Zohran Mamdani faces pressure from the Democratic Socialists of America to restore several CUNY faculty members removed after pro-Palestinian protests, with watchdog material and leaked documents spotlighting allegations of extremist ties and campus unrest.
In July, the City University of New York suspended pro-Palestinian activists and dismissed four faculty members amid campus protests. Critics called the move a crackdown on student and faculty speech, while others argued it was a necessary response to actions that crossed legal and safety lines. The debate now centers on who decides what behavior makes a classroom unsafe.
Watchdog reporting and public archives have tracked the activism and statements of several named professors, pointing to affiliations and actions that many find alarming. Those records include arrests at encampments, disruptive protests, and calls that some interpret as support for violent actors. The names most often cited in public scrutiny are Corinna Mullin and Shellyne Rodriguez.
But the background matters beyond rhetoric: the materials assembled by critics lay out a sequence of incidents and associations they say explain why administrators acted. Those files catalog arrests, campus encampments, connections to student chapters, and explicit endorsements of boycotts and solidarity campaigns. For those who saw the protests turn confrontational, the documentation reads like a pattern rather than isolated events.
Corinna Mullin [Corinna Mullin-Lery] was arrested during anti-Israel campus activism. She also led an anti-Israel disruption, expressed support for terrorists, and promoted hatred of Israel and America. She has engaged in anti-Israel activism as a professor at the City University of New York (CUNY).
Mullin was arrested for joining an anti-Israel encampment at CUNY, set up to protest Israel’s war against the Hamas terror group. Israel launched the war after the October 7, 2023 attacks, when Hamas murdered over 1,200 Israelis, kidnapped hundreds, and wounded thousands. War crimes against civilians included torture, rape, and beheadings. For more information, see the Canary Mission page on Hamas.
Mullin is a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.
Mullin was affiliated with the Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter at CUNY’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice (John Jay SJP) in 2021 and 2023. CUNY is located in New York, New York.
In 2021, Mullin was affiliated with the pro-terror activist group Within Our Lifetime (WOL).
One of the other professors under scrutiny, Shellyne Rodriguez, appears in similar records that critics describe as even more troubling. Those files point to a prior criminal plea, classroom incidents, and aggressive rhetoric on and off campus. The accumulation of episodes is central to why administrators removed faculty from teaching roles pending review.
Shellyne Rodriguez is an anti-Israel activist who participated in the pro-Hamas encampment at Columbia in April 2024. She had pleaded guilty to harassment and menacing in a machete attack on journalists earlier and lost two university teaching jobs as a result of the incident. She also verbally assaulted students on one of the campuses. Both incidents occurred in May 2023.
Rodriguez was also fired in January 2024 from her next university teaching job for spreading anti-Semitism and suggesting the withholding of rental payments from Jewish and Israel-supporting landlords in New York.
Rodriguez spread hatred of Israel in October 2023. She also reportedly co-organized an anti-Israel protest and expressed support for a terrorist while speaking on a pro-Palestine panel in January 2024.
Rodriguez’s activism in late 2023 and early 2024 took place in the wake of Hamas terror atrocities and war crimes against Israeli civilians, including mass murder, torture, rape, beheadings, and kidnappings, which were executed on October 7, 2023.
Those two names are central because Zohran Mamdani publicly promised to push for reinstating removed professors, and leaked documents show organized pressure from his socialist allies to deliver on that pledge. Critics warn that bringing these instructors back into classrooms would reopen tensions and undermine campus safety for some students. Supporters frame reinstatement as defending academic freedom against administrative overreach.
Canary Mission wrote:
One of Zohran Mamdani’s campaign promises was to reinstate professors who were removed from their positions. A leaked document makes it clear they intend to push Mamdani to fulfill that promise immediately.
Only problem is these professors, like Corinna Mullin and Shellyne Rodriguez and 3 others whose names are being hidden from the public, are part of the reason campuses have become so dangerous for Jewish students.
The DSA and Mamdani want to ensure Jewish students’ have no safe harbor in their classrooms.
Canary Mission also highlighted video clips tied to the leaked documents and the broader campaign on social platforms, showing speakers at encampments and panels. The footage quoted one professor saying, “Peace is not the absence of conflict,” the video shows Mullin saying. “But rather the achievement by popular struggle and self-defense.”
The same material points to the financial and physical fallout from encampments and protests, citing roughly $3 million in damages tied to recent disturbances. It also includes on-camera behavior that critics call menacing, and statements endorsing confrontational tactics. Supporters argue this is political expression; opponents say it crosses into encouragement of harassment and danger.
In one widely circulated clip, Rodriguez confronts a reporter with profanity and threats: “Get the f**k away from my door,” Rodriguez told The New York Post reporter. The same footage captures other calls to locate and confront perceived ideological opponents: “You probably wait tables where they go to brunch,” Rodriguez said. “Find them. Go to their offices. Don’t let them sleep.”
Those clips and documents feed a simple political question: will Mamdani use leadership and appointments to reshape governance at CUNY and reverse suspensions? The CUNY Board of Trustees has 17 members in total, five appointed by the mayor, ten appointed by the governor with the advice and consent of the state senate, and two representatives chosen by the CUNY Student Senate and CUNY Faculty Senate. Shifting the board’s makeup would require buy-in across multiple appointing authorities, which makes wholesale reinstatement a politically complicated move.
Editor’s Note: The Democrat Party has never been less popular as voters reject its globalist agenda.
