New York City Councilwoman Vickie Paladino said Wednesday that the anti-American activism of Darializa Chevalier, the democratic socialist who won a congressional primary in the city, makes her ineligible to be seated in the House.
The councilwoman said Ms. Chevalier cannot in good faith take the oath of office because she joined Students for Justice in Palestine and helped found Columbia University Apartheid Divest or CUAD, which advocates “use of violence in America.”
“The oath of office is not some boilerplate formality. It’s a legally binding component of our government, designed specifically to prevent people like Chevalier from holding office in America,” Ms. Paladino said on X.
“The GOP majority must make it clear that individuals who cannot uphold their oath in good faith will not be seated. And helping to found a group whose stated mission is to ‘eradicate America’ is the most plain and obvious conflict with the oath you could possibly imagine. We need to fight the DSA with every tool available,” she said, referring to the Democratic Socialists of America.
The Washington Times reached out to Ms. Chevalier for comment.
An anti-Israel activist at Columbia between 2012 and 2016, Ms. Chevalier worked with the now-suspended group Students for Justice in Palestine. She helped launch the movement later known as CUAD to divest from Israel.
CUAD is a coalition of 80-plus student groups behind the 2024 pro-Gaza encampment.
In November 2023, the university suspended its Students for Justice in Palestine chapter. Still, groups such as Columbia Social Workers for Palestine and CUAD have taken up the cause.
The campus organizations held a walkout and protest Tuesday to advance demands such as divesting from Israel and lifting the suspensions of two student activists.
“There will be no school as usual as long as Columbia funds genocide,” said the CUAD on Instagram.
In a Jan. 17 report, the pro-Israel watchdog group Canary Mission called Columbia a “national model” for anti-Israel activism, crediting the SJP chapter for “orchestrating campus protests and normalizing Hamas’ antisemitic and violent rhetoric and imagery.”
The report said Columbia allowed SJP “to rebrand as Columbia University Apartheid Divest,” which “proceeded to amp up SJP’s antisemitic rhetoric and violent intimidation tactics.”
“CUAD launched what would become the template for anti-Israel protests across the country: an encampment on university grounds to establish the ‘Popular University of Gaza,’” said the report, titled “From Tehran to Columbia: Inside America’s Student Intifada.”
Ms. Chevalier defeated Democratic incumbent Adriano Espaillat on Tuesday in the Democratic primary in New York’s 13th Congressional District. The 32-year-old narrowly defeated Mr. Espaillat, 71, in the district that includes parts of Harlem, Washington Heights and the Bronx.
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