The famously liberal faculty members of a public state university system, the City University of New York, are doubling down on their support for Hamas in a strongly worded letter. More than 120 faculty members signed the letter, which repudiates a statement by CUNY’s chancellor denouncing Hamas’s violence and the CUNY students who “glorified” it.

“We, the undersigned CUNY staff and faculty, strongly object to Chancellor Félix Matos Rodríguez’s efforts to censure expressions of solidarity with the Palestinian people,” the professors wrote. The letter supports the October 7 Hamas terrorist attacks, referring to them as an “uprising.” 

“As CUNY staff and faculty, we applaud all those in our community who refuse to remain silent in the face of an impending genocide,” the letter reads, “we stand with them in opposition to Israeli occupation, apartheid, and war crimes, and in support of Palestinian liberation.” 

“There is also no equivalence between the October 7 military operation by Hamas and the subsequent military attack by the Israeli state, and certainly no equivalence to the … violence of Israeli settler colonialism,” the letter stated, referring to the terrorist attack and massacres as a military operation. 

The letter strongly endorses the protests taking place on City University campuses. One such pro-Hamas protest occurred at Brooklyn College, where students supported the Palestinian terror group’s actions with signs such as, “Fight Apartheid, Free Palestine.” The protest was condemned by a New York city council member of Brooklyn, Inna Vernikov, who attended the event in protest while illegally carrying a pistol, according to Fox 5. 

In response to the protests, the CUNY chancellor, Mr. Rodriguez, had released a message on October 10 of “unequivocal” condemnation of Hamas’s actions and “the participation of organisations affiliated with CUNY in demonstrations that glorify Saturday’s violence and celebrate the killings, injuries and capture of innocent people.” 

The Sun reached out for comment to a number of the CUNY faculty members who signed the letter and did not receive any replies. CUNY also did not respond to the Sun’s request for comment. 

Yet in response to the faculty letter, a spokesman for a City University Jewish student and professor group, SAFE CUNY, told the Sun that the signatories are “morally bankrupt.”

“The anti-Israel ‘policy’ sentiment expressed in this letter,” the spokesman claimed, amounts to “support for massacre and war crimes against Jewish civilians.” He added: “They want us out. It’s as simple and as vile as that.”

CUNY is no stranger to controversy regarding antisemitism in its midst. This summer, a commencement address by a law school graduate caused a firestorm of criticism. Fatima Mousa Mohammed blasted Israel and referred to the New York Police Department as fascist. A Muslim-American advocacy group later claimed that CUNY administrators had approved the speech in advance.