“There are a few people who have been very effective in branding the left at shutting down free speech,
but the moment they are confronted with leftist speech they don’t like, they are equally outraged and poised to suppress that speech,” he said.
Ms. Sarsour wrote that the photo was “The definition of courage.”
Mr. Hikind said in a phone interview, “You can’t support a terrorist and then be the commencement speaker at a university that my taxes help pay for.”
His opposition drew a flurry of coverage in late April, as news
that Ms. Sarsour had been invited to speak spread among local news outlets, Jewish publications and the conservative media establishment.
But it is the commencement address she is to deliver next week to about 100 students at the City University of New York School of Public Health
that she says has drawn the most hostility and ire she has ever experienced.
It makes the person more well known and attracts more people to those ideas.”
The debate about Ms. Sarsour’s speech began last month with Dov Hikind, a conservative
Democratic state assemblyman who represents a largely Orthodox community in Brooklyn.