At Least 50 CUNY Professors Quit Union Over Resolution Calling Israel A ‘Settler-Colonial State’

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The East Quad at Brooklyn College, which is part of the CUNY system. (Wikimedia Commons)

NEW YORK (JTA) — At least 50 professors at the City University of New York have quit their union following passage of a resolution condemning Israel.

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The New York Post on Sunday quoted James Davis, president of the Professional Staff Congress, as saying that the professors have quit in the wake of the resolution or signaled their intention to do so. The union represents academic staff at CUNY.

Davis suggested that there was an effort to bring back the disaffected professors.

“We are in active dialogue with members who have expressed concern over the resolution,” he told the Post.

The resolution, which was passed June 10, was introduced in the wake of the Israel-Gaza conflict the previous month and referred to Israel’s “establishment as a settler-colonial state in 1948″ — language often used to reject Israel’s existence as a Jewish state. The measure describes the events leading up to the renewed fighting in May and during the conflict only in terms of Israeli attacks without referencing Hamas attacks on Israel.

Hamas, the terrorist group that controls the Gaza strip, launched the Gaza portion of the conflict with a barrage of rocket attacks on May 9.

The resolution also calls on the union to consider joining the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel.

Yedidyah Langsam, the chairman of Brooklyn’s College’s Computer and Information Science Department, launched the appeal to other faculty to resign from the union. He said the resolution made Jewish faculty feel unsafe.

“By endorsing this resolution you have made many Jewish faculty and students uncomfortable with being associated with Brooklyn College and CUNY to the point of fearing for our safety,” he said in a letter to Davis quoted by the Post. “Have you and your colleagues forgotten the exponential increase in anti-Semitic attacks against Jews in the NY City area?”

The CUNY system has 25 colleges spread across New York City’s five boroughs.


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16 Comments
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Louisa Litvak
Louisa Litvak
2 years ago

All should quit. Fight back , have some pride.

physics major
physics major
2 years ago

I salute the dozen jewish nobel prize laureates graduates of CCNY/CUNY back in the days when it was known as “poor harvard”.

Long gone are the days of the academia that adhered to the concept of honesty in research.

Just like most universities today are cesspools of progressivism and anti-semitism, so too CUNY is no exception.

The best advice I can give to new students, there are poles with signs that say “take five” on CCNY campus. Wait by them and walk with 4 more people. It is a wild jungle out there.

YITZCHOKLEVI
YITZCHOKLEVI
2 years ago

Kudos to them for quitting and not remaining silent. The leadership of Jewish organizations need to get behind them and publicly support their cause.
Also, Dov Hikind seems to be very good at gaining press attention. He should get involved.

Democrats always back the islamic terrorists.
Democrats always back the islamic terrorists.
2 years ago

Leftist democrat party Jew hating scum which the ADL being democrat party hacks ignore.

triumphinwhitehouse
triumphinwhitehouse
2 years ago

legally in NYS you CANNOT quit a union.

Just2Truth
Just2Truth
2 years ago

Truth hurts. Ouch. The secular Zionists created a new form of anti-semitism. I’m pro BDS as long as the line is drawn between Judaism and Zionism.