Dozens of Jewish activists are demanding the dismissal of CUNY Law School Dean Sudha Setty in response to a hate-filled speech delivered last month by a graduate at the school’s commencement ceremonies.
The activists declared a “state of emergency” in a demonstration Wednesday outside CUNY’s Manhattan headquarters.
Gerard Filitti, senior counsel at The Lawfare Project, said in a statement Wednesday, “We have declared a ‘State of Emergency’ at CUNY and organized today’s rally because Jew hatred has become systemic throughout its schools, and nowhere is it more visible than at the law school.”
In addition, the activists – who comprise the #EndJewHatred coalition that organized the demonstration – made several other demands:
• boot any professor who endorsed or approved of Mohammed’s Jew-targeting May 12 commencement speech;
• implement mandatory antisemitism training;
• apply and enforce the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism;
• punish students who engage in antisemitism, and
• ban the practice of allowing students to select a commencement speaker.
The demonstration joins the growing wave of Jewish outrage over remarks by Fatima Mohammed attacking both Jews and the State of Israel, claiming the Jewish State “indiscriminately” kills “innocent Palestinians.”
The Canary Mission organization, which compiles dossiers on anti-Israel and antisemitic activists, noted on its page devoted to the young hater, “During the speech, Mohammed promoted violence, spread hatred of Israel and the police, honored terrorist financiers and showed support for the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.”
Mohammed’s speech, in which she accused Israel of encouraging “lynch mobs,” inspired another hateful college graduate to spew the same garbage at her own commencement in Torrance, California shortly thereafter.
Nor did Mohammed refrain from attacking the institution from which was graduating: she slammed CUNY for continuing to “train and cooperate with the fascist NYPD, the military.”
Seated behind her on the dais, Dean Setty was seen applauding the hateful remarks. CUNY Chairperson Bill Thompson and Chancellor Felix Matos later issued a belated statement nearly two weeks later on behalf of the school’s trustees, acknowledging that Mohammed’s remarks “fall into the category of hate speech.”
In response, a coalition of Jewish legal groups has also urged the American Bar Association to consider stripping its accreditation from CUNY Law School. Such a move would deprive the school’s graduates from sitting for the bar exam in any American state.
“The fact of the matter is, Ms. Mohammed’s speech did not occur in a vacuum and was not an isolated incident,” said the lawyer groups, according to the New York Post.
“That her remarks were reviewed and pre-approved by CUNY Law School, only underscores that the school has cultivated a deliberate and dangerous staging ground for the systematic promotion of antisemitism, BDS activities and anti-Zionism, in which Jewish students, faculty and staff are relentlessly harassed, discriminated against and targeted with racial hatred.”
Mohammed’s Hate Inspires Others
Jordanian-born El Camino Community College student Jana Abulaban, 18, said she was “gifting” her graduation to “all Palestinians who have lost their life (sic) and those who continue to lose their lives every day due to the oppressive, apartheid state of Israel, killing and torturing Palestinians as we speak.”
Abulaban, who served as head of the college’s Associated Students Organization, told the New York Post that she was “inspired” by Mohammed’s speech.
El Camino received approximately $150 million in federal, state and local tax money for the 2022 – 2023 school year, according to a review of its budget by the Stop Antisemitism organization.
