CUNY Declines to Disband Pro-Palestinian Group Despite Anti-Semitic Acts

The student group ‘Students for Justice for Palestine’ has been exposed as anti-Semitic, but are not going to be banned from City University of New York campuses due to free speech protections:

“Death to Jews,” “Jews out of CUNY,” and “Drag the Zionist down the street” are all among the comments hurled at Jewish students from the City University of New York (CUNY) during a march for free tuition organized in part by Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) in November.

This is just one of the many anti-Semitic incidents to take place at CUNY in the last few years,according to a report released Friday detailing anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist events on campus, which nonetheless concludes that the majority of the incidents are protected free speech. SJP, for its part, stressed the distinction between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism, saying that the organization condemns all forms of racism, including anti-Semitism, while maintaining that anti-Zionism is opposition to an ideology, rather than a people.

CUNY says on its website that the 24-page report was compiled by former federal prosecutor Paul Shechtman and former Manhattan Federal Judge Barbara Jones, who spent nearly six months reviewing relevant documents and conducting more than 60 interviews with students, faculty, and alumni.

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