Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

CUNY union endorses City Council member who’s ‘promoted extreme anti-Israel positions’

CUNY’s Professional Staff Congress endorses Charles Barron for reelection in Brooklyn

The union representing 30,000 faculty and staff members at the City University of New York tweeted a reelection endorsement for City Councilman Charles Barron, who’s been criticized by the Anti-Defamation League.

The Professional Staff Congress said in the tweet that it was “proud to endorse Charles Barron.” 

The ADL has called Barron out for a variety of statements and behaviors, saying that he “has associated with anti-Semitic hate groups and promoted extreme anti-Israel positions intended to demonize the Jewish state since his election in 2001,” including asserting that Israel should never have been created and that “Blacks, not Jews, are the ‘real’ Semites.”

A spokesperson for the union declined to comment, saying, “all these articles are the same.”

Barron’s office did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

Barron represents District 42, which includes the East New York section of Brooklyn, a predominantly African American area. He is an alumnus of Hunter College, a CUNY school, and has been a staunch supporter of funding for the CUNY system. Nearly 80% of CUNY’s 240,000 students are people of color, and 60% come from families earning less than $30,000 a year. Studies have repeatedly confirmed CUNY’s effectiveness as an engine of economic mobility, lifting students out of poverty and into the middle class.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.