Fired NYC professor Shellyne Rodriguez says she’s the victim after machete threat

Metro

By Emily Crane

May 24, 2023 | 5:42pm

The Manhattan college arts professor who was fired after threatening a Post reporter with a machete and cursing out anti-abortion students claimed Wednesday that she’s the victim — arguing the school had “capitulated” to racists and misogynists by terminating her.

Shellyne Rodriguez, 45, was axed from Hunter College on Tuesday, just hours after she was filmed holding the blade to the veteran reporter’s neck while spewing menacing remarks outside her Bronx apartment.

Rodriguez lashed out after the reporter identified himself and knocked on her door to ask her for an interview regarding the viral footage of her flipping out on pro-life students at Hunter College on May 2.

In a statement to ARTnews on Wednesday, Rodriguez insisted the saga had “taken a toll on my mental health.”

Rodriguez, who didn’t directly address the machete ordeal in her statement, claimed she had been “inundated with vile and hateful emails, texts and voicemails” over the past two weeks as the footage of her encounter with the anti-abortion students started to spread online.

After the on-campus encounter, where she was filmed telling the students their pro-life pamphlets were “f–king propaganda,” Rodriguez said she issued an apology after being directed to by the college’s administration.

“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 said.

Rodriguez said the ordeal — and subsequent threats — had robbed her of her “sense of safety.”

She added that it 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.”

With her firing, Rodriguez said the school had “capitulated” to “racists, white nationalists, and misogynists.”

“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,” she said.

“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.”

Prior to the machete threat on the Post reporter, a rep for Hunter College had said the school was in the process of reviewing Rodriguez’s on-campus encounter with the pro-life students.

Soon after being made aware of the footage of her threatening to “chop” up the veteran Postie, Vince DiMiceli, a spokesman for Hunter College, told The Post Rodriguez had been fired.

“Hunter College strongly condemns the unacceptable actions of Shellyne Rodriguez and has taken immediate action,” he said.

“Rodriguez has been relieved of her duties at Hunter College effective immediately, and will not be returning to teach at the school.”