The City University of New York (CUNY) has been one of the schools at the forefront of the anti-Israel protest movement. This was true even before the 10/7 attack on Israel by Hamas, but afterwards it only escalated. In December, Gov. Kathy Hochul called for an independent investigation of the school.

Trying to stave off legal consequences, in December 2023, Gov. Kathy Hochul issued a letter to the presidents of New York’s colleges and universities declaring that failure to address “calls for genocide” made on college campuses “would constitute a violation of New York State Human Rights Law as well as Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.” In October, after the outbreak of campus protests, Hochul had asked former state Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman to review “CUNY policies and procedures,” with an eye to recommending actions for the CUNY Board of Trustees “to bolster its anti-discrimination policies and help protect Jewish students and faculty.”

Meanwhile, the extremism on campus persisted. Over the summer CUNY entered into a voluntary agreement with the US Dept. of Education which included a requirement that CUNY assess the climate on all of its campuses and provide training where needed. But as the new school year started in the fall there were signs that little had changed. If anything, things had arguably gotten worse.

On Tuesday night, Sept. 3, Ilya Bratman—U.S. Army veteran, CUNY English teacher, and Hillel executive director at eight CUNY and SUNY schools—hosted a welcome-back dinner for Hillel students at a kosher restaurant near Baruch College. Soon after their entrance into Mr. Broadway, guests were surrounded by a chanting, braying, mob.

“CUNY, CUNY, You can’t hide. You support genocide!”...

“What’s new about this round of protests?” I asked Bratman. To propose a story to my editor, I’ll have to say what’s new. Bratman just about lost it. “Protesters stalked, menaced, harassed, and followed Jewish students to a kosher restaurant, like they would have done on Nov. 9, 1938, and blocked the entrance, screamed obscenities, and banged on windows calling for violence against Jews,” he told me. 

Bratman identified several CUNY students and one professor who were part of the mob. The school has threatened consequences but so far nothing has happened.

Yesterday, the results of the independent investigation were published. The author concluded there was an anti-Semitism problem on campus but blamed the problem on a small, vocal contingent of extremists:

...the review, which included interviews with more than 200 people over 10 months, also found that it was a “small, vocal minority of individuals” responsible for antisemitic incidents, and not a widespread problem...

While his investigation focused on policy shortcomings and did not provide a rundown of antisemitic complaints, Judge Lippman wrote in a letter to Ms. Hochul attached to his report that there had been “an alarming number of unacceptable antisemitic incidents targeting members of the CUNY community.”

At least one Jewish professor at CUNY says the report let the school off the hook.

As a Zionist Jewish professor and department chair at the City University of New York, I have witnessed and been a victim of the pervasive anti-Semitism on CUNY’s campuses.

In 2021, the EEOC substantiated my claim that CUNY and its faculty union, the Professional Staff Congress, discriminated against me and other Jewish professors because of my religion...

Neither my EEOC complaint, nor my lawsuits against CUNY and its union, the latter of which is now being appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, is mentioned a single time in the Hochul-commissioned report — and that’s just the start of its glaring omissions.

Another glaring omission is the identity of the person responsible for fixing the problems outlined in the report:

The singularly powerful administrator currently in charge of overseeing anti-Semitism complaints across CUNY’s 25 campuses and who presumably will be responsible for implementing the report’s recommendations, Chief Diversity Officer Saly Abd Alla, is never mentioned.

Nor is the fact that she is a former director at CAIR Minnesota and an activist for the anti-Israel boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement.

It doesn't sound like the report is really going to lead to any significant change on CUNY campuses, but I guess we'll see.