On governor’s order, CUNY college removes job posting for course demonizing Israel

Hunter College had advertised for a professor to teach a Palestine Studies class on “apartheid,” “genocide,” and “settler colonialism.”

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

On the order of New York Governor Kathy Hochul, a college in the City University of New York (CUNY) system removed on Tuesday a job posting for a Palestine Studies course that would have demonized Israel.

Hunter College had sought “a historically grounded scholar who takes a critical lens to issues pertaining to Palestine including but not limited to: settler colonialism, genocide, human rights, apartheid, migration, climate and infrastructure devastation, health, race, gender, and sexuality.”

A spokesperson for the governor told The New York Post that Hochul “directed CUNY to immediately remove this job posting and conduct a thorough review of the position to ensure that antisemitic theories are not promoted in the classroom.”

“The governor has continued to strongly condemn all forms of antisemitism and has made clear that hateful rhetoric of any kind has no place at CUNY or anywhere in New York State,” the spokesperson added.

CUNY’s chancellor and the head of its board of trustees told the paper that they “strongly agreed” with Hochul’s move, saying the language of the job listing was “divisive, polarizing, and inappropriate.”

Their statement added that CUNY would continue working “to tackle antisemitism on our campuses and combat hate in all of its forms.”

The Post said that the college had “initially defended the job posting” on the afternoon before it was cancelled.

The “vacancy announcement” had infuriated many Jewish groups, including the American Jewish Committee (AJC), which slammed it as a course that would “further a divisive, one-sided narrative that would have been replete with falsehoods about Israel.”

Former longtime CUNY trustee Jeffrey Wiesenfeld had asked, “What the hell are the trustees at CUNY doing allowing a course like this to be accredited?”

“To make a Palestinian Studies’ course — completely about alleged Jewish crimes — is akin to courses offered in the Nazi era which ascribed all the world’s crimes to the Jews. This course takes antisemitism to another level at CUNY,” he added.

The AJC thanked Hochul immediately “for ordering the listing’s removal and ensuring that taxpayer dollars are not used to stoke hatred toward Israel, which often turns into outright antisemitism.”

Several CUNY campuses, including Hunter College, have allowed vicious anti-Israel protests and left unchecked the harassment of Jewish students since the war in Gaza began on October 7, 2023, when Hamas terrorists overran southern Israel and slaughtered 1,200 people while taking 251 as hostages.

Hunter was one of five CUNY institutions investigated and found wanting last year by the US Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) for failing to prevent and respond to antisemitic discrimination and bullying.

An independent, 10-month review of antisemitism at the 25 CUNY institutions that Hochul ordered last year reported in September that there was an “alarming” level of Jew hatred on the campuses that was not being dealt with properly.