Statement: Lippman Investigation Report
Written by:
CUNY4Palestine
Statement
|
Sep 25, 2024
CUNY4Palestine (C4P) condemns sham Lippman investigation report and calls for an end to the targeting of Palestinian solidarity organizing and to anti-Palestinian racism at CUNY.
We reject the dangerous conflation of criticism of israel with antisemitism.
New York, New York— On Monday, September 23, 2024, Jonathan Lippman submitted his report entitled “Antisemitism and Discrimination at the City University of New York,” to Governor Kathy Hochul. “This report is the culmination of a politically-motivated inquiry initiated by Governor Hochul in response to the growing movement of students across CUNY standing in solidarity with Palestine liberation and against the israeli genocide,” A CUNY for Palestine organizer said.
The Lippman Report must be understood in the context of a nationwide effort by state and federal politicians nationwide to pressure university administrators into labeling Palestine solidarity speech and activism as antisemitic and punishable under anti-discrimination laws. It is part of a broader trend of repression against student organizing for Palestinian liberation. Amid the ongoing genocide in Gaza, this trend has only intensified.
The report’s recommendations are designed to repress the movement for Palestinian liberation at CUNY through increased policing of our campuses, the imposition of stricter “time, place, and manner restrictions” on protests, and the continued conflation of antisemitism and anti-Zionism. “This report will provide CUNY with justification to further militarize our campuses and undermine our ability to protest against the urgent, ongoing genocide in Palestine and to demand that CUNY divest from israel. The urgency of such a protest and demand cannot be overstated, particularly in the wake of israel's horrific attacks and bombardments on the people of Lebanon,” said a CUNY for Palestine organizer.
“We are outraged by the report’s suggestion that CUNY use the IHRA definition of antisemitism as a ‘useful tool.’ This harmful definition is deliberately employed to criminalize criticism of israel and is the legal backbone of numerous anti-BDS laws throughout the country” said a John Jay Students for Justice in Palestine organizer.
Despite finding that “there have been few incidents of violence related to antisemitism and discrimination on CUNY campuses,” the report recommends a complete overhaul and centralization of its antisemitism and hate crime reporting apparatus, increased surveillance of monitoring of student protest activity, and encourages deference to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism in incident investigations.
“The IHRA definition was created to criminalize criticism of israel by equating it with antisemitism,” said an organizer with the CUNY anti-zionist Jewish organization Not in Our Name. In other places where it has been implemented - such as the UK - it has resulted in witch-hunts against faculty and students critical of israel and supportive of Palestine liberation. Adopting the IHRA definition at CUNY will undermine the ability of faculty to teach about Palestine in classes and will increase repression of organizing in solidarity with Palestine across CUNY campuses. It will result in the increased surveillance of especially working class Muslim, Arab and other students of color. For that very reason, the CUNY Student Senate democratically rejected the IHRA definition in a April 2021 vote after a successful IHRA Out of CUNY campaign led by the Jewish Law Students Association and CUNY Law Students for Justice in Palestine. Now, we aim to keep IHRA out of CUNY because it will target students who already face frequent doxxing, harassment and repression, while feeding on racist tropes of Muslims and Arabs as antisemitic and violent. It is no accident, then, that the report fails to mention the Title VI complaints documenting several incidents of anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian racism filed by CUNY students.
From the outset, CUNY for Palestine raised concerns about the motivation behind, and impartiality of, the inquest as initiated by Kathy Hochul. Latham & Watkins, the law firm tasked with running the investigation, is known for its strong ties to Zionist organizations and its anti-Palestinian orientation. It made its position against student activism for Palestinian liberation clear when, on November 1st, 2023, it signed onto a baleful letter addressed to the deans of top law schools threatening to halt hiring if protests continued.
Given the political orientation of it authors, it is unsurprising that the report deliberately obfuscates the fact that Jewish anti-Zionist students are active members of the Palestine solidarity movement; instead, it cynically uses Jewish students as a wedge to divide the movement by justifying repression under the pretense of protecting their feelings. “This report essentially gives a green light for CUNY to formally label the anti-Zionist, anti-imperialist, anti-racist principles that are core to our Jewish identities as antisemitic,” said a student from CUNY School of Law’s Jewish Law Student Association.
The report focuses on CUNY’s Manhattan campuses, declaring that these “are more easily targeted as locations to interfere with students’ ability to attend class and are, therefore, more vulnerable to disruption by people who are not affiliated with CUNY participating in protests in close proximity to academic life.” In doing so, the report feeds into the false “outside agitator narrative,” which CUNY for Palestine has consistently refuted. CUNY for Palestine has consistently pointed out that this narrative undermines our understanding of CUNY as rooted in the diverse communities in which our universities are located. It serves to attack a shared vision of a people’s university and a New York City that redirects its resources from racist institutions of organized violence and colonial gentrification to life affirming institutions and services.
In 2016, an earlier wave of pro-Palestine student agitation resulted in the CUNY Chancellor being pressured to launch an outside investigation into allegations of ‘anti-semitism’ at CUNY. This investigation was conducted by independent and well-respected investigators and was longer and of greater depth. It absolved CUNY organizers of all the charges. Their report did, however, mention the heightened levels of anti-Muslim racism. Predictably, it was buried. As a CUNY Law Students for Justice in Palestine organizer said: “Nothing has changed in terms of the campus solidarity movement’s approach to expressing solidarity with Palestine liberation since 2016. What has changed is the increase in repression and harassment faced by students from the administration. State repression that is going to increase with the adoption of the IHRA definition of anti-semitism.”
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