{"id":128349,"date":"2020-12-08T02:45:43","date_gmt":"2020-12-07T23:45:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/cuny-profs-plotted-to-exclude-jew-from-meeting-probe\/"},"modified":"2020-12-08T02:45:43","modified_gmt":"2020-12-07T23:45:43","slug":"cuny-profs-plotted-to-exclude-jew-from-meeting-probe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/cuny-profs-plotted-to-exclude-jew-from-meeting-probe\/","title":{"rendered":"#CUNY profs plotted to exclude Jew from meeting: probe"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#CUNY profs plotted to exclude Jew from meeting: probe<\/strong>”
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In a petty feud more reminiscent of grade school, a group of liberal faculty members at CUNY\u2019s Kingsborough Community College allegedly plotted to exclude a more conservative orthodox Jewish professor from app<\/a>earing at a meeting by deliberately scheduling it on a Friday night so he couldn\u2019t attend, a report obtained by The Post reveals.<\/p>\n

Professor Jeffrey Lax, who is dean of the business department at the two-year college on the waterfront near Sheepshead Bay, filed a complaint alleging antisemitism with KCC following the controversy over the March 2018 meeting, which ended up not taking place after complaints surfaced that it was held on the Jewish day of rest.<\/p>\n

The group that planned the meeting \u2014 the Progressive Faculty Caucus \u2014 was formed after Donald Trump was elected president in 2016. Ironically, the meeting had been called to discuss alleged discrimination against LGBT members on campus.<\/p>\n

The KCC administration hired the law firm Jackson Lewis to investigate the discrimination complaint reported by Lax, who previously filed a federal lawsuit alleging religious discrimination against observant Jews on campus.<\/p>\n

Claims of antisemitism have been a simmering issue at CUNY campuses in recent years.<\/p>\n

The 90-page report is filled with anecdotes of grudges and grievances and power struggles among different faculty factions.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is certainly discord between complaints and respondents, and they are having a difficult time interacting with one another in a collegial manner,\u201d the report said. <\/p>\n

But the report also found that three witnesses said the PFC meeting had been scheduled on a Friday to exclude Lax, who was not liked by the lefty professors.<\/p>\n

One witness interviewed said the planned Friday night meeting was \u201cintended to be discriminatory against [Lax] because he would `bash\u2019 the PFC every time he showed up to an event.<\/p>\n

Another witness told investigators that \u201cleft wing people didn\u2019t like [Lax] because he was pro-Trump, pro-Israel, he\u2019s a Zionist, conservative American.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe PFC was concerned that if the Friday night meeting happened at a time that [Lax] could attend, that he would `show up\u2019, dominate the meeting, basically record the meeting \u2026.he would take the names of people who were alleging discrimination and he would be a chilling effect.\u201d<\/p>\n

There was already a dispute over the PFC excluding deans from serving as members of the group. PFC organizers claimed the deans wielded a lot of power and many non-tenured professors would feel uneasy airing grievances in front of them, the report said.<\/p>\n

The KCC-commissioned report said it was wrong for PFC organizers to use the Lax\u2019s observance of the Sabbath \u2014 his religious practice \u2014 to prevent him from participating in a planned meeting.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn using his religious observance to exclude him, the PFC treated Lax less favorably based on his religion,\u201d the report prepared for KCC said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlthough the primary objective was to exclude Lax, the PFC\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cAllegations that respondents discriminated against them based on their religion can be substantiated in part\u2026Observance of the Jewish Sabbath was at least part of the reason for the PFC to schedule a meeting on a Friday night,\u201d the report concluded.<\/p>\n

Lax obtained the June 17 investigative report after filing a Freedom of Information Law request.<\/p>\n

Lax\u2019s attorney, Jonah Zweig, said, \u201cAn independent investigation of the City University of New York has confirmed the existence of anti-Semitic discrimination on the Kingsborough Community College campus.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brooke Goldstein, executive director of the Jewish-rights group The Lawfare Project said, \u201cPFC 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kingsborough declined to comment. as did members of the PFC professors mentioned in the complaint.\n <\/p><\/div>\n

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Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“#CUNY profs plotted to exclude Jew from meeting: probe” In a petty feud more reminiscent of grade school, a group of liberal faculty members at CUNY\u2019s Kingsborough Community College allegedly plotted to exclude a more conservative orthodox Jewish professor from appearing at a meeting by deliberately scheduling it on a Friday night so he couldn\u2019t…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":128350,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2020\/12\/jeffrey-lax.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[70897],"tags":[82891,70953,4950,72247],"class_list":["post-128349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-12-7-20","tag-anti-semitism","tag-brooklyn","tag-cuny"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128349"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128349\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/128350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}