Fordham’s Calmer Campus
With many colleges and universities having had their campuses taken over by student protesters during the last couple of months, how is it that some campuses did not have that same ruckus?
Speaking at the Fordham University Alumni legislative reception recently, the current president of the university, Tania Tetlow, had some thoughts on the issue.
Tetlow alluded to how the student body avoided falling into the trap of campus protests that afflicted so many other nearby campuses. “At this moment the world our students have grown up in, with social media where they learned how to swipe a screen before they could walk, is a world full of vitriol and turmoil and toxic rhetoric and anonymous bullying. In that world that is modeled all around them, we have to make our campus be the opposite of that. We are taking moments of great pressure ever more seriously,” she said. “How do we teach, not just mere civility, not just the free speech right to yell at each other, but how do we teach grace, how do we fundamentally teach the superpower of discernment, which to some is the opposite of social media land?”
Tetlow, has been president of the university since 2022, the first woman and first layperson to hold that position. “It’s about being patient. It’s about assuming good intentions. It’s about listening hard to people with whom you disagree. It’s about trying to persuade them, not by calling them a fascist, but by really trying to profoundly persuade and be willing to constantly be humble enough to be wrong,” she explained.
The audience included members of the state legislature who are Fordham alumni – there are nine of them. “We know how much power our alumni exercise while they go out into the world. You demonstrate that every day, all of you. We know that when we can make you into the kind of person that’s not just a brilliant graduate full of knowledge but a good citizen and most of all, a good human being, you become a first multiplier for everything that we do,” Tetlow said.
Established as St. John’s College on June 24, 1841, the university, based in the Bronx, was renamed Fordham University on March 7, 1907. Tetlow noted that the university was founded as a Jesuit school at a time when “Catholic students weren’t particularly welcome at the elite institutions elsewhere and we became the place of welcome for Jewish students and increasingly opening our doors wider and wider, living up to our values.”
“We, now at Fordham, look to a world full of turmoil and to a generation really desperate to matter. A generation that feels a whole lot of despair and cynicism about what is to come and about what the world has in store for them,” she said. “What they want is a university that matters to the world, that cares and has credibility in that. Higher education right now is on the front line. It’s an exciting time to be a university president because what we do matters to the world.”
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Cuomo Speaks In Crown Heights
Former Governor Andrew Cuomo, a Fordham University graduate, has been making the rounds at Baptist churches in New York City preaching his special philosophical brand of gospel.
On Sunday, May 19, he spoke to the congregants of the First Baptist Church of Crown Heights, located at 450 Eastern Parkway. Cuomo gave his reaction to the legislative budget, and shared his views on immigration, public housing, legalization of marijuana, and mayoral control of the New York City school system.
“We have not achieved enough progress quickly enough. Public housing has been bad for a long, long time. It’s been deteriorating and allowed to go on for too long. The need for affordable housing is at one of the all-time highs. Federal and state production is at one of the all-time lows. The city feels out of control. There are too many guns, there is too much violence, we are losing too many young people. Seventy-five percent of the victims of crime are Black and brown. There are 2,000 illegal pot shops in the city and they are selling to children. How did we let this happen? The whole city smells like everyone’s wearing the same cologne and the same perfume. I call it Eau de Zondra,” Cuomo, 66, said amidst chuckles in the crowd.
“Mayoral control – one of the great assets that we had,” he continued. “[Our control over] the education of our children just went backwards this past session where the Albany politicians now have more control over the education of our children.
“Two hundred thousand migrants [have come] to New York City. The federal government has no idea what they are doing. You say on the border, ‘Anyone who wants to come, you can come and I’ll pay for the hotel, I’ll pay for your food, I’ll pay for your school, I’ll pay for your education,’ of course, they are going to come. Mayor [Eric] Adams is right. The federal and state governments loaded them all into New York City, not upstate, not Westchester, not Long Island, all into New York City. Then they give New York City the bill and New York City taxpayers are paying the bill. Remember the danger of complacency and remember the power of the truth,” Cuomo concluded.
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Anti-Israel Legislation Introduced
Meanwhile, a group of five pro-Palestinian lawmakers rallied on the Million-Dollar Staircase at the state Capitol for a bill called the “Not On Our Dime Act.” The sponsors of the measure are all aligned with the Democratic Socialists of America, and include Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani (D – Astoria, Queens), 32, a Muslim who hails from Kampala, Uganda, as well as Senator Jabari Brisport, 38, (D – Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn), a Caribbean-American.
Others supporting the measure who attended the rally include three female members of the Assembly: Sarahana Shrestha, 43, (D – Esopus, Ulster County), a native of Kathmandu, Nepal; Emily Gallagher, 40, (D – Williamsburg, Brooklyn); and Marcela Mitaynes, 50, (D – Sunset Park, Brooklyn), a native of Peru. (Assemblywoman Phara Souffrant Forrest (D – Crown Heights, Brooklyn), 35, the daughter of Haitian immigrants, and Senator Kristen Gonzalez (D – Astoria, Queens), 28, a Democratic Socialist Latina, did not attend the rally.)
Mamdani played emcee for the rally, opening by stating, “In this moment, New York state law allows for New Yorkers to get a tax deduction if they donate to the very kind of Israeli military unit that dropped bombs on innocent Palestinians. We gather here to demand the bare minimum, which is to end tax breaks for genocide. We cannot call this symbolic when New York state law has allowed New York charities to send more than $60 million a year to Israeli settler organizations. Join us in saying, ‘Not on our dime.’”
Brisport began his remarks with a chant to rile up the crowd: “Gaza, Gaza don’t you cry, we will never let you die.” After repeating that line, he continued, “Military aid to Israel has been funded at the state level through state policy that gives tax-exempt status to these fake charities that take money for the needy and use it to fund drones, military equipment, and the violent displacement of the Palestinian people from their homes. There is something so dark and despicable about taking money that is supposed to go to the elderly, to the sick, to the poor, and using it to harm those very same people. To that we say, ‘Not on our dime.’”
Shrestha made a point of continuing to chastise the state government. “American taxpayers are subsidizing Israeli settler violence through New York state-registered charities. It’s not just settler violence that we’re funding,” she said. “We are also funding the dismantling of our own democracy through many of these same charities. New York must stand for democracy, for human rights and for common decency. That is the work we are here to do. Whether it is affordable housing, whether it’s universal health care, whether it’s immigrant rights, Not On Our Dime belongs in the state legislature just like any other bill that seeks to make good change in our state.”
Gallagher, whose district includes the religious Jewish enclave of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, recently added her name to the measure after revealing that she was scared and her colleagues had warned her it would be political suicide to be a part of this anti-Israel effort. “Endless military occupation is a crime,” she said. “So is the theft of land and the collective punishment of a civilian population. Yet here in New York state, organizations [that] have raised money to perpetrate these violations of international law and human rights violations enjoy tax-exempt status as non-profit charities. That must end. There are so many incredible, fantastic, wonderful charities in my district that are run by incredible Jewish organizations and they do not deserve to be paired up with these criminals.”
Mitaynes accused Israel of war crimes. “It is shameful that our state helps people fund illegal settlements in a war that targets civilian populations. Not On Our Dime makes sure that New York does not support war crimes. This legislation does the bare minimum that the state can’t classify financial support for war as charitable giving. It’s important that we use every opportunity to show our opposition to this war. I will continue to stand shoulder to shoulder with my Palestinian brothers and sisters as we march and fight for justice.”
There were also organizations speaking at the rally in support of the measure. “Our governments hide their complicity. They hide their own financial and imperial interests behind the justification that ‘We do it for Jewish safety.’ Don’t you dare use our families as a justification for endorsing Israel’s horror show against the Palestinian people,” said Elena Stein, director of organizing strategy for Jewish Voice for Peace. “Don’t you dare call this bill and its supporters antisemitic for asking for the bare minimum to end tax breaks for Israeli’s war crimes. Don’t you dare. The fastest growing segment of your Jewish constituency demands an end to this state subsidizing Israel’s ravaging of the Palestinian people.”
Mamdani would not provide an answer when asked by The Jewish Press whether he distinguishes the Palestinians from Hamas. “We are standing here in support of Palestinian people. What we are saying is that they deserve that which every other person deserves – freedom, safety and liberty. Too often, calls for Palestinian freedom have been mischaracterized as if they are the denial of humanity to others or they are the support for specific groups when in fact what this is at its core is a humanist campaign that says universal values must truly be universal. They cannot be denied any longer,” Mamdani said. “This is a coalition and a commitment that is built until we pass this bill. Our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.”
The measure does not have enough support to be voted on this year.
