Zohran Mamdani decried the “repression” of pro-Palestinian faculty members at U.S. universities during an appearance Saturday with Sen. Bernie Sanders at Brooklyn College.
“No faculty member should be disciplined for supporting Palestinian human rights,” he said in his opening comments during the event, part of the “Fighting Oligarchy” tour organized by Sanders, a fellow democratic socialist who has endorsed Mamdani’s campaign for mayor of New York City.
Later, Mamdani responded to a question from a student who identified herself as Jewish and asked about four adjunct faculty members whom Brooklyn College let go this year, in a move their union says was motivated by their public pro-Palestinian advocacy. Police and pro-Palestinian protesters clashed at the school last year amid a wave of campus protests that saw Mayor Eric Adams, one of Mamdani’s opponents, sent police to multiple campuses.
“We are seeing faculty members who are facing not just discipline, but termination, for the crime of expressing solidarity with the fight for Palestinian human rights,” Mamdani said, donning a hat of the Professional Staff Congress union representing CUNY faculty.
“And I know that this is a repression that is not unique to Brooklyn College. It is a repression that extends even to the ways in which we choose when to send police officers onto college campuses,” he continued. “The incident around encampments here at Brooklyn College — the decision to surge officers into that site — is one that leaves students less safe than they were before.”
The comments drew some of the loudest applause during the 90-minute event that covered a wide range of topics, including income inequality, housing policy and ICE arrests under President Donald Trump.
Members of the audience, a mix of students and guests, wore Bernie shirts, Zohran shirts and other political clothing items like keffiyehs and clothes with images of watermelons, a symbol of Palestinian solidarity. At times, the rally erupted into cheers of “Free Palestine!” and at one point, a pro-Israel demonstrator was escorted from room by security after approaching the stage while shouting “Am Yisrael Chai!”
Sanders, too, addressed issues related to the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, drawing a standing ovation when he said the United States should not be sending aid to Israel. Sanders has introduced legislation to block U.S. arms sales to Israel that an increasing number of Democrats have endorsed.
“It is not radical to say that we should have a foreign policy based on humanity and based on justice,” Sanders said, as part of a litany of progressive positions. “That we should not be sending tens of billions of dollars to the government of Israel that is currently starving children to death. That is not radical!”
Sanders was one of the first national politicians to endorse Mamdani — who has said pro-Palestinian advocacy is central to his politics — after his Democratic primary win in June. The pair met in Washington, where, CNN reported via an anonymous source, Sanders urged Mamdani to be cautious in his approach to talking about Israel, and to “do a better job explaining that his criticism is not antisemitic and to not let himself seem like he’s minimizing the fear Jews in New York and elsewhere feel from the threat of hate against them.”
Since then, Mamdani has shifted his stance on the pro-Palestinian slogan “globalize the intifada,” which critics say is a call to violence. He has said he recognizes that the phrase makes many Jews and others uncomfortable and has said he would “discourage” its use.
During the rally, Sanders lamented that more New York Democrats have not joined him in endorsing Mamdani. While the most senior member of the state’s congressional delegation, Rep. Jerry Nadler, has endorsed him, other top leaders, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Sen. Chuck Schumer and Gov. Kathy Hochul, have not. Some have cited his comments on Israel as reasons for caution
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“I find it hard to understand how the major Democratic leaders of New York state are not supporting the Democratic candidate,” Sanders said. “One might think that if a candidate starting at 2% in the polls gets 50,000 volunteers, creates enormous excitement, gets young people involved in the political process, gets nontraditional voters to vote — Democratic leaders would be jumping up and down!”
He added, “We’ve got another fight on our hands, which is the future of the Democratic Party.”
(Mamdani himself has not always endorsed Democratic candidates. While he has said he “proudly voted” for Kamala Harris for president last year, he did not publicly back her even as other mayoral candidates raced to do so. He also supported the movement for New Yorkers to withhold their votes from President Joe Biden in the Democratic presidential primary over Biden’s support for Israel.)
Sanders has long been a political hero for Mamdani, whose initial canvassing effort during his 2019 state Assembly campaign took place outside a Sanders rally in Queens. The pair marched together earlier on Saturday at the city’s Labor Day Parade, and met later on with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Although not a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, Sanders’ strong showing as a self-identifying “democratic socialist” in the 2016 presidential primaries inspired a surge in DSA membership — including that of Mamdani, who said Saturday that Sanders’ 2016 campaign “gave me the language of democratic socialism to describe my politics.”
One audience member mentioned during the Q&A that she was a DSA member; many in the audience cheered, and Mamdani joked that there were “a few members here tonight.” Mamdani also mentioned that the DSA had a table in the atrium outside the theater and suggested that people interested in organizing visit it to learn more.
The DSA’s positions on Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are far from the Democratic Party’s. The DSA platform accuses Israel of apartheid, colonialism and military occupation, while pledging solidarity with the Palestinian cause. The party reportedly adopted new resolutions last month threatening to expel members who disagree with its policy on boycotting Israel.
Mamdani has recently distanced himself from some of the DSA’s more controversial stances, like eliminating all misdemeanor offenses and closing local jails, telling reporters that his platform “is not the same as national DSA.”
He remains consistent with the DSA on referring to Israel’s military campaign in Gaza as a “genocide” and supporting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. (Sanders has not used the term “genocide” to describe Israel’s actions and does not publicly support the BDS movement.)
With two months to go before the mayoral election, Sanders and Mamdani reminded the crowd — the majority of whom raised their hands to identify that they were among the Mamdani campaign’s 50,000 volunteers — that there is work to be done to defeat Andrew Cuomo, who the Trump administration is reportedly angling to pit one-on-one against Mamdani.
“We will face an incredible amount of money being spent against us,” Mamdani said. “We will face smears and slander. We will face the kind of opposition that we have not yet seen in this city.”
“And yet we know we have all the same ingredients that defeated those same things in the primary,” Mamdani said.
Mamdani also led the audience in singing “Happy Birthday” in honor of Sanders, who turns 84 on Monday.
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