Shellyne Rodriguez, a former New York City college professor who gained notoriety for threatening a New York Post reporter with a machete, has been dismissed from her recent teaching role at Cooper Union.
The dismissal follows her controversial anti-Israel remarks on social media.
The 47-year-old educator confirmed her dismissal in an email to students, which was later obtained by the New York Post. "Cooper Union has fired me because of a social media post I made about 'Zionists,'" Rodriguez stated in the email. She further labeled the action as "fascism," adding, "Yall are learning about it in real time."
Rodriguez reiterated her stance in an Instagram post, insisting that her dismissal was due to her "public comments about 'Zionists'". Her name has since been removed from the Cooper Union faculty page.
The university's Jewish community expressed relief at the news of Rodriguez's dismissal, describing her comments as "despicable." Jeffrey Lax, a law professor at the City University of New York (CUNY) and co-founder of Students and Faculty for Equality at CUNY, a group advocating for Jewish students facing discrimination on campus, told the Post, "Jewish students at Cooper Union are very relieved that they fired her."
"Her comments were really despicable," Lax continued. "Normally, I would say I commend the university for taking action against this professor but in this case, how can I possibly say that she did something far worse before they hired her? I mean, she held a knife to a reporter's neck. Theyre not to be commended, they should be ashamed of themselves."
Earlier in January, Rodriguez had reportedly made anti-Semitic remarks during a CUNY for Palestine event, where she encouraged protests against landlords and business people with ties to Israel. She also posted a flier of a pro-Israel event on Instagram, which she had edited to include images of cockroaches, and used derogatory language to describe one of the speakers.
In response to her dismissal, a pro-Palestinian group on campus condemned the action as "an intense escalation of repression." They defended Rodriguez in a letter to the administration, arguing that she was dismissed for speaking out against "genocide and settler-colonial violence" which "must be resisted."
"The Cooper Union wrongfully terminated a valued educator who is indispensable to the community and the academic livelihood of students," the group wrote, according to the outlet.
Rodriguez first made headlines in May 2023 when a video of her confronting a pro-life student group at CUNY's Hunter College, where she previously taught, went viral. She came under the spotlight again when she was filmed threatening a New York Post reporter with a machete. The reporter had approached her for comments on the incident with the pro-life students. Following this incident, Hunter College dismissed Rodriguez.
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