoctrinated by the faculty at Kingsborough to hate Jews,” Goldstein said, adding that CUNY will be a “Jewish-free college and university” in the near future.