The ancient virus, CUNY edition

Anti-Semitism has emerged as a potent force on many college campuses. The rule of political correctness have freed it up to stand naked and unashamed. Take a look at the brief video below from a student protest at CUNY Hunter; Ruthie Blum writes about it in the Alegemeiner column posted here.

According to Ruthie, the protest in took place in Manhattan on Thursday afternoon after organizers on Facebook called for participants to oppose the school’s “Zionist administration.” The protest had been advertised on Facebook by “NYC Students for Justice in Palestine” and other affiliate groups using anti-Semitic slurs to attribute the financial plight of students in the City University of New York system to its “Zionist administration [that] invests in Israeli companies, companies that support the Israeli occupation, hosts birthright programs and study abroad programs in occupied Palestine, and reproduces settler-colonial ideology … through Zionist content of education… [aiming] to produce the next generation of professional Zionists.” Not too tough to get a handle on the nature of the proceedings.

Warned of the event in advance, the university vice chancellor emailed a statement supporting the speech rights of students. Former CUNY trustee Jeffrey S. Wiesenfeld, for one, was not amused. He wrote CUNY Executive Vice Chancellor Jay Hershenson by email: “I am cautioning you and strongly urging that you have [CUNY Chancellor James B.] Milliken make a statement of condemnation of this virulent anti-Semitism. The blanket, meaningless omnibus statement about ‘free speech’ is itself abhorrent, as we would not tolerate these activities against any other ethnic or minority group.” After the event, the university posted a statement “strongly condemn[ing] anti-Semitic comments made at a rally last night seeking to exclude members of our campus community based solely on their identity.”

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