The New York Post has obtained a report providing evidence that a group of progressive professors at the City University of New York’s (CUNY) Kingsborough Community College (KCC) attempted to bar an Orthodox Jewish professor from attending one of their meetings.
The December 7 Post report stated that the Orthodox Jewish professor and head of KCC’s department of business, Jeffrey Lax, filed a complaint in March 2018 claiming that the Progressive Faculty Caucus (PFC) on campus intentionally scheduled a meeting during Shabbat so Lax would be unable to attend. The KCC proceeded to hire the Jackson Lewis law firm to investigate the matter and produced a report in June; it is this report that the Post obtained.
According to the Post, three witnesses said in the report that the PFC attempted to schedule the meeting during Shabbat because Lax tended to be critical of the PFC during these meetings. The PFC also disliked Lax because, according to a witness in the report, “he was pro-Trump, pro-Israel, he’s a Zionist, conservative American,” although he does have some progressive stances on social issues.
According to the Post, three witnesses said in the report that the PFC attempted to schedule the meeting during Shabbat because Lax tended to be critical of the PFC during these meetings.
“Although the primary objective was to exclude Lax, the PFC’s decision to schedule the meeting at a time that [Lax] could not attend due to his religious observance had the potential of creating a disparate impact on other Jewish faculty who observe the sabbath who wanted to attend the PFC meeting,” the report stated. “Allegations that respondents discriminated against them based on their religion can be substantiated in part…Observance of the Jewish Sabbath was at least part of the reason for the PFC to schedule a meeting on a Friday night.”
Ultimately, the meeting was canceled following backlash over the matter.
Brooke Goldstein, executive director of The Lawfare Project, told the Post, “PFC intentionally scheduled the meeting on the sabbath so that Jeffrey Lax, an outwardly observant Jew, would not be able to attend. This is discrimination on its face and should not be allowed.” The KCC and PFC both declined to comment to the Post on the matter.
Liora Rez, director of the Stop Antisemitism.org watchdog, said in a statement to the Journal, “CUNY is proving to be a breeding ground for antisemites and Jewish students and faculty are clearly not welcome nor safe on any of their campuses.”
The report obtained by the Post seems to corroborate freelance journalist Debra Nussbaum Cohen’s reporting in a February 2019 Journal cover story about the meeting in question and the claim that the PFC declined to tell CUNY Economics Professor Susan Aranoff, who also is a religious Jew, where the meeting would be held. Aranoff also repeatedly asked to be included on the PFC’s email list, but it never happened, causing her to realize that “that the PFC is open to anyone but religious Jews.”
Nussbaum Cohen’s report also detailed other allegations from KCC Jewish and pro-Israel faculty members about anti-Semitic harassment campaigns taking place against them, which have resulted in little action from the college.
