CUNY Law Dean applauds student’s ‘hate speech’ against Israel, NYPD, and military
CUNY Law School’s dean came under fire Tuesday when video emerged of her clapping at a graduate’s incendiary May 12 commencement address that the public university’s trustees belatedly labeled “hate speech.”
“Everyone was applauding on the stage. The dean applauded,” Jeffey Lax, a professor who is co-founder of the pro-Jewish Students and Faculty for Equality at CUNY, said of Dean Sudha Setty and others.
It took more than two weeks for top officials at the City University of New York Law School to denounce the commencement speech of 2023 graduate Fatima Mousa Mohammed.
In her address, Mohammed blasted the NYPD “fascist” and accused Israel of indiscriminately murdering Palestinians.
Outraged critics — who have called for stripping the public institution of its billions of dollars in annual taxpayer funding — complained that this was the second year in a row that CUNY Law’s student speaker has bashed Israel.
Last year, student speaker Nordeen Kiswani used her commencement speech to complain about a “campaign of Zionist harassment by well-funded organizations with ties to the Israeli government and military on the basis of my Palestinian identity and organizing.”
The law school’s faculty council also passed a resolution supporting the pro-Palestinian boycott, sanctions and divestment movement against Israel in support of the students.
The outrage over CUNY Law’s commence activities last year is one of the reasons the City Council had held a hearing about Jewish students’ complaints of anti-Semitism at the university’s 25 campuses.
A CUNY insider said Mohammed submitted a draft of her speech to the law school’s higher-ups this year before graduation. Her talk was only supposed to last 4 minutes — but the grad’s eventual hate-spewed tirade went on for 13 minutes.
“[Mohammed] deviated from the speech she submitted to the law school,” a CUNY official said.
Setty and the law school and CUNY’s central administration refused to disclose who received and reviewed Mohammed’s speech, nor did it provide a copy of the draft she submitted.
CUNY brass Tuesday finally slammed her speech as unacceptable “hate speech” unfitting for a commencement — after much outcry.
“Free speech is precious, but often messy, and is vital to the foundation of higher education,” said the statement released Tuesday by CUNY Board of Trustees Chairman Bill Thompson, Vice Chair Sandra Wilkin and Chancellor Felix Matos Rodriguez.
“Hate speech, however, should not be confused with free speech and has no place on our campuses or in our city, our state or our nation,” said the CUNY executives.
“The remarks by a student-selected speaker at the CUNY Law School graduation, unfortunately, fall into the category of hate speech as they were a public expression of hate toward people and communities based on their religion, race or political affiliation. The Board of Trustees of the City University of New York condemns such hate speech.”
The statement does not say what if any action CUNY leadership might take to address the problem of hate speech that has been permitted at its law school commencement.
Mohammed declined to comment on her speech when reached by The Post at a relative’s home in Queens on Monday.
“I do not want to speak to anybody,” Mohammed said over the kin’s speaker phone, refusing to give her own phone number and saying she did not want to be contacted there again.
A Jewish leader said Fatima’s hateful graduation speech should never have been allowed.
“Commencement speeches are supposed to be aspirational and inspirational. They are not supposed to be hateful tirades. Save that for another day,” said Joseph Postasnik, vice chairman of the New York Board of Rabbis.
“CUNY has to rethink its commencement exercises. It only seems to be happening at the law school.”
Gov. Kathy Hochul, who appoints members to the CUNY governing board, was asked about the controversy and said through a spokesman Tuesday that she “has always been a steadfast supporter of Israel and condemns antisemitism in all forms.”
This year’s student commencement speech was the second controversy to engulf CUNY in just days.
A CUNY-Hunter College arts professor was arrested on harassment and menacing charges last week for threatening a Post reporter with a machete.
During her hotly controversial speech, Mohammed praised the faculty council for previously supporting the anti-Israel BSD resolution.
Mohammed, a Yemeni native, accused the Jewish state of being “colonial settlers.
“Israel continues to indiscriminately rain bullets and bombs on worshippers, murdering the old, the young and even attacking funerals and graveyards, as it encourages lynch mobs to target Palestinians homes and businesses. As it imprisons its children, as it continues its project of settler colonialism, expelling Palestinians from their homes. Silence is no longer acceptable,” she said to cheers.
Even before the latest commencement controversy, the state Division of Human Rights opened a bombshell probe into whether CUNY’s School of Law discriminated against Jews when its faculty council passed the resolution last year supporting the BDS movement targeting Israel.
Lax, a Kingsborough Community College professor who filed the complaint against the law school, said Mohammed’s hate-filled speech bolsters his case that the school is biased against devout Jewish and Zionist students.
“BDS is actively being implemented at the law school,” Lax said.
He also said the speech called for “destruction” of the United States.
“The language she used was a call to insurrection and the end of capitalism,” added Lax, referring to Mohammed’s references to the NYPD and the US military as “fascist.”
Jewish leaders said the atmosphere at the CUNY law school is unwelcoming to devout and Zionist Jews who believe Israel is their ancestral homeland.
“Jewish students are not welcome at the CUNY Law school. That has to change,” Rabbi Potasnik said.
The rabbi said there is constant bashing of the Jewish state at CUNY Law while other countries such as Iran and China that deny democratic rights get a pass.
“It’s Israel all the time. That smacks anti-Semitism,” he said. “Free speech is a two-way street.”
The law school’s student government makes clear that it is pro-Palestinian and stands strongly behind the BDS movement against Israel.
One of the first items posted on its Instagram page is a statement that touts its passage of the BDS resolution, which it claims is also supported by its Jewish students.
“Through the resolution, CUNY’s vibrant community of anti-Zionist Palestinian, Muslim, Arab, and Jewish students, faculty, staff and allies demonstrated a historic commitment to stand against all forms of colonial dispossession and exploitation,” the student government statement said.
