News/Commentary

Machete-wielding professor pulls giant victim card in defiant statement after firing

May 25, 2023 | | Print Article

Marxist Manhattan College art professor Shellyne Rodriguez was fired after reportedly holding a machete to the throat of a New York Post reporter who was questioning her about destroying an anti-abortion display in a fit of rage and now is claiming to be the victim of white nationalists, racists, and misogynists.

(Video Credit: New York Post)

On Wednesday, after being terminated, Rodriguez said the school had “capitulated” to “racists, white nationalists, and misogynists” by canning her, according to the New York Post.

Rodriguez, 45, is a proud cop-hating Marxist who was employed at Hunter College until Tuesday when she flipped out and was filmed holding the machete to a veteran reporter’s neck while spewing profanities and threatening to cut him into pieces outside her Bronx apartment. She also sports an “FTP,” or “f*** the police,” tattoo on her fingers which pretty much says it all.

All it took for her to lose it was the reporter, Reuven Fenton, knocking on her door and asking for an interview regarding the viral footage of her flying into a rage against two pro-life students at Hunter College on May 2.

“Get the f*** away from my door, or I’m gonna chop you up with this machete!” she reportedly screamed from inside her apartment.

In a statement released on Wednesday to ARTnews, Rodriguez had the nerve to claim that the incident had “taken a toll on my mental health.” Imagine how the reporter felt. The machete-wielding teacher also ironically said that the altercation had robbed her of her “sense of safety.”

She didn’t directly address the unhinged machete incident in the statement. But she did cry victim in an ongoing theme, claiming that she had been “inundated with vile and hateful emails, texts and voicemails” over the past two weeks as the footage of her trashing the anti-abortion display went viral.

During the encounter at the pro-life table, she called the students’ pamphlets “f***ing propaganda.” Rodriguez later claimed she apologized after consulting with school administrators.

“Yet before the process could be completed, on May 19th, Students for Life circulated a manipulated video of the incident on social media and mobilized their members and supporters to attack me,” she asserted.

She unbelievably went on about how her ordeal had created a “reasonable fear that they would show up at my home to cause me physical harm, as has happened with so many other women who have similarly had their personal info exposed as a form of politically motivated harassment.”

“As much as this incident has stakes for my life, it is ultimately just one part of a broader political struggle taking place across the country,” Rodriguez declared. “Right-wing media organizations are weaponizing and sensationalizing this case to further their agenda, and using me as a prism through which to project their attacks on women, trans people, black people, Latinx people, migrants, and beyond.”

Before Rodriguez took the machete to the reporter’s throat, a representative for Hunter College told the New York Post that the school was in the process of reviewing her on-campus encounter with the pro-life students.

After school administrators were made aware of the footage of the professor threatening to “chop” up Fenton, a spokesman for Hunter College said Rodriguez had been fired.

“Hunter College strongly condemns the unacceptable actions of Shellyne Rodriguez and has taken immediate action,” he told the New York Post. “Rodriguez has been relieved of her duties at Hunter College effective immediately, and will not be returning to teach at the school.”

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