New York Governor Kathy Hochul ordered the City University of New York (CUNY) to immediately shut down a job posting for a “Palestinian Studies” teaching position at the state university system’s Hunter College last week, according to a report in NY Post. Ms Hochul’s office informed that the decision was taken to “ensure that antisemitic theories” were not promoted in the classrooms of the taxpayer-funded Upper East Side institution.
“Governor Hochul has directed CUNY to immediately remove this job posting and conduct a thorough review of the position to ensure that antisemitic theories are not promoted in the classroom,” Ms Hochul’s spokesperson said.
“The Governor has continued to strongly condemn all forms of antisemitism and has made clear that hateful rhetoric of any kind has no place at CUNY or anywhere in New York State.”
The decision was prompted after Jewish watchdog groups protested over the job posting and piled pressure on the administration to take action.
The job posting, which also said it was part of a Palestinian studies “cluster hire” for two positions, has since been taken down from CUNY’s website.
“We seek a historically grounded scholar who takes a critical lens to issues pertaining to Palestine including but not limited to: settler colonialism, genocide, human rights, apartheid, migration, climate and infrastructure devastation, health, race, gender, and sexuality,” read the job posting.
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Israel-Hamas war and US college campuses
Ever since the Israel-Hamas war reignited on October 7, 2023, free speech at major US college campuses has been tested. In December last year, a section of anti-Israeli students at Columbia University distributed a hateful broadsheet called The Columbia Intifada, across the campus.
The newspaper contained at least half a dozen articles with titles including “Zionist Peace Means Palestinian Blood,” “The Myth of the Two-State Solution” and a handy “Guide to Wheatpasting” – a method of vandalising public surfaces with propaganda fliers or other messaging.
Even CUNY campuses have been infested with Israeli bashing and antisemitism. An independent probe ordered by Ms Hochul in September last year found that CUNY needs a top-to-bottom overhaul to combat “alarming” antisemitism fanned by its own faculty and higher-ups.
