Ari Paul at Jacobin reports the Professional Staff Congress (PSC), the Union that represents 30,000 Faculty and Staff at the City University of New York (CUNY), spent much of the Summer battling against the rise of Right-Wing McCarthyist assaults on American Universities, including specific attacks against Members and academic freedom at CUNY. In July, House Republicans held yet another hearing grilling University Leaders, this time calling on CUNY Chancellor Félix V. Matos Rodríguez - as well as the leaders of Georgetown University and the University of California’s flagship Campus at Berkeley. A day prior to the hearing, the PSC held a rally with its Members and Elected Officials outside City Hall, demanding an end to the attacks on universities. “What’s going on Capitol Hill right now is a very cynical attempt to try to weaponize a real issue in our society: Anti-Semitism,” PSC President James Davis said on Inside City Hall. He added Republican Lawmakers sought to exploit “sincere anxiety around that issue directed in the most insincere way to try to discredit what’s going on at these Universities.” The Union received support from across the City against the attacks on CUNY. “Let’s be clear: Our firings had nothing to do with our job performance or our teaching records,” said Corinna Mullin, one of the Brooklyn College Fired Four, during the rally. “The PSC has warned that this has ‘all the appearances of an ideological purge,’ echoing the shameful McCarthy-era attacks on CUNY faculty in the (1950s). That history is repeating itself.”

To Directly Access This Labor News Story In Its Entirety, Go To: CUNY Workers Against the New McCarthyism