Anti-Israel AAUP Leader Addresses ‘Comrades’ At Socialism 2025 Conference
NYU Professor Chenjerai Kumanyika: “I want to signal to my comrades (holding keffiyeh) — I’m here, we here.”
At the Socialism 2025 conference this past July 4th weekend, New York University Professor Chenjerai Kumanyika greeted his audience with a chant: “Money for books and education, not for war and occupation!” The roomful of masked “comrades,” some clapping and raising their fists, repeated the words back to him, call-and-response style.
Kumanyika didn’t say which “war and occupation” he was referring to, but his keffiyeh said the “war” was the war in Gaza and the “occupier” was Israel. Keffiyehs were on display at the three-day gathering of radical leftists — worn by presenters and people in the audience, even draped over a conference table. In panels and discussions that ranged from “DIY abortion” to abolishing the police, the keffiyehs were a constant reminder of the coalition between radical socialists and anti-Israel activists — the so-called red-green alliance.
A YouTube video of one of the conference panels is embedded below. However, rather than subjecting yourself to it, I recommend reading @thestustustudio’s superb reporting of the event. Stu has compiled great threads highlighting the conference on X.
Continuing with Legal Insurrection’s coverage of the American Association of University Professors, I watched two panels featuring Kumanyika, a member of the AAUP governing Council.
The AAUP used to be the gold standard for academic freedom, but now, for all practical purposes, it’s an ultra-progressive labor union. The scholarly group historically stood firmly against academic boycotts as assaults on the free exchange of ideas, but that has changed as anti-Israel activists have captured its agenda. I’ve written about the AAUP’s anti-Zionist transformation here, here, and here.
Kumanyika organizes for the AAUP and is also a member of NYU’s Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine.
Here “in one snapshot,” he presents the picture of the red-green alliance radicalizing higher ed:
NYU professor Chenjerai Kumanyika—who works with NYU Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine, sits on the AAUP’s National Council, and proudly sports a burning cop car on his laptop. The radicalization of higher ed, in one snapshot. pic.twitter.com/SMDTefpQY9
— Stu (@thestustustudio) July 4, 2025
Kumanyika led a panel about coalition-building against, among other things, Trump’s “attacks” on universities, i.e., universities that unlawfully allowed antisemitism to run wild on their campuses and are finally facing consequences.
After October 7th, he says, [29:22] the problem wasn’t that the campus protests were extreme — but that they weren’t strategic. “It was courageous, inspiring — but also unsustainable. … We need to re-center it around organizing”:
NYU Professor & AAUP National Council Member Chenjerai Kumanyika at Socialism 2025 on the future of campus activism:
After October 7th, he says the problem wasn’t that campus protests were extreme—but that they weren’t strategic enough.
“It was courageous, inspiring—but also… pic.twitter.com/IUqvqK9Iax
— Stu (@thestustustudio) July 5, 2025
Time and again, the panel pivoted to the Palestinian struggle: “A lot of our conversations don’t happen without the Palestinian Liberation Movement,” panelist Jason Wozniak said. [48:21] “We owe it to our brothers and sisters in Palestine … to fight for a better university and for a better world.” [1:26:44]
Earlier, Kumanyika nodded in agreement with a member of CUNY’s FSJP who argued “the fight around academic freedom is the fight for Palestinian liberation.” [59:55]
Another member applauded the AAUP’s reversal on academic boycotts — a boon to the BDS (boycott, divest, and sanction) movement — and its webinar on “scholasticide” in Gaza. A recent uptick in AAUP membership proved “you can speak about Palestine and still grow your union.” [1:15:58]
The same thing happened at a second panel about abolishing the police. Kumanyika appeared on it with Chicago organizer Brian Bean, author of Their End is Our Beginning: Cops, Capitalism, and Abolition; and Palestine: A Socialist Introduction.
They started, predictably, with dismantling the system: “If we want to be serious about abolishing the police,” said Bean, “we have to be serious about abolishing the capitalist state and replacing it with a new system of socialism, communism, how do we want to call it.” [8:15]
“All these racist cops — we don’t need them,” Kumanyika continued:
NYU Professor Chenjerai Kumanyika at Socialism 2025:
“All these racist cops—we don’t need them… but then I would be later like, is the problem with the cops that they're racist? I mean, they are often—you know, many of them are, too many—even the Black and brown ones…… pic.twitter.com/bQiSBBttC6
— Stu (@thestustustudio) July 5, 2025
But once more, the conversation came back to Palestine. “How do you see the role of the student uprisings in the Palestine solidarity movement against the abolition of police?” one member asked. Kumanyika didn’t respond directly — he rarely did, I noticed. Instead, he recommended everyone enjoy the evening activity: a showing of The Encampments, a documentary featuring Mahmoud Khalil in a sympathetic portrayal of the anti-Israel campus “tentifadas.” [1:08:42]
Earlier, Kumanyika worried aloud about being watched by the capitalist State they plan to abolish.
“I just saw — I’m not even gonna say because I think we livestreaming … but I see government officials tweeting about us. … Yeah, they tuned in:”
NYU Professor Chenjerai Kumanyika at Socialism 2025:
“I see government officials tweeting about us… Yeah, they tuned in.”
The government isn’t reacting to Fox News—or even the Daily Wire.
They’re watching independent researchers like me, because we’re the ones doing the work… pic.twitter.com/i1Nd8O8w8o
— Stu (@thestustustudio) July 5, 2025
The panelists at Socialism 2025 were being watched, by none other than Leo Terrell, head of the Department of Justice’s Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism:
Unreal https://t.co/A6SzZMCjxQ
— Leo Terrell (@LeoTerrellDOJ) July 5, 2025
Terrell has marching orders from Trump to eliminate campus antisemitism.
Perhaps mindful of this, in parting with his audience, Kumanyika left some words unspoken: “I want to signal to my comrades,” he said, briefly lifting his keffiyeh, “I’m here; we here.” But if his message was cryptic, its meaning was clear: It was an expression of solidarity with his comrades in the red-green alliance — an alliance that feeds on a reliable grievance against an age-old enemy.
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Comments
Good news, folks! I just got an update from Chenjerai Kumanyika! Oh wait, that was just my toilet flushing.
“We here”. From a college professor.
We here. We beez here. We ain’t dun do nuffin’. Just the way them authentic blacks talk. Don’t want to be too Whitey about it, after all. Whitey speech be raycissst!
j ewish people
this is what you or your kids are supporting if you continue to vote dem
The environment on US campuses would have been greatly improved if several (or even just one) large (or even one of modest size) precision guided munitions (missile or bomb, take your pick) had been dropped on this conference, This is not to say I’m advocating this. No I’m not. Honestly. I’m just saying the loss (who am I kidding it wouldn’t be a loss) of these estimable academics would have greatly enriched those left behind,
More realistically:
1) Get rid of the styrofoam majors
2) Stop hiring staff based on race or how long their list of grievances is
3) Have the colleges be guarantors of student loans
4) Any others? I’m open to suggestions.
The student dorms at UAB are miniature luxury hotels. Gotta do something with all those guvment backed student loan dollars. And it seems the south side of Birmingham around campus is perpetually torn up by construction so navigating traffic is often, well, challenging.
.
Starve the system of money. You can’t tell these people what to do. You have to starve them out. It’s not hard to rebuild a good STEM focused university system for able students, it will almost happen naturally. Research contracts from the defense industry, where R&D has always really happened. The tech workforce knows how to teach the basics to capable students like they were when they were in school; you don’t need tons of administrators and formal curricula.
What’s hard is maintaining a clownish system like we have now, top heavy and defying gravity, demanding huge amounts of external support to keep it from toppling. Don’t try to fix it, they’ll subvert everything. Let it topple.
Back in the day, we would have called it a “Target-Rich Environment”.
This is some of the stupidest shit I’ve ever seen.
Who gave these people access to oxygen?
a non existent “dad” and a leg spreading pos
“My comrades”
Reminds me of Father Damien on Molokai, “My fellow lepers”
AAUP?
American Association of Unrepentant Posers?
He has an Aquafina water in front of him…oops!
They are owned by PepsiCo who are do business in Israel and partner with Israeli brands.
Nice touch.
Let me guess, has the “Professor” ever had a real job? I didn’t think so.
So he wants money for books about calculus and organic chemistry, right? That might be worth investing in. For the garbage he probably teaches, absolutely not.
I noticed that he instructed the audience to wear masks. Nothing says freedom, liberty, and rights, as well as some socialist telling everyone to wear masks. These people are nuts.