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CUNY official who hired fired ‘CNN’ commentator exits position

Former state Assemblyman Dov Hikind said Robin L. Garrell leaving sends a message to “to stop hiring Jew-haters.”

Robin L. Garrell at the Graduate Center on Sept. 15, 2020. Credit: Alex Irklievski via Wikimedia Commons.

Marc Lamont Hill lost his cable-TV news gig after giving a speech calling for anti-Israel boycotts and “a free Palestine from the river to the sea.” Now the woman who just brought him to the City University of New York (CUNY) will likewise depart from her role.

Chancellor Matos Rodríguez announced that Robin L. Garrell, president of CUNY’s Graduate Center, will conclude her position after three years, stepping down at the end of September.

While no official reason appeared for her leaving, opponents of the decision to hire Hill saw it as “wonderful news.”

Former state Assemblyman Dov Hikind said “the ouster of the CUNY Graduate Center president sends a powerful message to CUNY campus officials to stop hiring Jew-haters.” 

Inna Vernikov, a Republican city council member from Brooklyn, N.Y., stated that while “I must credit the CUNY chancellor for quickly making sure the president who made this awful decision resigns, every day that Marc Lamont Hill keeps his job at CUNY is a stain on this institution. He must be next.”

She added that “Hill must be relieved from his post immediately” and vowed that she would “work tirelessly to make sure it happens.”

Before joining CNN, Hill lost his previous commentator position at Fox News in 2010, when it emerged that he supported fugitive Joanne Chesimard, whose aliases include Assata Shakur.

The FBI, which currently offers a $1 million reward for Chesimard’s capture, notes that the member of “a revolutionary extremist organization known as the Black Liberation Army” is wanted “for escaping from prison in Clinton, N.J., while serving a life sentence for murder.” She escaped from prison on Nov. 2, 1979 and is thought to be in Cuba.

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