POLITICS: Anti-Israel protesters on NY campuses: Letters

The Issue: Pro-Palestinian protests across New York campuses including Barnard College and City College.

Jews used to strive to get into schools like Barnard (“U. encourage hateful idiots,” Kristen Fleming, Feb. 28).

Studying at these schools was the pinnacle of achievement and a ticket to the professions and the upper-middle class. Now these schools are hotbeds of antisemitism. Young people and their parents should think twice going there.

Also, alumni should not give any money in response to the colleges’ tepid response that protests, violence, vandalism and trespass are “matters of free speech.”

The young Jews of today need to look elsewhere for quality colleges that do not denigrate their existence.

Mark Seitelman

Manhattan

Laura Rosenbury is the dean of Barnard College. Eric Adams is the mayor of New York City and Kathy Hochul is the governor of New York. Are they all asleep in their offices?

Jewish students are being harassed, physically assaulted and denied entry into their classrooms. Barnard students who have been suspended are back on campus, creating a vile and dangerous environment for innocent students who just want to get an education.

It is time for these so-called leaders to step up and put a permanent stop to these despicable protests and secure the safety of every student at Barnard.

Betty Schwartz

Livingston, NJ

Isn’t it about time to start properly dealing with the misfits and terrorists-in-training who continue to assault, harass and disrupt Jewish-related events and courses at New York’s alleged citadels of higher learning?

Why is it that law enforcement and university authorities apparently feel compelled to treat these thugs with kid gloves?

Will it ever become apparent to the pseudo-elite, senseless idiots who administer these schools that their inaction and complicity has eroded — or in some cases, like Columbia University, destroyed — whatever credibility they may have had prior to Oct. 7?

Mitchell Schwefel

Barnegat , NJ

CUNY’s City College, a once-great university that produced graduates like Ed Koch, Colin Powell and Jonas Salk, has devolved into a hate-filled entity (“CUNY ‘blood libel,’ ” Feb. 26).

The change from “great” to “hate” can be found in every aspect of CUNY life, as politicians turn a blind eye to Jewish hatred in the interest of diversity, freedom of speech and liberalism on campus.

Only politicians can end the downward spiral of what was once the jewel of New York City’s higher educational system.

Mel Young

Boca Raton, Fla.

The average American college student is totally ignorant of the holistic nature of the issues they protest against. If they weren’t, they wouldn’t side with Hamas, who strangled to death a nine-month-old baby and his 4-year-old sibling.

These “protesters” use violence as a means on campus, indicative of their affinity with Hamas, which trades in violence. They are not protesters, but anarchist terrorists who are guests of the college.

Bradley Morris

Queens

Transit Workers Union International President John Samuelsen pointed out that those responsible for the attack on a 41-year-old safety officer at Barnard should be identified and prosecuted by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. New Yorkers want to understand why charges have not been drafted and why arrests have not yet been made.

Barnard’s leadership seems to cling to the false belief that punishing these students for a violent assault upon an employee is either beneath them or a distraction from their institution’s lofty focus on the life of the mind.

Adam Drisin

Brooklyn

Every one of the so-called protesters who violently trespassed onto a Barnard College building should be identified and jailed.

I hope and pray that the college continues to hang tough and does not bow to these antisemites’ ridiculous demands. If the college does capitulate, then it would be Barnyard, an institution that appeases animals.

Stuart Ellison

Brooklyn