Mamdani has stood by Weaver, his longtime friend who served as the\u00a0executive director of Housing Justice for All and its sister nonprofit,\u00a0the New York State Tenant Bloc. Mamdani said she has educated him about housing issues.<\/p>\n
“Cea Weaver is someone that we hired to stand up for tenants across the city based on the track record that she had of standing up for tenants across the city and the state,” Mamdani said Wednesday<\/a> at an unrelated news conference\u00a0appointing the head<\/a> of the city\u00a0human rights commission.<\/p>\n Outrage over Weaver’s posts helped end her nomination<\/a> to the City Planning Commission in 2021.<\/p>\n Mamdani has refused to address Weaver’s online posts.\u00a0His response is different from how he reacted<\/a> last month during the one-day tenure of his appointments chief, Cat Almonte Da Costa, over resurfaced\u00a0antisemitic tweets from about 15 years ago, some from when she was a teenager. Da Costa said she was remorseful, particularly now as the mother of Jewish children, and offered her resignation, which Mamdani accepted.\u00a0<\/p>\n Weaver’s\u00a0recently resurfaced tweets also included digs at white people\u00a0on planes,\u00a0white children and white people reproducing.<\/p>\n For her\u00a0part, she\u00a0said she would\u00a0have phrased her remarks differently. They were\u00a0made from around\u00a02016 through 2021.<\/p>\n “I think that some of those things are certainly not how I would say things today \u2014 and are regretful,” Weaver told NY1<\/a> Tuesday.<\/p>\n New York City Council Minority Leader David Carr said on X<\/a> that Weaver “shouldn’t be serving in government.” City Councilwoman Joann Ariola (R-Queens) accused the mayor’s team of misusing claims of white supremacy “as their Trojan horse to force their plans through.”<\/p>\n Harmeet\u00a0Dhillon, the Trump Justice Department’s assistant attorney general for civil rights, responding to the Weaver criticism,\u00a0said <\/a>the administration would “protect all legal residents of NYC from illegal overreach!”<\/p>\n “NYC denizens: @CivilRights has your back! We are watching closely!” she posted on X.<\/p>\n Weaver\u2019s posts echoed a\u00a0school of thought<\/a> that America’s legacy of racist laws, slavery, segregation and housing discrimination have perpetuated and institutionalized an\u00a0advantage for whites.<\/p>\n When homes are assets, the argument goes,\u00a0rents rise for those who aren’t homeowners and wealth accumulates for those who are, exacerbating inequality.<\/p>\n A 2019 undercover investigation by Newsday<\/a> found extensive evidence\u00a0on Long Island, one of the country’s most segregated suburbs,\u00a0of separate and unequal treatment of minority would-be homebuyers.<\/p>\n Weaver\u2019s posts\u00a0criticize gentrification and advocate for electing Communists, shrinking the value of real estate, taxing the rich, ending all evictions, enacting universal rent control and funding “public housing for everyone.”<\/p>\n Weaver was crucial in helping to shape a 2019 overhaul of state housing laws<\/a>, leading to restrictions on\u00a0rent hikes and curbing\u00a0a process that\u00a0over a quarter century allowed\u00a0300,000 units or more to be removed from rent regulation and put on the open market.<\/p>\n
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