ABSURD: CUNY Appoints Former Official of Antisemitic CAIR To Oversee Investigation of Antisemitic Discrimination Against Jewish Professor

By now, the pandemic of antisemitism on university campuses is undeniable. The dominance of “woke” influences – from faculty to unions to progressive narratives and theories of identity – have yielded a perfect storm in which the single most reviled identity group is Jews. Campus groups are demanding that Jews denounce Israel and/or Judaism or are simply excluding Jews altogether. Jews are subject to bullying and abuse in class and out, often including threats of violence and increasingly including instances of actual violence.

Whereas universities famously have instituted “safe spaces” policies to “protect” favored groups from even being exposed to divergent opinions and ideas (and sometimes imposing actual segregation of groups), it is becoming more and more common that when Jews are being victimized, those same universities will turn a blind eye – or worse.

In one recent – almost unbelievable – example, an ACLJ client, who is a professor and chair of the business department at the Kingsborough Community College (KCC) campus of the City University of New York (CUNY), has struggled literally for years against manifest antisemitism, discrimination, hostility, threats, and abuse that he has both witnessed and personally endured on his campus.

Despite a finding by the federal government of a persistent pattern of antisemitism against him at KCC, the professor has still been unable to get any kind of reasonable response – and more recently, any response at all – from the KCC administration.

But attacks on Jews at CUNY are far from limited to KCC. So, on behalf of this professor and a number of his CUNY colleagues from other campuses, the ACLJ filed a Title VI complaint with the United States Department of Education, recounting just some of the shockingly pervasive antisemitism across the CUNY system of colleges and demanding federal government scrutiny and a determination as to whether federal funds must be withdrawn from CUNY. (Here it’s important to understand some background: Thanks to a December 2019 Executive order by President Trump, for the first time since the Civil Rights Act became law in 1964, Jews are now considered a group protected by Title VI. As a result, also for the first time, there are actual consequences if an institution that receives federal funds discriminates against Jews. The ACLJ worked closely with the Trump White House to effectuate that change.)

Meanwhile, treatment of the professor continued to deteriorate and both KCC and CUNY continued to stonewall. And when CUNY finally did decide to act, what it did shocked everyone.

As reported by JNS, the Jewish News Service:

[The professor] alleged pervasive discrimination and harassment against Zionists and Jews on campus, as well as retaliation and a hostile work environment created by Kingsborough President Claudia Schrader.

[His] complaint came as Kingsborough and CUNY were under increasing scrutiny due to skyrocketing rates of antisemitic incidents committed by members of the student body, faculty, staff and union leadership, with administrators accused of inaction.

In response to [these] allegations, CUNY placed its Chief Diversity Officer Saly Abd Alla in charge of the investigation. Abd Alla previously worked as a civil rights director with the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)’s Minnesota chapter.

For those unfamiliar with CAIR, CAIR is one of the most notorious anti-Israel and antisemitic organizations in America. In fact, CAIR was founded by radical Islamists associated with – and according to anti-terror experts, on behalf of – the genocidal antisemitic terrorist group Hamas. CAIR was an unindicted co-conspirator in one of the most notorious federal prosecutions of a terror-support network. And CAIR is known specifically to conspire closely with some of the most active antisemitic and anti-Israel provocateur groups on American campuses, like Jewish Voices for Peace (JVP) and Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP). In May of this year, even the decidedly Left-wing head of the ADL, denounced SJP, JVP, & CAIR  as “radical actors” on the Left who “indisputably and unapologetically regularly denigrate and dehumanize Jews.”

It’s impossible to overstate how hostile CUNY’s decision is to our clients and to Jews generally. (Imagine a university announcing that a proud, unrepentant Klan member or neo-Nazi is being given authority to determine whether there is discrimination against Jews or students of color on campus. This is no less ugly and depraved.)

After our client and others raised an outcry, CUNY seems to have backed off, but they have not yet explained their decision to hire Abd Allah as Chief Diversity Officer or to assign her to this particular complaint. Nor does it even matter at this point. Whether it is intentional hostility to Jews, mind-boggling disregard for the welfare of Jewish students, or a culture that simply accepts such hostility and disregard as a matter of course, CUNY’s hiring of a CAIR alumna in the first place and CUNY’s assigning her to this case in particular manifests a top-down culture of deep hostility to Jews and Jewish interests, concerns, and sensitivities.

The situation is ongoing and we will continue to keep you updated.