Shellyne Rodriguez, an adjunct art professor at CUNY Hunter College in New York City, erupted on a group of pro-life students who were distributing materials on campus in early May, throwing their pamphlets in the air and shrieking hysterically in their faces.
“You’re not educating s**t. This is f***king propaganda,” Rodriguez told one member of the Students for Life group during a tabling session in early May. “What are you going to do like anti-trans next?”
“I mean no, we’re talking about abortion,” the student responds before the art professor interrupts: “This is bull****!”
“This is violent. You’re triggering my students.”
After the student apologized for the alleged offense, Rodriguez responded, “No, you’re not! Because you can’t even have a f***ing baby. So you don’t even know what that is…Get this sh*t out of here, f*** this s***.” The educator then threw the group’s pamphlets off their table.
PROFESSOR GONE WILD: Pro-abortion professor Shellyne Rodriquez curses at pro-life students and vandalizes table at Hunter College. pic.twitter.com/QNspuXB4KK
— Students for Life of America (@StudentsforLife) May 17, 2023
Hunter’s resident pro-choice student group, CUNY for Abortion Rights, rushed to the defense of Rodriguez.
“Hunter College adjunct educator Shellyne Rodriguez approached the display, constructively critiqued the group members, and eventually physically took down items from the table,” an official statement co-signed by the Palestine Solidarity Alliance reads.
“Her actions to shut down the tabling were fully justified, and are part of a long and celebrated CUNY legacy of confronting groups such as military recruiters who disseminate misleading information,” the groups added.
“Anti-abortion groups are in collusion with anti-queer and trans, anti-labor, anti-Palestinian campaigns, in a larger violate people’s bodily autonomy, economic well-being, and collective determination.”
A spokesperson for the school told Fox News that the college was “taking the matter very seriously,” and that the provost had “opened an investigation into the professor’s actions.”
Rodriguez is actively involved in the Take Back the Bronx movement, a self-described “radical grassroots collective organizing for community control of the hood.” According to the art teacher’s personal website, her work consists of “text, drawing, painting, collage and sculpture to depict spaces and subjects engaged in strategies of survival against erasure and subjugation.”
On Tuesday, after the story made national headlines, Reuben Fenton, a New York Post reporter, knocked on Rodriguez’s front door for an interview. However, the academic instead threatened the journo with a machete and expressed her desire to “chop” him.
“Get the f**k away from my door, or I’m gonna chop you up with this machete! Get the f**k away from my door! Get the f**k away from my door!” Rodriguez screams before chasing Fenton outside in broad daylight.
“Get the f**k off the block! Get the f**k out of here, yo!” the art teacher screams while wielding a machete.