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exclusive


NUTTY NYC PROFESSOR THAT HELD MACHETE TO POST REPORTER’S NECK FIRED FROM COOPER
UNION OVER ANTI-ISRAEL RANTS

By Deirdre Bardolf

Published Feb. 4, 2024, 6:36 a.m. ET

She already has a machete — now she’s gotten the ax.

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Shellyne Rodriguez, the nutty professor caught on camera holding the blade to a
Post reporter’s neck in May has been fired from her latest teaching gig at
Cooper Union for anti-Israel screeds, The Post has learned.

“Cooper Union has fired me because of a social media post I made about
‘Zionists,’” Rodriguez, 47, wrote in an email to students a week after the
spring semester kicked off.

Her Jan. 23 email was shared the next day on Instagram by the Cooper Union
Students for Justice in Palestine.

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“This is fascism,” she wrote. “Y’all are learning about it in real time.”

In her own Instagram post, Rodriguez said she was fired over “public comments
about ‘Zionists.'”

A spokeswoman for the college said it does not comment on personnel matters but
Rodriguez is no longer listed as an adjunct on Cooper Union’s faculty page.

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It is not clear which posts or comments got her canned but in January Rodriguez
participated in a CUNY for Palestine panel and encouraged protesting landlords
and business people with ties to Israel. Critics said she spewed antisemitic
tropes.


MORE ON: COOPER UNION


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9
Controversial art professor Shellyne Rodriguez has been booted from teaching at
Cooper Union over a post about Zionism. Robert Miller
9
The Cooper Union Students for Justice in Palestine shared on Instagram that
Shellyne Rodriguez had been fired over a post about “Zionists” and included her
email to students. Instagram @cooperunion_sjp

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On Instagram, Rodriguez posted a flyer promoting a pro-Israel event that was
edited with cockroaches covering it, according to screenshots obtained by The
Post.

9
Shellyne Rodriguez blasted former Bronx Borough President Rubén Díaz Jr. as a
“roach” and “Zionist lapdog” in one Instagram post. Instagram @_shellyne_
9
A spokeswoman for the college said it does not comment on personnel matters but
Rodriguez is no longer listed as an adjunct on Cooper Union’s faculty page.
Helayne Seidman

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One of the participants in the event was former Bronx Borough President Rubén
Díaz Jr. “Look at this dirty f—ing roach former bronx borough president Ruben
Diaz Jr. a Zionist lapdog,” she wrote in the caption.

The pro-Palestinian student group slammed her firing as “an intense escalation
of repression” that “must be resisted.”

“The Cooper Union wrongfully terminated a valued educator who is indispensable
to the community and the academic livelihood of students,” the group wrote in a
letter to the administration defending her for speaking out against “genocide
and settler-colonial violence.”

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9
Cooper Union’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine shared a post
supporting Rodriguez as well as a link to email administration demanding her
reinstatement. Instagram @cooperunion_sjp
9
The post called Rodriguez’s ouster from the university an “intense escalation of
McCarthyist repression.” Instagram @cooperunion_sjp

Others found her firing good riddance.

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“Jewish students at Cooper Union are very relieved that they fired her,” said
Jeffrey Lax, a CUNY law professor and co-founder of Students and Faculty for
Equality at CUNY, which advocates for Jewish students discriminated against or
harassed on campus. “Her comments were really despicable,” he said, referring to
the CUNY panel.

“Normally, I would say I commend the university for taking action against this
professor but in this case, how can I possibly say that she did something far
worse before they hired her? I mean, she held a knife to a reporter’s neck,” Lax
said. “They’re not to be commended, they should be ashamed of themselves.”

9
Shellyne Rodriguez was caught on video cursing and yelling at a group of Hunter
students who set up a table with anti-abortion pamphlets and materials in May
2023. Twitter / @StudentsforLife

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The firing comes about three months after Jewish students at Cooper Union were
forced to barricade themselves inside the elite university’s library, as
pro-Palestinian protesters blew past security and aggressively pounded on the
building’s doors.

Rodriguez made headlines in May 2023, when she went viral for cursing out a
group of pro-life students handing out information about abortion at CUNY’s
Hunter College, where she was teaching art at the time.

When The Post visited Rodriguez at her Bronx apartment to seek comment, she
flipped.

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9
Shellyne Rodriguez made headlines when she threatened a Post reporter by holding
a large machete to his throat in the hallway of her Bronx apartment.

“Get the f–k away from my door, or I’m gonna chop you up with this machete!” she
yelled before accosting the scribe. She then followed the reporter and a
photographer out to the street, wildly swinging the weapon. The unhinged assault
was caught on video.

Hunter sacked her the same day. Rodriguez also taught some classes at the School
of Visual Arts in Chelsea, though she wasn’t teaching there at the time of the
incident.

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After a review, she was fired from there, too.

In the attack on the reporter, she pleaded guilty to harassment and menacing,
according to the Bronx District Attorney’s Office. Under the terms of a
conditional plea agreement, she must complete a therapy program and, if
successful, can withdraw the misdemeanor plea and will be sentenced on the
violation to a conditional discharge, according to the DA’s office.

9
Former Hunter College professor Shellyne Rodriguez was charged with menacing,
harassment and criminal weapons possession after holding a machete to the throat
of a Post reporter and chasing staffers down the street with the weapon. James
Messerschmidt for NY Post

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What do you think? Post a comment.

Rodriguez began teaching a sculpture class at Cooper Union just four months
after the incident at the start of the fall semester in September, according to
a schedule from the Cooper Union School of Art.

Rodriguez helped organized “f–k police” protests which led to mass arrests in
2020, The Post reported at the time.

Rodriguez didn’t respond to messages seeking comment.


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israel ,  Israel-Hamas war ,  menacing ,  palestine ,  the bronx ,  zionism , 
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