In June, the Profession Staff Congress (PSC), which represents the faculty of New York City’s network of public colleges (known as CUNY) passed a resolution stating that it “cannot be silent” about the various imagined crimes of the Jewish state, which it accused of wantonly murdering Palestinians in Gaza and, moreover, of being evil from its inception. The resolution was passed by a substantial majority of the union’s delegate assembly. But, as K.C. Johnson describes, it triggered a surprising backlash:
Since June, more than 100 [CUNY faculty members] have publicly committed themselves to resigning from the union in response to the resolution, generating an unanticipated crisis for the PSC. The affair suggests that it’s possible, even in contemporary higher education, for anti-Israel zealots to go too far.
The New Caucus, a faction armed with fiery rhetoric about the evils of organized wealth and the benefits of intersectional alliances, has led the PSC since 2000. Its curious obsession with Israel, though couched as a professed concern with human rights, has a Corbynite feel. On other international issues, especially involving nondemocratic regimes hostile to U.S. foreign policy, the union consistently looks the other way.
The PSC struggled during the pandemic. New York’s state government did not fund the paltry 2-percent raise the union had negotiated for full-time faculty. Citing falling enrollments for the fall 2020 semester, CUNY chose not to rehire 2,800 part-time employees; the union’s legal effort to overturn the decision was laughed out of court. . . . The Gaza conflict provided a useful distraction to this tough stretch.
Coupled with a 2018 Supreme Court decision that ended the union’s practice of collecting dues from faculty regardless of whether they were members, the wave of resignations has left the PSC in a tenuous position.
Read more on Tablet: https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/cuny-kc-johnson