The Professional Staff Congress (PSC), the union representing 30,000 faculty and staff at the City University of New York (CUNY), spent much of the summer battling against the rise of right-wing McCarthyist assaults on American universities, including specific attacks against members and academic freedom at CUNY.
In July, House Republicans held yet another hearing grilling university leaders, this time calling on CUNY chancellor Félix V. Matos Rodríguez as well as the leaders of Georgetown University and the University of California’s flagship campus at Berkeley. A day prior to the hearing, the PSC held a rally with members and elected officials outside city hall, demanding an end to the attacks on universities.
“What’s going on on Capitol Hill right now is a very cynical attempt to try to weaponize a real issue in our society: antisemitism,” PSC president James Davis said on Inside City Hall. He added that Republican lawmakers sought to exploit “sincere anxiety around that issue directed in the most insincere way to try to discredit what’s going on at these universities.”
The union received support from across the city against the attacks on CUNY. Congressman Jerrold Nadler said in a statement:
These hearings are nothing more than an attack on higher education cloaked under the guise of fighting antisemitism. If congressional Republicans were truly committed to combating antisemitism, they would stop covering up the antisemitism in their own party and demand President Trump stop employing antisemites in his Republican…
Auteur: Ari Paul
