The Brooklyn College event, scheduled to take place on Thursday, is being co-sponsored by the college’s political science department, as well as several student and nonstudent groups, and will feature two speakers from the B.D.S. movement, Judith Butler, a philosopher, and Omar Barghouti, a founding member of the group.

Ten members of the City Council, led by Lewis A. Fidler of Brooklyn, signed a letter on Jan. 29 to the college president, Karen Gould, demanding either that the event be canceled or that the university revoke its sponsorship. (Two of the members later backed off their support of the letter.) The letter also suggested that if the university went ahead with the event, the Council might withhold future financing to the school. Mr. Bloomberg rejected that threat.

“The last thing we need is for members of our City Council or State Legislature to be micromanaging the kinds of programs that our public universities run and base funding decisions on the political views of professors,” he said. “I can’t think of anything that would be more destructive to a university and its students.”

The Council speaker, Christine C. Quinn, made it clear, in remarks at a separate news conference, she would not support punishing the college for hosting the event, even though, she said, “I think this event is deplorable — I think it is an anti-Israel event.”

“That said,” she said, “Brooklyn College has the right to have whatever events it wants to have.” She added, “I don’t think whatever programming they do or don’t do should have any relevance on their funding or any of their other standing as an academic institution.”