New York Gov. Kathy Hochul did not hesitate when she learned about the recent posting for two faculty positions in Palestine Studies at Hunter College, part of the publicly funded City University of New York. She “directed CUNY to immediately remove this posting,” which she characterized as evoking “antisemitic theories” and “hateful rhetoric.”

The CUNY administration quickly complied, calling the job description “divisive, polarizing and inappropriate.”

The reaction from academic quarters was equally swift. The president of the American Association of University Professors called Hochul’s intervention a violation of “basic principles of academic freedom and governance [that is] never acceptable in a free society.”

The CUNY faculty union’s Academic Freedom Committee likewise condemned the administration’s acquiescence to “political pressure” for violating “the most basic principles of academic freedom.” More bluntly, University of Chicago philosophy Professor Brian Leiter called it an act of “craven cowardice.”

This contretemps raises three distinct questions: Was Hochul’s interference appropriate? In any case, was the job post unacceptably “divisive, polarizing” and problematic? And was it antisemitic?

Here is the language that has been both denounced as antisemitic and defended as academically legitimate: “We seek a historically grounded scholar who takes a critical lens to issues pertaining to Palestine including but not limited........

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