The CUNY Alliance for Inclusion (CAFI) writes to express its deep dismay at and opposition to the faculty of CUNY School of Law’s reported recent endorsement of a December 2021 student government resolution which adopts the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel, includes a condemnation of Hillel and other campus organizations which support Jewish student life at CUNY, and calls for the shuttering of CUNY’s educational exchange programs with Israel’s world-renowned universities.

CAFI is an organization comprised of CUNY faculty from across all ranks and disciplines who have come together to counter the delegitimization of Israel on campus, promote academic freedom and campus free expression, and foster an inclusive and welcoming learning community at CUNY for Jewish, Zionist, and all students. In advancing our work, CAFI relies on and benefits from the resources and expertise of partner organizations, including the Academic Engagement Network, CAMERA, and others.

We unequivocally support free speech but deplore the promulgation of hatred and annihilationism. It is intolerable that those who support Israel are being made to feel unwelcome in CUNY’s Law School, which prides itself on its commitment to social justice. By endorsing a highly inflammatory student statement, which was denounced by Jewish groups and rejected by CUNY Chancellor Matos Rodriguez when it was released some months ago, the faculty are essentially joining unconscionable effort to marginalize, alienate, and demoralize Jewish students.

The faculty’s misguided endorsement of this December 2021 student government resolution is not the first instance in which CUNY’s Law School has acted offensively against Jews on our campus. Recently, the law school class of 2022 selected Nerdeen Mohsen Kiswani as a commencement speaker. We do not contest the right of students to select their representative at a graduation ceremony, but it is appropriate to question the climate at a law school that laudably claims to be #2 in the nation for advancing social justice when its student body selects as its spokesperson a student who has spread incitement to violence against Israeli civilians and has called for American Jews to be banned from our campus for their Zionist identities.

We are shocked and disheartened by the spectacle of the faculty’s admiration for a Law School commencement speech which can only be described as an unhinged diatribe against Israel and its supporters at CUNY. So too we are dismayed now by the faculty vote in support of the December 2021 anti-Israel resolution passed by the CUNY Law Student Government Association. This resolution demonizes and delegitimizes Israel and pro-Israel students on campus. In calling for an academic boycott of Israel’s universities, the resolution seeks to deprive CUNY students of worthwhile educational opportunities. It falsely asserts that Israel’s academic institutions are implicated in the oppression of Palestinians when the reality is that Israel’s campuses are models of diversity and coexistence, with Jews, Arabs, and others studying and working together.

Students at CUNY Law School, and clearly faculty as well, need to learn about historical antisemitism and the struggle for and achievements of Israel, as well as the challenges it faces in the Middle East. So too they should know more about transformations in the region, where there are new academic partnerships emerging between Israel and its neighbors which offer opportunities for mutual understanding across political, religious, and cultural divides.

CUNY’s Law School cannot claim to promote social justice if it continues on a path that encourages and tolerates hostility toward Israel and its supporters on campus. We welcome Professor Sudha Setty, the incoming Dean at the CUNY Law School, and call upon her to chart a new course guided by a moral compass. We urge Dean Setty to stand forcefully and unequivocally against the isolation, harassment, and intimidation of Jewish and Zionist students. We hope that under her leadership, all who wish to launch careers fighting for social justice will be welcome and included at the CUNY Law School.

The CUNY Alliance for Inclusion