Did Queens College – my alma mater, it should be disclosed – rid itself of Jews in its Accounting Department?
Given where Queens College is and the (I would assume) large number of Jewish students there, that might seem improbable. But read this, from Melanie Wilcox’s article at dailycaller.com, and then decide for yourself:
Queens College is facing a lawsuit that accuses the City University of New York (CUNY) of purging Jewish faculty members from its accounting department in the wake of surging antisemitism on campus.
Helen Schwalb, a Jewish adjunct professor who taught at the college for over a decade, alleges she was one of six Jewish instructors let go in May 2023 as part of what she described in court filings as a campaign to “clean house of its Jewish staff,” Bloomberg reported. The legal complaint says the move came amid a campus climate marred by “antisemitic hate speech and violence” following the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attack on Israel.
Schwalb, 66, who lives in Rockland County, said she consistently received high performance ratings and taught two to three courses per semester — including summer sessions — since 2012. She said the college reassigned her fully enrolled courses to younger, non-Jewish instructors with “lower performance ratings.”
The college, in statements to the media, cited declining enrollment and budget constraints as the reason for the staffing changes. But Schwalb contends that rationale doesn’t hold up. “My classes were full,” she said in court documents, adding that the positions were not eliminated but handed to less experienced educators.
The suit also accuses Queens College of failing to act against escalating antisemitism on campus, saying that the administration “repeatedly” ignored a “barrage” of hate speech and intimidation targeting Jewish students and faculty since Hamas’ brutal assault on Israel.
According to Queens College, the accounting department’s enrollment dropped 39% from 2020 to 2024, with a sharp 18% decline in just one year between 2022 and 2023. However, critics say that administrative inaction in the face of rising hostility may be contributing to a hostile environment, driving both faculty and students away.
A couple of points to be made here:
-The article reads as if the only professors removed were Jewish. If that is true, it is hard not to conclude the purge of Jews was intentional;
-Their removal, according to the article, took place in May of 2023 – five months before hamas’ massacre and Israel’s retaliation. Assuming this is not a typo, it means the alleged “rid ourselves of the Jews” action reflected Queens College’s intentions even before that happened.
I don’t know for sure whether Ms. Schwalb is correct, and would like to find out more about this – which I will try to do, and report on what I find if more information becomes available.
But, knowing what is going on at NYU and Columbia, the premise that there is anti-Semitism at another New York City school, it saddens and disgusts me to say, would not be a surprise. Not even a little one.
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