Exclusive | Mamdanis plan to fight antisemitism omits NYC college campuses, critics claim

Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s plan to combat antisemitism glaringly omits tackling rampant, anti-Jewish hatred at local colleges and universities, Jewish faculty and staff at CUNY and NYU saidThe Mamdani administration’s “Strategy to Combat Antisemitism,” released in September, makes scant mention of colleges and universities, though City Hall said it met with all with Jewish leaders “from all corners of the community” including parents, students and educators.“In a city that is home to one of the world’s greatest concentrations of public and private universities and colleges, the near absence of higher education from the Strategy is a significant omission,” the CUNY Alliance for Inclusion and the Faculty and Staff Against Antisemitism at NYU said in a joint statement to The Post.“Those commitments should extend meaningfully to New York City’s colleges and universities.”The faculty groups said antisemitism in higher education cannot be understood solely through claims regarding hate crimes and physical insecurity.Antisemitism can also seep into the structures of academia including departments, faculty governance, academic associations, professional networks, labor unions, graduate-worker organizations, and others that determine “whose scholarship and viewpoints are treated as legitimate topics for discussion and debate.”The CUNY and NYU groups also warned that bashing of Israel and Zionism can explode into antisemitism.Mamdani himself is a fierce critic of Israel and his report was previously criticized for not mentioning Zionism once in its 33 pages and for refusing to adopt a formal definition of what constitutes antisemitism.“Anti-Zionist rhetoric or advocacy crosses into antisemitism when Jewish, Israeli or Zionist members of academic communities are subjected to exclusion, harassment, intimidation, ideological litmus tests, professional retaliation, calls for violence or unequal treatment because of their identities, affiliations or views...