CUNY Posts Modified Palestinian Studies Jobs After Gov’s Removal Order

New faculty position listing no longer references “settler colonialism, genocide and apartheid” after Gov. Kathy Hochul directed Hunter College to remove the post “to ensure that antisemitic theories are not promoted in the classroom.”

The CITY partners with Open Campus on coverage of the City University of New York.

by Jonathan Custodio (The City)

The City University of New York is once again listing two faculty positions at Hunter College focusing on Palestinian Studies but no longer specifically calling for a scholar concerned with “settler colonialism, genocide and apartheid.”

Gov. Kathy Hochul had ordered the university to remove the job posting and “conduct a thorough review of the position to ensure that antisemitic theories are not promoted in the classroom,” her office told the New York Post when it first reported on the unprecedented move to pull the listing.

“As planned, Hunter College has re-posted its job listing for a scholar to teach and conduct research in the social sciences, humanities and arts related to Palestine and Palestinian history and culture to fill longstanding gaps in the college’s curriculum and faculty expertise,” Hunter College spokesperson Peter Englot told THE CITY in a written statement sent shortly after this story was first published.

The intervention by the governor, who also directed the university to investigate Hunter College “to ensure that antisemitic theories are not promoted in the classroom,” sparked outrage from faculty at Hunter College involved in the hiring process.

“It’s very, very troubling because it impedes on academic freedom,” Christopher Stone, a professor who teaches Arabic language, literature and culture at the Upper East Side public institution, told THE CITY after Hochul’s order. “What kind of university is it if professors are constrained in saying what they can teach and talk about?”

Following more than a year of pro-Palestine protests on campuses, including a days-long encampment at CUNY’s City College last April demanding the institution divest from Israel that resulted in arrests and charges against more than a dozen students and staff, Hochul has moved more assertively to charges of antisemitism at those protests.

Shortly after her order to remove the job posting, protestors deriding that decision forced her to cancel a press event at City College.

One of the new Palestinian Studies professors will join one of the college’s social sciences departments while the other would join a humanities department. (The school separately has an interdisciplinary Jewish Studies program based in its classics department.)

The revised post calls for “historically grounded candidates who take a critical lens to issues pertaining to Palestine, who are interested in public-facing work, and who exhibit a commitment to being part of the life of the college, a diverse and dynamic public and majority-minority undergraduate serving institution.”

That’s a change from the original post, which called for “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. We are open to diverse theoretical and methodological approaches. We seek candidates interested in public-facing work and who exhibit a commitment to being part of the life of the college, a diverse and exciting undergraduate minority serving institution.”

Stone, who’s a member of the search committee for one of the two new jobs,  told THE CITY on Tuesday that he learned via email from an administrator at Hunter College that the job had been reposted on Sunday evening.

“We were not in a strong position, but we decided that the best thing we could do is remove language instead of changing language,” he said. “I’m very happy that the search is continuing. I’m troubled though by the fact that there was interference from outside of CUNY, from the governor in particular, to change the language of the posts.”

After Hochul had “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,” as a spokesperson for the governor put it to the Post, CUNY Chancellor Felix Matos Rodriguez and Board Chair William Thompson called the original job listing “divisive, polarizing and inappropriate and strongly agree with Governor Hochul’s direction to remove this posting.”

The order was not the first opinion on antisemitism at CUNY tied to Hochul’s office.

An independent review ordered by the governor and authored by former Chief Judge of New York Jonathan Lippman found in September that “CUNY’s current policies and procedures for preventing and addressing antisemitism and discrimination need to be significantly overhauled and updated in order to handle the levels of antisemitism and discrimination that exist on CUNY’s campuses today.”

After Hochul pulled the job listing, Hunter Sociology Professor Heba Gowayed, the author of “Refuge: How the State Shapes Human Potential,” said on social media that “A new McCarthy era is upon us.”

She later added, “the governor of the state of NY, a democrat, intervened in college activities, something she has no business in, for political reasons. This is authoritarianism. Period. And the coverage is not nearly as forceful as that reality requires.”