Almost one year ago on Oct. 7, Hamas terrorists made a surprise attack on a music festival in Israel, killing young people and sparking what’s now become war in the Middle East.

But even before that, the city university system was struggling to combat antisemitism on its 25 campuses.

Gov. Kathy Hochul assigned former Chief Judge of New York Jonathan Lippman to conduct an independent review of hate on campuses in October 2023. 

On Tuesday, Lippman released his wide-ranging report on how to lower the temperature at some campuses.

“Am I worried about it? Yeah! I’m worried about it!” Lippman told NY1 during a sit-down interview Tuesday.

The former top judge is concerned about CUNY’s future, if antisemitism continues to fester across the nation’s largest city university system.

“I think CUNY is a dynamic institution. I think they will live on for years and years, providing New Yorkers with the same education that they provided to Colin Powell and Henry Kissinger and Jerry Seinfeld and my mother and so many people. But yes, does it worry me? Of course it worries me! If we let it get out of hand,” he said.

“It’s a very large place. You have 25 schools, 225,000 students, and what’s clear is that it’s not handled in a uniform manner at the different schools,” he added.

Lippman and a team of lawyers from the white shoe law firm, Latham & Watkins LLP, where he now works, described his nearly year-long analysis.

Providing an independent, pro bono review, the group conducted around 300 interviews with students, staff and other individuals tied to CUNY campuses.

The nearly 150-page report blamed some professors for contributing to students reporting they feel unsafe on campus, slammed CUNY’s mechanism for reporting hate incidents as a “black box” and found some schools facing a backlog of discrimination complaints, likely served as “safe havens for perpetrators of antisemitism.”

“Blocked entrances to buildings, banging on doors where people are reading and threaten them, wear masks, do encampments, knock yamakas off Jewish students’ heads,” he recalled, listing complaints made to investigators. “The policies and procedures at CUNY need to be significantly overhauled and updated.”

Lippman’s recommendations include creating a central university-wide center to handle hate complaints, overhauling the current complaint system, establish a victims’ advocate program and work with law enforcement.

With the review underway, protests engulfed campuses across the U.S., including CUNY’s City College of New York.

Last month, Jewish students at Baruch College were taunted about murdered hostages by members of the college’s Students for Justice in Palestine group. The incident was also a topic that came up at an antisemitism roundtable held by Mayor Eric Adams on Monday at City Hall.

CUNY Chancellor Felix Matos Rodriguez said in a statement that he plans to comply with the recommendations.

“Amid a rising tide of antisemitism nationwide, CUNY has already taken critical steps to combat hate and discrimination,” he said. “Recognizing there is more to do, we look forward to working on implementing Judge Lippman’s recommendations to redouble our efforts and build on our progress to create a more inclusive campus environment for students, faculty and staff.”

Hochul added in her own statement that she’s ordered CUNY to follow Lippman’s recommendations and also wants other campuses across New York to model their own anti-discrimination policies after his report.