Rep. Elise Stefanik skewers CUNY chancellor, calls for his ouster over ‘failed' leadership on NYC campus antisemitism
The Republican congresswoman zeroed in on Chancellor Félix Matos Rodríguez over the hiring of a chief diversity officer who previously worked for a pro-Hamas, Israel-bashing group — saying that if the CUNY boss doesn't step down, Gov. Kathy Hochul should bounce him.
'You have failed the people of New York. You have failed Jewish students in New York State, and it is a disgrace,' Stefanik — who is mulling a run for governor against Hochul next year — told the chancellor during the House Education & Workforce Committee hearing.
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7 Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., questions the panel of witnesses during a House Committee on Education and Workforce Committee hearing on 'Antisemitism in Higher Education: Examining the Role of Faculty, Funding, and Ideology' on Capitol Hill, Tuesday, July 15, 2025, in Washington.
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She grilled Matos Rodríguez about CUNY's hiring of Saly Abd Alla, who had previously been employed as a civil rights director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which supports the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel.
'I was not directly responsible for that hire,' Matos Rodríguez, who has overseen CUNY's 26 degree-granting institutions since 2019, insisted when asked if he was aware of Abd Alla's previous employer.
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CAIR was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation case involving the funneling over $12 million to Hamas, Stefanik noted.
'You hired Abd Alla as CUNY's chief diversity officer, and this role includes overseeing antisemitism complaints and initiatives. Were you aware at that time that this senior administrator that you hired was previously employed by CAIR?' Stefanik asked.
Matos Rodríguez said Abd Alla was hired to be the chief diversity officer 'at the central office with no responsibility over cases that have to deal with students or faculty.'
7 Pro-Palestine demonstrators wave the Palestinian flag and hold a banner outside of the office of the City University of New York.
Jimin Kim/SOPA Images/Shutterstock
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'Let me remind you, CAIR was a co-conspirator in the terrorist financing case and has ties to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization,' Stefanik continued, adding, 'Is she currently still employed by CUNY?'
'She is,' Matos Rodríguez replied.
'So, no action, just words here today,' Stefanik said.
Stefanik also asked Matos Rodríguez if he knew that law professor Ramzi Kassem, the head of CUNY Law School's legal clinic, Creating Law Enforcement Accountability & Responsibility or CLEAR, was representing Mahmoud Khalil, the anti-Israel Columbia University protester who was detained by the Trump administration.
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'CUNY CLEAR. I'm not familiar with them,' Matos Rodríguez said.
7 Stefanik also asked Matos Rodríguez if he knew that law professor Ramzi Kassem, the head of CUNY Law School's legal clinic.
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'This is the chief pro-Hamas agitator that led to the antisemitic encampments at Columbia, the rioting and violent takeover of Hamilton Hall, the harassment and physical assault of Jewish students,' Stefanik said of Khalil.
'You allow the head of the clinical legal organization and a professor to be the chief legal aid to Mahmoud Khalil and do his legal defense fund?'
Matos Rodríguez responded, 'Those decisions are made in the clinics and are made in the individual campuses.'
In another case, Stefanik asked about delays in removing a swastika from the main building of CUNY's Hunter College campus on Manhattan's Upper East Side in the fall of 2023.
7 Protestors gather outside Brooklyn College during a âCUNY Wide Student Walkout for Palestineâ on Thursday, November 9, 2023 in Brooklyn, N.Y.
James Keivom
She displayed a Nov. 13, 2023 email apparently by Hunter's Interim Vice President for Administration Gustavo Ordonez telling Leah Garrett, the school's chair of Jewish Studies: 'Apologies, but it's not that simple.'
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Garrett has since filed a federal workplace discrimination suit against CUNY.
CUNY typically removes hateful symbols right away but there was a delay in doing so in this case because officials 'were working with the New York City Police Department' on a potential hate crime case, Matos Rodríguez told the panel.
In a joint press conference after the hearing with Brooklyn Councilwoman Inna Vernikov in DC, Stefanik said Matos Rodríguez had to go, and claimed Hochul was part of the problem.
7 Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., questions the panel of witnesses during a House Committee on Education and Workforce Committee hearing on 'Antisemitism in Higher Education: Examining the Role of Faculty, Funding, and Ideology' on Capitol Hill, Tuesday, July 15, 2025, in Washington.
@RepStefanik/X
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'The scourge of antisemitism has skyrocketed on her watch,' Stefanik said of Hochul.
'She needs to call on this chancellor to resign. She needs to fire him today.'
Vernikov agreed, telling reporters: 'With one phone call, she can make sure the chancellor gets removed.'
'We need competent leadership. The chancellor is unwilling and unable to address antisemitism and protect his Jewish students,' she said.
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7 Protestors gather outside Brooklyn College during a CUNY Wide Student Walkout for Palestine on Thursday, November 9, 2023 in Brooklyn, N.Y.
James Keivom
Hochul created a task force headed by former New York state chief judge Jonathan Lippman that issued recommendations last year to weed out campus antisemitism at CUNY.
Matos Rodríguez is likely not going anywhere. He has strong support among CUNY's trustees, appointed by the governor and mayor.
Overall, he defended CUNY's performance in tamping down antisemitism and said officials have learned from past mistakes.
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'Antisemitism has no place at CUNY,' he testified.
7 Dr. Félix Matos Rodríguez, Chancellor, The City University of New York, testifies during a House Committee on Education and Workforce Committee hearing.
AP
'And although our response has not always been perfect, our commitment to this important work has never wavered. Our commitment to the safety of the members of our Jewish community, and to our entire community, is non-negotiable.'
He noted the $3 million in vandalism caused by anti-Israel protestors who created an encampment at CUNY's City College last year.
'We learned from that experience. We now have a zero-tolerance policy against encampments,' Matos Rodríguez said, adding CUNY hired more than 150 full-time security employees and contracted with an additional 250 security personnel.
'Our approach has shown results,' he said.
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Adam Schiff, a staunch adversary of Trump, said he has had particularly troubling conversations with farmers up and down the state, who are feeling the pain from Trump's immigration polices and tariffs acutely. 'Their workers are increasingly not showing up. Their raw materials are increasingly more expensive because of the tariffs. Their markets are shrinking because of the recoil by other countries from this kind of indiscriminate turf war,' Schiff said. 'Farmers are really in the epicenter of this.' So, too, Schiff said, are the millions of Californians who could be affected by the administration's decision to cut environmental funding and curtail disaster preparation and relief in the state, including by hampering water management and flood mitigation work and 'slow-walking' wildfire relief in L.A. 'Donald Trump is the first U.S. president who doesn't believe that it's his job to represent the whole country — only the states that voted for him,' Schiff said. 'The president seems to have a particular, personal vendetta against California, which is obviously [a] deep disservice to the millions of residents in our state, no matter whom they voted for.' During her Los Angeles news conference, Noem said that federal officials in L.A. were 'putting together a model and a blueprint' that could be replicated elsewhere — an apparent warning against other blue cities and states bucking the administration. California officials saw it exactly that way. Bass has accused the administration of 'treating Los Angeles as a test case for how far it can go in driving its political agenda forward while pushing the Constitution aside.' What happens next, several political observers said, depends on whether the antagonism continues to work politically, and whether the administration starts acting on its threats to crack down even more. When Bass showed up in person to object to heavily armed immigration agents storming through MacArthur Park recently, U.S. Border Patrol Chief Gregory Bovino allegedly told her that she and other L.A. officials and residents 'better get used to' agents being in the city, who 'will go anywhere, anytime we want in Los Angeles.' Homeland Security Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin, when asked if Bass would be arrested, said they were 'keeping everything on the table.' Trump has suggested Newsom should be arrested, too, saying, 'I'd do it.' Padilla was taken forcefully to the ground and handcuffed at a Noem press event. Trump has accused Schiff of criminal fraud for claiming primary residency in mortgage paperwork for a home in his district and one near his work in Washington, D.C., which Schiff called a baseless political attack. Padilla said it's all to be expected from a Republican administration that hates and fears everything that his state stands for, but that Democrats aren't backing down and will continue to 'organize, organize, organize' to defend Californians and win back power in the midterms. 'We're not the fourth largest economy in the world despite our diversity and immigrant population, but because of it,' Padilla said. 'Diversity and migrants doing well and making our country stronger is Donald Trump's worst nightmare — and that has made California his No. 1 target.' Schiff said the administration's actions in California in the last six months are indeed producing 'the TV show that Trump wanted to show his MAGA base,' but 'it's a TV show that is not going over well with the American people.' Trump's approval numbers on immigration are down, Schiff said, because Americans don't want to live in a country where landscapers, car wash employees and farmworkers with zero criminal convictions are terrorized by masked agents in the streets and U.S. citizen children are ripped from their parents. 'The more Trump tries to inflict harm and pain on California, and the more he disrupts life in California cities and communities, the more he makes the Republican brand absolutely toxic,' Schiff said, 'and the more harm that he does to Republican elected leaders up and down the state.'
