A former New York City college professor is claiming that the school bent the knee to “racists, white nationalists and misogynists” when it fired her after she held a machete to a reporter’s neck earlier this week, according to ARTnews.
Hunter College confirmed on Tuesday that Shellyne Rodriguez would not return to campus after she threatened New York Post reporter Reuven Fenton with a machete when he visited her apartment after she went viral for cursing at pro-life students in early May. Rodriguez did not specifically mention the machete incident in her statement to ARTnews, a widely circulated art magazine, but said that she was concerned for her safety after Students for Life of America (SFLA) posted the video of her disrupting the students’ event and that the school “capitulated” to “racists, white nationalists and misogynists.” (RELATED: Professor Suspended After Writing That Killing ‘Right-Wing’ Speakers Is ‘Admirable’)
“As much as this incident has stakes for my life, it is ultimately just one part of a broader political struggle taking place across the country,” Rodriguez told ARTnews. “Right wing media organizations are weaponizing and sensationalizing this case to further their agenda, and using me as a prism through which to project their attacks on women, trans people, black people, Latinx people, migrants, and beyond.”
Rodriguez told the pro-life students that they were spreading “propaganda” and accused them of “triggering” her students, according to the video circulated by SFLA, which she argues was “manipulated” and “mobilized their members and supporters to attack” her. She is shown to have knocked fetal models and information cards off of the table.
She said that she issued an apology at the request of the college, but the video was spread before “the process could be completed.”
PROFESSOR GONE WILD: Pro-abortion professor Shellyne Rodriquez curses at pro-life students and vandalizes table at Hunter College. pic.twitter.com/QNspuXB4KK
— Students for Life of America (@StudentsforLife) May 17, 2023
She says she received “vile and hateful emails, texts, and voicemails nonstop” for two weeks and that the entire incident impacted her mental health and created “reasonable fear that they would show up at my home to cause me physical harm, as has happened with so many other women who have similarly had their personal info exposed as a form of politically motivated harassment.”
Fenton identified himself as a journalist before Rodriguez came out of the apartment and held the machete to his neck after threatening she would “chop” him up, the Post reported. Rodriguez’ spokesperson told ARTnews that neither Fenton nor the photographer identified themselves, did not use the intercom to gain entry and “appear to have been trespassing inside the building when they pounded on her door and started yelling at her through the door.”
The incident is currently being reviewed by the New York Police Department, an official confirmed to the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Rodriguez, SFLA and The NY Post did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.
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