As my colleague Brittany Sheehan reported in May, a far-left pro-abortion professor named Shellyne Rodriguez was fired by Hunter College after holding a machete to a New York Post reporter’s throat and threatening to “chop him up.” Earlier, she had vandalized an information table for the pro-life group “Students for Life of America” and had aggressively thrown their literature at them.
On Monday, Rodriguez learned her court date:
A spokeswoman for the [Bronx, New York] DA’s office said a status hearing was held Monday to confirm that the DA’s office was in compliance with all the discoveries and evidence in the case.
The spokeswoman confirmed that everything was satisfactory and the date of Aug. 14, 2023, was set for a possible disposition.
As Sheehan reported, here’s Rodriguez attacking the Post reporter, and then in the second clip, revealing her style of “educating” people:
Incredibly, despite her violent antics, Rodriguez claims that she’s actually the victim, saying in a statement that Hunter College “capitulated” to “racists, white nationalists, and misogynists” and then in an interview that right-wingers were at fault for daring to report the story. She claims that the publicity surrounding her outbursts has “taken a toll on my mental health”:
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. 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.
Really? You physically attack people and then claim that anyone who writes about it is assaulting you? Preposterous.
But the insane gaslighting continued. Wendy Olsoff, a cofounder of P.P.O.W, the New York gallery that represents Rodriguez as an artist, chimed in:
Now I feel like nothing has changed and, in fact, the strategies of these organizations have gotten more sophisticated.
Now all organizations, like the AFA [the American Family Association, a Christian organization], have to do is manipulate an iPhone video and characterize Rodriguez as an insane gay black woman professor. With the click of a button, their hateful message of fear, violence, racism, sexism, and homophobia can be sent across the country and the world–meant to target people of color, the LGBTQAI+, women’s rights and anyone who doesn’t fall in line with their agenda.
What she doesn’t explain, however, is how exactly were the videos manipulated? And do commentators even need to characterize Rodriguez as an “insane gay black woman professor,” or do her actions speak for themselves? I would also argue the “hateful” messaging in this story is coming from one side and one side only.
Apparently, according to Olsoff and Rodriguez, the real crime here is that “right-wing” news outlets reported on the story–not that Rodriguez held a machete to a man’s throat and threatened to kill him, nor that she assaulted the first amendment rights (and property) of pro-life students.
The reality is, no matter how passionate your views are, this kind of behavior is simply unacceptable. Doubtless, the legal system in New York City will let her off without even a slap on the wrist–because criminality and violence are now openly tolerated in the Big Apple–but at least Hunter College surprisingly told her to take her violent extremism elsewhere.