Trying to stem a spiraling controversy, the Board of Trustees of the City University of New York issued a statement on Thursday that its decision to block an honorary degree for the playwright Tony Kushner “should not be interpreted as reflecting on Mr. Kushner’s accomplishments.”
But the statement fell short of an apology, which is what Mr. Kushner called for after Jeffrey S. Wiesenfeld, a trustee, claimed that he held deeply anti-Israel views. Mr. Wiesenfeld’s words, at a board meeting on Monday, set in motion a vote by the trustees to shelve the honor.
Karen Kaplowitz, the head of the faculty committee at John Jay that had nominated Mr. Kushner, said she was mortified that he had been treated with disrespect. She said the Faculty Senate had submitted the nomination to honor Mr. Kushner’s work. “This is not,” Dr. Kaplowitz said, “how the academy works, and it should not be how the trustees of a great university operate.”
Mr. Wiesenfeld was the only trustee to speak against Mr. Kushner at the meeting Monday night. He recited three quotations that he said typified Mr. Kushner’s anti-Israel views; the quotations were taken from a Web site that Mr. Kushner has said he was not aware of. The accusations were part of a longer, four-minute speech against what Mr. Wiesenfeld described as a growing tolerance for anti-Israel views on CUNY campuses and elsewhere.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/06/nyregion/cuny-vote-not-to-honor-kushner-is-criticized.html?_r=3&ref=nyregion