Matthew Kassel
Jewish Insider, June 1, 2023
“KC Johnson, a professor of American history at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center, believes the strategy “left unresolved” whether Biden officials are “willing to confront hardline critics of Israel whose words or actions stray into antisemitism.” The administration now has “an example of this,” Johnson told JI, alluding to the CUNY commencement speech. “The question is, what are they going to do about it?”
Just a week after the Biden administration unveiled a sweeping national strategy for combating antisemitism, its proposed plan for handling alleged incidents of anti-Jewish prejudice on college campuses is facing a key early test.
The City University of New York drew an outcry this week when its law school released video of an incendiary address in which a student-selected speaker, Fatima Mohammed, accused Israel of “indiscriminate” killings and called for a “fight against capitalism, racism, imperialism and Zionism around the world.” Mohammed also claimed that CUNY was “committed to its donors, not to its students,” among other statements echoing anti-Jewish tropes.
The speech, which was widely condemned as antisemitic, marked the second instance in two years that a CUNY Law School commencement speaker had singled out the Jewish state for condemnation. Meanwhile, CUNY officials have drawn scrutiny from critics who believe that the university system — long viewed as a haven for Jewish students — has failed to address a broader uptick in anti-Israel activity across its campuses, making Jewish students and faculty members feel unwelcome.
In recent interviews with a range of Jewish leaders, elected officials, academics and other experts, one major refrain was that the CUNY incident presents a timely opportunity for the Biden administration to put its new White House strategy to work, even if it remains unclear how it would translate words into action.
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