CUNY professor blames faculty for students protesting at vigil mourning slain Israelis
CUNY law professor Jeff Lax joined 'FOX & Friends' to discuss why he blames professors and school faculty for indoctrinating students as anti-Israel protests sweep campuses nationwide.
A City University of New York law professor is speaking out against the school's anti-Israel protests, blaming the faculty and unions after students derailed a vigil honoring slain Israelis.
Jeff Lax, whose grandparents were Holocaust survivors, joined "FOX & Friends" to discuss why he blames school faculty for the growing surge in antisemitism across campuses nationwide.
"I blame the teachers," Lax told Ainsley Earhardt Tuesday. "The students might be bad people maybe, but they're students. I was dumb when I was a student. I made a lot of mistakes when I was a student. They have a right to make mistakes."
"I blame the faculty. I blame the unions who are indoctrinating this, who are supporting this, and who are really… allowing this to happen, teaching these students it's okay," he continued.
Two women were caught on camera making offensive gestures at billboards of Hamas hostages displayed outside New York City's Baruch College. (Jeff Lax/'FOX & Friends' screengrab)
Lax attended the vigil earlier this month at Brooklyn College to honor the slain Israelis, but the event was met with pro-Hamas protesters. Days after the disrupted vigil, the pro-Palestinian group held a rally that prompted counter-protests and a police presence.
"It's horrifying. To have a vigil… just mourning the loss that had just happened at that time of Israelis who were massacred, and then to have it interrupted by a rally on campus, how scary must that be for a Jewish student coming on to campus where you don't even feel safe to walk through and go to a vigil to mourn the lost?" the professor said.
Lax is a co-founder of S.A.F.E. CUNY, an organization dedicated to promoting diversity on campuses. They often receive pictures and videos from students concerned about things occurring on campus amid a recent uptick in antisemitism.
One video sent to Lax from a coworker appears to show young people mocking and making offensive gestures at photos of Hamas hostages displayed on a truck outside New York City's Baruch College.
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Most recently, Lax claims his organization has received a variety of secret emails suggesting CUNY faculty and faculty unions are responsible for the surge in anti-Israeli sentiment.
"CUNY is the largest urban university in the United States, and these are our elected delegates who are sending these emails out promoting pro-Hamas rallies,",Lax said. "Again, these protests started that they were supporting before Israel even retaliated."
The pro-diversity group obtained an email circulated among pro-Palestinian teachers and students stemming from CUNY for Palestine, which read, "… As the Zionist genocidal campaign on occupied Palestine, especially Gaza, continues to escalate, we ask you to channel your grief and rage over the nearly 1,000 Palestinians martyred and to the upcoming rallies across CUNY campuses."
Hamas is believed to have around 200 hostages as Israel continues into its third week of war against Hamas.
Officials believe at least 6,400 have been killed on both sides, 32 of them Americans and at least 1,400 Israelis.
Meanwhile, more than 125 faculty and staff members at the City University of New York signed onto a statement last week that objects to Chancellor Félix V. Matos Rodríguez's efforts to distance the university system from any student group demonstrations endorsing Hamas' terrorist attack.
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In the statement, the CUNY faculty and staff said they "strongly object" to Rodríguez’s attempts to "censure expressions of solidarity with the Palestinian people" in the wake of pro-Palestinian campus organizations participating in protests celebrating Hamas' surprise attack.
The statement comes after Rodríguez wrote an October 9 letter "unequivocally" condemning Hamas' acts of terrorism, adding the CUNY community "wholeheartedly reject the participation of organizations affiliated with CUNY in demonstrations that glorify Saturday’s violence and celebrate the killings, injuries and capture of innocent people." The chancellor added, "We respect their right to free speech but condemn their support of these crimes against humanity."
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FOX News' Landon Mion contributed to this report.
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