The level of ant-Jewish “hateful, anti-Semitic and violence-inciting conduct” by members of Students for Justice In Palestine (SJP) at four City University of New York campuses has been growing alarmingly, while the university isn’t doing enough to protect them, the Zionist Organization of America has complained in a 14-page letter to CUNY’s chancellor and board of trustees.
ZOA urged the university to investigate the group with an eye to banning it from all 23 university campuses. “Please do not wait until the situation escalates further and someone gets hurt,” wrote ZOA President Morton Klein. “This group does not deserve a place on any CUNY campus until it can demonstrate that it will respect and abide by the rules and standards that apply to everyone else.”
Among the incidents cited by ZOA:
At John Jay College, which specializes in criminal justice, Jewish students have been the target of so many slurs that at least three have transferred. One John Jay administrator responded to a Jewish student’s concerns by saying, “What are these white kids complaining about?”
On Nov. 12 at Hunter College, during a demonstration for free tuition, Jewish students were denounced as “racist sons of bitches,” “fascists” and “Nazis” and were greeted with comments such as “Jews out of CUNY.” One student tweeted at the time, “Full-blown anti-Semitism allowed at my college . . . I witnessed this and froze in fear.”
At Brooklyn College, the pro-Palestinian group disrupted a faculty meeting last week and called a professor wearing a yarmulke a “Zionist pig.” Brooklyn College slammed the “hateful” comments and the disruption.
At the College of Staten Island, a pro-Palestinian demonstrator told a Jewish student last November, “I don’t hug murderers.” Swastikas also defaced the college’s desks and walls.
“Such bigotry would never be tolerated by CUNY if it were being directed against another ethnic, racial or other targeted group,” Klein wrote. “CUNY should not be tolerating it when the bigotry is directed against Jews.”
A CUNY official said it just received ZOA’s letter on Tuesday and that a detailed response would be issued after consulting with campus officials.
CUNY also noted that the university’s college presidents had issued statements condemning some of the incidents of bigotry mentioned in the ZOA letter.