Four CUNY Professors Say They Were Fired for Supporting Palestine

Four adjunct professors at the City University of New York say the university fired them because of their activism for Palestine The administration s decision to cut ties came as a surprise to both the faculty and their department heads who had already recommended their reappointment and assigned them classes in fall certain of which had learner waitlists The affected professors and faculty in endorsement of them reported they remained in good standing with their academic departments and had great reviews from students The university has not given an official reason for ending its relationship with the professors who all taught at Brooklyn College and did not clarify their decision in a request for comment from The Intercept The university terminated one professor and did not reappoint three of them We re filling in the blanks because they ve explained us nothing stated one of the four affected professors who requested anonymity for fear of being doxxed and harassed The only reason we know it s related to Palestine is because that s the only thing we have in common She and three others are fighting for reappointment and have filed grievances with Brooklyn College When she first received a notification in June from human materials that she would not be reappointed to teach she flagged the person in her department who assigned her classes He thought it was a mistake and that we must have checked the wrong box she disclosed That confusion made her believe the decision had nothing to do with her teaching ability The decision made by our departments was to hire us The decision made by the Administration was to fire us she noted It s just sending a message that no one s job is safe The decision made by our departments was to hire us The decision made by the Administration was to fire us The Professional Staff Congress or PSC the main labor union for CUNY faculty and the CUNY chapter of Faculty for Justice in Palestine have both revealed the professors removal violates due process and free speech rights The union disclosed it has written at least four times to the college administration requesting more information and has not received clarity on why these professors were let go In a June letter to CUNY Chancellor F lix V Matos Rodr guez PSC President James Davis demanded the professors reinstatement and noted their non-reappointment and termination as highly irregular Davis noted that the classes remained on the schedule even when the instructors were let go In no affair was the job performance of the instructor evaluated as unsatisfactory In no situation did the college inform the instructor or the department chair of a misconduct finding that could warrant such an action In no occurrence was it the department chair who notified the instructor of the non-reappointment nor was the chair notified in advance he wrote While the unexplained nonreappointment of teaching adjuncts is not extraordinary at CUNY this fact pattern is deeply concerning What the four instructors who lost their CUNY jobs at the same time have in common is their masses protest against Israel and advocacy for Palestinian rights What the four instructors who lost their CUNY jobs at the same time have in common is their inhabitants protest against Israel and advocacy for Palestinian rights A separate letter from more than Jewish CUNY faculty and staff addressed to Matos Rodr guez condemned the removal of the four professors and argued that the decision violated departmental academic autonomy to determine staffing for scheduled classes Firing them does not make CUNY New York City New York State nor the United States safer for Jews they wrote Firing our colleagues is an abhorrent act setting a dangerous precedent The staffing changes at CUNY came in the lead-up to a congressional hearing Tuesday morning probing declares of antisemitism on college campuses University leaders from CUNY University of California Berkeley and Georgetown University testified before the House Coaching and Workforce Committee On July New York City Councilmember Inna Vernikov called the termination of the four professors and the modern suspension of participant organizer Hadeeqa Arzoo Malik who leads City College of New York s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter a last ditch attempt to save face In Vernikov was arrested after she openly carried a gun at a pro-Palestinian protest at Brooklyn College the charges were later dismissed Both she and Rep Elise Stefanik D-N Y accused CUNY s chancellor of trying to back out of testifying At Tuesday s hearing Stefanik launched baseless attacks on other CUNY faculty members She pushed for disciplining law professor Ramzi Kassem on the grounds that he represented Mahmoud Khalil and Saly Abd Alla the university s chief diversity officer over her past work as a civil rights director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Minnesota Does it concern you that New York taxpayers are paying for the legal defense fund of Mahmoud Khalil she petitioned Matos Rodr guez Matos Rodr guez reported he was not familiar with those individual employees but stressed that any employee who violates CUNY s rules will be investigated He revealed CUNY had no complaints related to Abd Alla and that she is not directly involved with handling cases related to students and faculty Pro-Palestinian protesters repeatedly interrupted the hearing As Matos Rodr guez spoke one person yelled Israel is burning children alive Later in the hearing another protester also shouted to disrupt Matos Rodr guez s remarks prompting Rep Randy Fine R-Fla to say Shut up and get out of here get out of here you loser Matos Rodr guez emphasized the university s zero tolerance procedures for encampments and commented it had hired full-time assurance employees and contracted with measure personnel He revealed the university disciplined three students as a conclusion of the encampments Rep Alma Adams D-N C relayed to the chancellor CUNY faculty members concerns about professors who were not reappointed despite having fully enrolled classes scheduled for the fall As a former professor myself and a department chair somebody who believes deeply in transparency and fairness I want to ask you would you be willing to follow up with my office and provide more information on the policies and procedures that guide faculty appointments and reappointments at CUNY she appealed Matos Rodr guez revealed he was willing to cooperate fully with the committee This was the ninth event held by Congress focused on indicates of antisemitism on campus since October None have been held to address Islamophobia or anti-Palestinian discrimination Earlier high-profile hearings probed leaders from Harvard University Columbia University and the University of Pennsylvania the presidents of those schools all resigned after testifying The CUNY Georgetown and UC Berkeley chapters of Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine signed off on a letter before the hearing calling on their respective presidents to defend their institutions from baseless attacks and affirm principles of academic freedom and free speech They must oppose the weaponizing of antisemitism through the equation of Jewish safety with the silencing and exclusion of those who speak up for Palestinian freedom and an end to genocide the comment read The faculty argued in the letter that these congressional hearings have routinely shown university administrators inaccurate examples of antisemitism and used that to pressure them to crack down on students and employees These hearings are political theater That s all they are Free speech experts agree with that assessment These hearings are political theater That s all they are explained David Cole a Georgetown Law professor who testified in his maximum as an expert on the First Amendment at an earlier hearing in May It almost doesn t matter what the university presidents say there is no effort to even determine what the truth is what genuinely happened or whether any legal lines have been crossed Professors across the country are worried about their speech and actions being policed under an overly broad definition of antisemitism The American Association of University Professors a union representing about members nationwide has criticized the conflation of antisemitism with criticism of Israel In the meantime the professors who can no longer work with CUNY are scrambling to find another source of income and protect themselves from doxxing and harassment One of the four CUNY professors reported it feels as though CUNY s administration is opposed to protecting attendee safety She recalled trying to protect students at Brooklyn College s encampment in May as faculty placed themselves strategically between police and students We just knew that something really bad was going to happen she revealed Now she s scared to speak publicly She also misses teaching It was not only the way I made my living but also what gave me purpose she revealed Despite the costs she is still committed to the Palestinian cause The reality is it is working What they re doing is working she explained This repression is repressive but I feel strongly that I can t let it stop me The situation in Gaza is so extreme we have to continue to fight and I think it s shameful for anyone to be fired for opposing a genocide History will not treat this period kindly Another of the professors is worried about covering their oldest child s college tuition I don t know if my family will have to move what we ll do about medical insurance or whether the right-wing groups now doxxing me will escalate their harassment they disclosed Though no reason was given for my firing it s impossible not to see this as retaliation for supporting students and for exercising my lawful political expression outside the classroom they stated Though no reason was given for my firing it s impossible not to see this as retaliation They have no plans to slow their activism around Palestine Absolutely not In the face of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians killed entire families wiped off the earth every university destroyed and the widespread obliteration of agricultural land and hospitals I cannot and will not be silent The post Four CUNY Professors Say They Were Fired for Supporting Palestine appeared first on The Intercept