Mayor Zohran Mamdani has named several outspoken anti-police and anti-Israel figures to the Panel for Education Policy, including an appointee who backed separate “reflection” spaces in public schools focused on racism, The Post has learned.
One of Mamdani’s 13 selections is Lucas Koehler, a former Department of Education official who now leads the Foundation for City College, which oversees a $500 million endowment.
Koehler, who is white, previously supported efforts within the agency to “dismantle white dominant culture” and endorsed separate spaces in city classrooms where non-white educators could examine what the statement described as internalized anti-black racism.
The proposed “separate spaces for white people and non-black people of color” were intended “to interrogate their own internalized anti-black racism and unlearn white dominant behaviors without causing harm to black colleagues,” according to a statement Koehler endorsed while at the DOE from the Division of Early Childhood Education Antiracism Coalition, the watchdog group Canary Mission found.
Koehler, who worked at the DOE from 2014 to 2022, also backed a call for the department to cut all ties with the NYPD, arguing in the same letter that police officers represent a “threat” to minority students.
“In addition to the threat in-school police pose to black and brown children and their families, the funding allocated to the NYPD necessarily keeps money away from the social services that keep children safe and secure, and therefore better able to learn and grow,” the DECE Antiracism Coalition statement said.
Another Mamdani pick drawing scrutiny is Raysa S. Rodriguez, who leads the Citizens Committee for Children, an organization that has repeatedly urged officials to reduce police funding.
The Citizens Committee for Children has called for the NYPD to end quality-of-life summonses and pressed the City Council to reject funding for a $225 million NYPD training facility in Queens.
Another pick Mamdani placed on the board is Brooklyn College and CUNY Graduate Center alum Dr. Madeline “Maddy” Fox, who signed a letter accusing Israel of genocide and denying the existence of widespread antisemitism on college campuses.
“There is no rampant crisis of antisemitism on our campuses, despite prolonged attempts by the current administration to persuade the public that there is one,” read the 2025 letter, signed by Jewish faculty at CUNY, Berkley and Georgetown.
The letter went on to accuse the Trump administration of “Islamaphobia” for its attempts to combat antisemitism.
“This campaign of repression and censorship, including deportation and detention, is evidence of an Islamophobic and racist campaign against political dissent,” the letter said.
The PEP’s 24-member board approves contracts for the Department of Education — which boasts a $45 billion budget, sets policies and manages school closures.
Of the board’s 23 voting members, 13 are picked by the mayor.
