AAUP Letter Supports CUNY Law Professor Ramzi Kassem

Yesterday the AAUP sent a letter of support for Ramzi Kassem, professor of law at the City University of New York, to CUNY Chancellor Félix V. Matos Rodríguez and CUNY School of Law Dean Natalie Gomez-Valez. In a recent hearing of the US House Committee on Education and the Workforce, Representative Elise Stefanik urged CUNY to discipline or terminate Professor Kassem, insinuating that his representation of Mahmoud Khalil contributed to antisemitism.

The letter, from AAUP General Counsel Veena Dubal and AAUP President Todd Wolfson, states,

These accusations are outrageous. Any discipline leveled against Professor Kassem for his representation of Mr. Khalil would violate AAUP standards on academic freedom and tenure and the terms of CUNY's faculty labor contract. Even more critically, such discipline would contravene Professor Kassem's constitutionally-protected speech and association. Federal courts have interpreted the First Amendment to protect the right of faculty to engage in an "independent and uninhibited exchange of ideas" as well as the right of the university to engage in "autonomous decisionmaking" free of legislative or, for that matter, judicial control.1 Courts have interpreted the First Amendment to prohibit efforts by the government to "usurp" the right of academic institutions to "determine [for themselves] who may teach" or "what may be taught." Professor Kassem's representation of Mr. Khalil as part of his clinical practice falls squarely within these protections.

The letter goes on to assert the importance of resisting efforts by the Trump administration to use "civil rights laws and funding threats to brow beat universities into ideological submission" and applauds Professor Kassem's scholarship and advocacy, including his work with the CUNY legal clinic he founded, Creating Law Enforcement Accountability and Responsibility (CLEAR).