Brooklyn, NY – A high-ranking CUNY administrator secretly complained about “too many Jews” on the faculty at Kingsborough Community College, according to blockbuster audio obtained by The Post.
Stuart Suss, a former interim president of the school, allegedly made the remark to a Kingsborough professor, who then relayed it to a colleague while being secretly recorded.
“What did you hear him say?” asked Business Department chairman Jeffrey Lax, who is suing Suss and CUNY over claims of religious discrimination and harassment.
“Oh, that there are too many Jews,” math professor Ronald Forman replied during the April 4 exchange.
Lax’s Brooklyn federal court suit accuses Suss, now vice president of academic affairs at CUNY’s Guttman Community College, of making antisemitic remarks and reducing the number of Jews on the Kingsborough faculty.
According to the recording, Forman confided to Lax that he believed some of the allegations against Suss, saying: “I’ll never admit it, but I heard him say it.”
Forman also told Lax, “Don’t quote me, I’ll deny I said it . . . Stuart is my oldest friend here, OK?” before adding: “I understand where you’re coming from. Trust me.”
All three men are Jewish, but Suss and Forman are members of a Conservative synagogue, while Lax identifies himself in court papers as an “Orthodox or ‘obvious’ Jew.”
On Sunday, Forman said Lax “didn’t get my permission to record me. I’m pissed.”
But he didn’t deny the contents of the recording, saying: “If it’s on the tape, it’s on the tape.”
Forman also said he believed Suss “was acting on behalf of higher-ups.”
“He is known as a very good soldier,” Forman said.
Suss declined to comment, telling The Post: “I’m not allowed to talk to you.”
Lax’s lawyer recently turned over the recording of Forman to the city Law Department, which is representing Suss and CUNY, as part of the pretrial “discovery” process.
The recording is intended to bolster Lax’s claim against Suss, whom he accuses of calling Jews “horrible,” “the devil,” “crazy” and “evil,” and “voicing support” for anti-Jewish suicide bombers.
Lax also alleges that Kingsborough “has permitted and encouraged a dangerous atmosphere for Jewish faculty members.”
His suit cites the repeated vandalism of a faculty member’s car “which bears an American and Israeli flag” and another Israeli flag in the Foreign Languages Department that’s been defaced “multiple times.”
Lax also says that “numerous swastikas have been drawn or scratched at various locations” and that “a Jewish professor found a swastika carved into her classroom door, and her keyboard drenched in urine.”
According to the court papers filed on Lax’s behalf by the Lawfare Project, none of the incidents has been investigated or reported to the police. Court papers were filed by Corey Stark who is co-counsel to Lax with The Lawfare Project, a non profit legal think tank based in NY.
He says college President Farley Herzak told him to “let it go” when he filed a discrimination complaint in 2015.
The Law Department has filed papers seeking dismissal of Lax’s suit, saying, “Defendants have not violated any rights, privileges or immunities of plaintiff.”
A department spokesman said, “We are reviewing all the evidence we have obtained in discovery and will respond accordingly.”
