The nation’s largest American-Muslim advocacy group ripped into CUNY’s leadership as “dishonest” and “cowardly” for calling a law school graduate’s incendiary commencement address “hate speech” — claiming it was cleared by the school’s administrators.
The New York chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-NY) said the CUNY Board of Trustees and Chancellor Felix Matos Rodriguez failed to defend the free speech rights of Palestinian activist Fatima Mousa Mohammed, and instead caved into pressure from Jewish activists and backers of Israel.
“CAIR-NY strongly condemns the City University of New York (CUNY) for joining dishonest, cowardly, and dangerous attacks on their own student leader, Fatima Mohammed, who has been relentlessly harassed by far-right media, Mayor Eric Adams, and multiple members of Congress and City Council. As an institution of higher education, CUNY has a responsibility to protect its students, even in the face of disagreement or discomfort, and its failure to do so is unacceptable,” CAIR-NY said in a statement.
“Fatima’s speech was submitted, examined, and pre-approved by CUNY in written form and a verbal recording. Furthermore, the speech was celebrated by the audience. CUNY student leaders, including the Jewish Law Students Association, have spoken up in her defense. Moreover, CUNY’s mischaracterization of Fatima’s speech as `hate speech’ is false and defamatory.”
The statement said free speech is a “fundamental pillar” of democratic and called it “alarming” that CUNY is “willing to cowardly yield to pressure from those who seek to silence dissenting voices.”
CAIR-NY complained that Mohammed has been the subject of cyberbullying and death threats.
“CAIR-NY stands in solidarity with Fatima and all students targeted for daring to support justice for all. They will not be silenced, and we plan to continue to fight for the right to free speech and a just society. CUNY must take responsibility for its actions and do better, and we must hold them accountable until they do,” the group said.
“We urge CUNY to live by its stated values and stop cowering to anti-Palestinian pressure.”
During her May 12 commencement address, Mousa Mohammed alleged that “Israel continues to indiscriminately rain bullets and bombs on worshipers, murdering the old, the young, attacking even funerals and graveyards… our silence is no longer acceptable.”
The future lawyer slammed CUNY for continuing “to train and cooperate with the fascist NYPD, the military.”
She also blasted the school for continuing “to train [Israeli] soldiers to carry out that violence globally.”
The board of trustees, headed by chairman Bill Thompson, and Matos Rodriguez belatedly issued a statement accusing Mousa Mohammed of spewing “hate speech.”
But CUNY law administrators including Dean Sudha Setty were seen applauding her speech — and none on the stage condemned it.
Since then, 40 professors of CUNY Law school signed a letter standing by Mohammed and condemning CUNY’s brass for throwing one of its students under the bus.
Conversely, a Jewish rights watchdog group has called for Chancellor Matos-Rodriguez’s resignation for the mess, while some CUNY Law School alumni complained in a letter that a graduation ceremony was an inappropriate venue for Mohammed’s rabble-rousing protest speech and fretted that their alma mater had turned into a “toxic, intolerant, and antisemitic environment.”
A CUNY source insisted to The Post that the speech that Mohammed delivered differed from the draft she submitted before delivery to the administration.
The insider said she was expected to speak four four minutes, while her rant went on for 13 minutes.
Mohammed, during her controversial speech also said, “We joined this institution to be equipped with the necessary legal skills to protect our communities,” noting that she and her peers enrolled in CUNY Law to tackle “systems of oppression.”
“Systems of oppression created to feed an empire with a ravenous appetite for destruction and violence. Institutions created to intimidate, bully and censor and stifle the voices of those who resist,” she said.
Just before last year’s commencement, CUNY’s Law faculty council approved a pro-Palestinian resolution supporting the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israel, after the student government had done so.
Many Zionist Jews and allies of the Jewish state said the BDS movement smacks of antisemitism.
