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Art instructor who threatened journalist with machete chants about ‘slitting the master’s throat’

Rodriguez used to teach classes at Hunter College, Cooper Union

A former college art instructor caught threatening a journalist with a machete was seen Friday leading a chant about “slitting the master’s throat” at a pro-Palestinian protest.

Shellyne Rodriguez formerly taught art classes at Hunter College and Cooper Union School of Art, both in New York.

In a video on X shared by journalist Andy Ngo, Rodriguez can be seen leading a group of pro-Palestinian protesters in a chant. According to Ngo, the protest took place Friday outside the Brooklyn Museum.

“Our ancestors … dreamed of us slitting the master’s throat,” Rodriguez chanted in the video.

The crowd of protesters echoed her words and then applauded.

As pro-Palestinian flags waved behind her, Rodriguez also led anti-police chants, according to the video.

“Our ancestors are horrified to see black people, Latinx people, indigenous people, children of migrants, and Muslims joining the slave patrol NYPD and [inaudible] plantation overseers in the jails and prisons,” she chanted.

Rodriguez was fired from Hunter College in 2023 after tussling up a pro-life student table and later threatening a journalist and his photographer with a machete, The College Fix reported at the time.

Then, earlier this year, Rodriguez lost another teaching job at the Cooper Union after making anti-Israel comments, The Fix reported.

In a post on her personal Instagram page, Rodriguez described former Bronx Borough President Rubén Díaz Jr. as a “dirty f—ing roach” and “a Zionist lapdog,” the New York Post reported.

Rodriguez also urged a rent strike against Jewish landlords and people who support Israel during a CUNY for Palestine virtual panel, according to George Washington University law Professor Jonathan Turley’s blog.

What’s more, she urged people to target individuals who support Israel, saying, “Find them, go to their offices, don’t let them sleep,” according to the blog.

However, Rodriguez blamed her firing on “fascism” in an email to students, according to an Instagram post by the Cooper Union Students for Justice in Palestine chapter.

An artist from the Bronx, Rodriguez became the subject of national news attention in 2023 after two videos of her actions attracted widespread attention on social media.

In the first video, she berated pro-life students at a Students for Life display table at Hunter College, grabbing materials on the table and pushing them toward the students.

A second video from a few weeks later showed her holding a machete to the neck of a New York Post reporter who went to her home to ask about the Students for Life incident. Rodriguez followed him outside and chased him and a photographer around a vehicle with the machete, according to the video.

The Bronx District Attorney’s Office said she later pleaded guilty to harassment and menacing charges.

MORE: Machete-wielding art professor fired again after ‘Zionist’ rant: report

IMAGE: Luke2Freedom/X

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About the Author
Micaiah Bilger is an assistant editor at The College Fix.