This is what happened to CUNY, with that surprise session initiated by Republicans in the State Senate. As was the case with the California regents, a single Jewish organization was behind the anti-CUNY campaign. In California, it was the Amcha Initiative, one of whose founders was quoted in this newspaper over the weekend explaining that “B.D.S. is in virtually all of its aspects anti-Semitic.” With CUNY, it was the far-right Zionist Organization of America making the same argument. These accusations of anti-Semitism were then magnified by conservative columnists and repeated by the Republican state senators.

But contrary to what the state senators claimed, CUNY administrators did not ignore the accusations. They hired two former federal prosecutors to examine the complaints of anti-Semitism and “recommend appropriate action.” CUNY has also established a working group to go over its policies relating to the boundaries of acceptable speech. Abraham Foxman, the former director of the Anti-Defamation League and an alumnus of CUNY, has praised the university’s handling of these isolated incidents. And, to borrow a phrase, when it comes to anti-Semitism, if Abe Foxman is not worried, I’m not worried.

Moreover, the notion that the people behind the worst of this behavior are anything but a loud and obnoxious minority is belied by the reality of everyday life on campus. Aside from Facebook and Twitter posts, where anonymity often invites abuse, I’ve never heard a single anti-Semitic syllable uttered on any CUNY campus in the dozen years I’ve been on the faculty. My classes on Jewish history and culture often discuss extremely delicate questions of Jewish identity without anyone, Jew or gentile, evincing the slightest discernible discomfort. (Well, one traditionally Orthodox undergraduate once called Woody Allen and Philip Roth “worse than the goyim.”)

The notion that politicians can demand that a university prohibit certain types of political speech it finds politically distasteful by threatening its funding not only makes martyrs of those whom it seeks to silence, it also bespeaks a lack of confidence both in its own beliefs and in the value of reason itself.

The rabbinic sage Yossi Ben Zimra would recognize these campaigns as so much motzira-making, or malicious gossip. Regarding CUNY, I’d call it shameful to see such tactics deployed against so proud and significant an institution in the history of American Jews, and now an invaluable educational lifeline to millions of recent immigrants and hardworking, largely low-income students.

By protecting the right to free speech and expression, while simultaneously demanding civility and respectful discourse on all sides, universities can take care of these problems without political threats that undermine the very purpose of the university itself.