Professor Who Threatened Reporter With Machete Fired Again, Due to Anti-Israel Comments

NEW YORK (VINnews) — Shellyne Rodriguez, a professor who was caught on camera holding a machete to a NY Post reporter’s neck–and later fired–has been fired AGAIN after an “anti-Israel rant.”

“Cooper Union has fired me because of a social media post I made about ‘Zionists,’” Rodriguez wrote in an email to students, which was shared on Instagram by the School’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter.

“This is fascism,” she wrote. “Y’all are learning about it in real-time.”

Hunter College professor Shellyne Rodriguez held a machete to a New York Post reporter’s neck.
He questioned her about a viral video she was in where she attacked Pro-Life students on campus.#AttemptedMurder #TheViolentLeft pic.twitter.com/Au19xyWxnv

— Justin Theory (@realJustATheory) May 23, 2023

While the NY Post was unable to confirm which of her many vicious and depraved anti-Israel posts led to Rodriguez’s termination, they made note of one highly antisemitic post calling for landlords and businesses to cut ties with Israel. She participated in a virtual panel last month in which she spoke about the possibility of a boycott movement involving Jewish landlords or landlords who support Israel. Her remarks included, “the idea that we could be a Trojan horse, that we are inside empire, and you’re here to upend it.” Of others supporting Israel, she said, “You probably wait tables where they go to brunch. Find them, go to their offices, don’t let them sleep.”

“Jewish students at Cooper Union are very relieved that they fired her,” said Jeffrey Lax, a CUNY law professor and a staunch Jewish campus advocate who devotes much of his time to fighting CUNY antisemitism. “Her comments were really despicable,” he said, referring to the CUNY panel.

“Normally, I would say I commend the university for taking action against this professor but in this case, how can I possibly say that? She did something far worse before they hired her. I mean, she held a knife to a reporter’s neck,” Lax said. “They’re not to be commended, they should be ashamed of themselves.”

Cooper Union Students for Justice in Palestine wrote:“This firing represents an intense escalation of McCarthyist repression meant to intimidate and punish those in support of a Free Palestine and must be resisted to prevent its further normalisation and the ongoing genocide in Gaza.”

Last year Rodriguez was fired from Hunter College in New York. This time, Cooper Union in Manhattan. In May she was fired after she threatened to ‘chop up’ a reporter who questioned her about a video in which she attacked Pro-Life students on campus.

The firing comes about three months after a terrifying incident in which Jewish students at Cooper Union were forced to barricade themselves inside the university’s library, as pro-Hamas protesters aggressively pounded on the building’s doors.