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CUNY Law has quietly eliminated student speakers from next year’s commencement — months after a graduate gave a hate-filled speech that sparked widespread outrage, The Post has learned.
The school has been under ongoing pressure to rehab its battered image following a fiery, anti-Israel commencement address from CUNY Law grad Fatima Mousa Mohammed, which was quickly blasted as antisemitic.
Mohammed also railed against the “fascist” NYPD and military in the vitriolic May speech.
In a statement, the school said it would still allow student speakers at “pre-commencement events” but that it is committed to ensuring a “welcoming” commencement ceremony.
The change, however, has been met with mixed reactions by the Jewish community — and current students themselves.
“It’s a great step in trying to combat hate speech at the law school — that they’re changing the process to make sure that what happened in the last two years won’t happen again,” Councilwoman Inna Vernikov told The Post after learning about the measure from her meeting with CUNY board of trustees chairman Bill Thompson last month.
However, the lawyer and Brooklyn pol said it doesn’t go far enough.
“We appreciate the small steps, but everything they do can’t just be a response to bad press,” she added of the move, which was first reported by the Forward.
“There has to be a real commitment to change. It can’t just be a constant response to their PR failures.”
Current CUNY Law student Michael Piazza said he doesn’t think the response is a good look.
“I get why they want to do it, you know, to eliminate controversy and stuff like that,” the future lawyer said Friday.
“But, you know, I believe in free speech, so I think whether or not someone disagrees or agrees with what she said, I think she should probably be allowed to say it.”
CUNY has been embroiled in a fierce probe of its alleged antisemitic culture after allowing the address in which Mohammed infamously claimed that Israel was guilty of indiscriminately killing Palestinians.
The graduating student and Palestinian activist condemned Israel for “murdering the old, the young, attacking even funerals and graveyards as it encourages lynch mobs to target Palestinian homes and businesses.”
She also called the city’s police force “fascist” and said the university’s central administration is “racist” — to raucous cheers and applause.
It was the second consecutive year of problematic student speakers spewing unchecked hostility toward the Jewish state.
During the CUNY Law School 2022 commencement, student government speaker and “flagrant antisemite” Nerdeen Kiswani, who had previously called for the abolishment of the “illegitimate” state of Israel “as a key to peace,” claimed she was “facing a campaign of Zionist harassment by well-funded organizations with ties to the Israeli government and military on the basis of my Palestinian identity and organizing.”
CUNY faced swift and unrelenting backlash in the wake of the back-to-back commencement hate speeches — and has been public enemy number one of the Jewish community.
Adar Rubin, of the advocacy group End Jew Hatred, told The Post that he discovered an X account detailing notes from a CUNY faculty meeting last month detailing the school’s decision to bar future student speakers.
The leaked note added that the administration floated the idea of a “private” pre-commencement event in which a student speaker can address the class.
The leaked note also said angry “SG” (student government) reps blasted the decision, informing faculty and administration at the September 13 meeting that the decision would be “viewed as censorship and curtailing free speech.”
Another CUNY Law student who spoke to The Post Friday blasted the move as “censorship.”
Rubin, who called on CUNY to acknowledge his group’s action plan to address “systemic Jew-hatred,” added that eliminating student speakers is “a nice gesture, but it’s nowhere near close enough to the right steps needed to be taken,” noting the pressure that’s on the school.
Rubin laso noted that step also comes after the embattled university drew outrage in August over its decision to hire pro-Palestinian professor Marc Lamont Hill, who was fired from CNN for his speech on Israel.
“The climate will only get worse if nothing is done. The whole world is watching CUNY and laughing at their complete failure to support these Jewish students who are completely traumatized,” said Rubin, shuddering at the firsthand stories he’s heard.
“No Jewish students should ever go through the experiences.”
CUNY’s refusal to rein in the hate, Rubin noted, “is almost like they’re proud to wear it on their sleeve.”
After celebrating the Jewish holiday of Sukkot with members of Brooklyn College Thursday, CUNY Chancellor Felix Matos Rodriguez, tweeted, “CUNY works hard to promote a climate that is inclusive for all community members…”
The chancellor, who didn’t respond to The Post’s request for comment, was blasted for skipping a critical hearing held in the spring by the City Council Committee on Higher Education to address claims that students and teachers in the system were targeted over their Jewish faith.
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