"Slitting The Master's Throat": Fired Machete-Wielding Professor Leads Protesters In Chilling Chant

We previously discussed Shellyne Rodríguez , the machete-wielding former Hunter College professor. Rodríguez is back with a large following shown in a video with protesters chanting with her about “slitting the throats of the masters.”We previously discussed a videotape of Rodríguez trashing a pro-life student display in New York. Before attacking the table, she told the students, “You’re not educating s–t […] This is f–king propaganda. What are you going to do, like, anti-trans next? This is bulls–t. This is violent. You’re triggering my students.”

The videotape revealed one other thing. At Hunter College, and at other colleges, it seems that trashing a pro-life student display and abusing pro-life students is not considered a firing offense. Hunter College refused to fire Rodríguez.

The PSC Graduate Center, the labor organization of graduate and professional schools at the City University of New York, supported that decision and said Rodríguez was “justified” in trashing the display, which the organization described as “dangerously false propaganda” and “disinformation.”

Rodríguez later put a machete to the neck of a reporter, threatened to chop him up and then chased a news crew down a street with the machete in hand. Somewhere between the machete to the neck and chasing the reporters down the street, Hunter College finally decided that Rodríguez had to go.

Rodríguez denounced the school for having “capitulated” to “racists, white nationalists, and misogynists.” She explained that her firing was just a continuation of “attacks on women, trans people, black people, Latinx people, migrants, and beyond.”

The Cooper Union, however, refused to sever ties with Rodríguez, 47, and decided that she should continue to teach her students. Later it too fired Rodriguez after continued radical conduct. However, according to the New York Post, Rodriguez attributed her firing to her anti-Israeli comments. She declared:

“Cooper Union has fired me because of a social media post I made about ‘Zionists’… effective immediately. This is fascism. Ya’ll are learning about it in real time. Stay strong, [stay] brave, stay defiant, don’t bite your tongue, and drink plenty of water! Pa-lante!”

Before watching this video, it is important to keep in mind that the faculty members and administrators previously wanted Rodríguez as a colleague.

In a video on X shared by journalist Andy Ngo, Rodríguez leads a group of pro-Palestinian protesters in chanting “Our ancestors … dreamed of us slitting the master’s throat.” The scene shows a clearly unhinged Rodríguez who is not just supported by these protesters but clearly thrilling them with her rage rhetoric.

I discuss Rodríguez in my book “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage” as an example of the radical chic in higher education.

Rodríguez leads the pro-Palestinian protesters in anti-police chants:

“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.”

For a person who chased reporters with a machete, it is a curious choice for a speaker against violence. However, Rodríguez is clearly revered by the crowd.

The fact that she pleaded guilty to harassment and menacing charges clearly did not reduce her popularity. To the contrary, for some, it may have increased it.

This was the person that two colleges wanted on their faculties and resisted efforts to fire her, even after trashing a table in an insane diatribe against pro-life advocates. She is the person that the PSC Graduate Center declared was “justified” in her violence against those peaceful advocates.

She is the very face of an age of rage.

*  *  *

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. He is the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage” (Simon & Schuster).