Menin speeds up ethics review as Paladino doubles down on anti-Muslim posts

City Council Speaker Julie Menin ordered the ethics committee to expedite its review of Islamophobic comments made by Queens City Councilmember Vickie Paladino on social media. Photo by Emil Cohen/NYC Council Media Unit

By Jacob Kaye

City Council Speaker Julie Menin said Tuesday that the legislature’s ethics committee will expedite its inquiry into Islamophobic remarks made by City Councilmember Vickie Paladino, after the Queens Republican posted a fresh round of controversial comments online this week.

The Council’s Committee on Rules, Privileges, Elections, Standards and Ethics will soon wrap up its process questioning a December social media post made on Paladino’s personal account in which she called for the “expulsion of Muslims from Western nations,” the speaker said ahead of Tuesday’s Council meeting.

A Council spokesperson told the Eagle that the committee’s process includes an investigation, which could result in Paladino’s censure.

“The City Council has a very clear policy against harassment, which includes conduct away from the workplace as well as online and on social media,” Menin said in a statement to the Eagle. “Councilmember Paladino’s continued rhetoric is unacceptable and deeply Islamophobic. This deplorable, inflammatory conduct negatively affects Council employees and people across our city. New York City is the most diverse city in the world, and we will not tolerate behavior that targets or demeans any community based on their faith, background, or immigration status — particularly from our own members.”

“Accordingly, I am directing the Committee on Standards and Ethics to meet as soon as possible to conclude their process,” she added.

In a statement, Paladino defended her conduct, which has been decried by a number of her Council colleagues and by Muslim New Yorkers throughout the city.

“Regardless of any process, we feel we are on very firm First Amendment grounds and are not concerned,” Paladino said.

Menin’s orders came days after Paladino doubled down on the remarks, sending out a series of posts appearing to claim that Mayor Zohran Mamdani, the city’s first Muslim mayor, was orchestrating an Islamic takeover of the city. Paladino also reposted a number of messages claiming that Islam was an inherently violent religion.

The Queens lawmaker’s posts were sent at the start of Ramadan, the holiest month in the Muslim calendar.

Her posts have renewed calls for her censure in the Council, where members have been critical of former Speaker Adrienne Adams for not punishing Paladino for past remarks.

During a press conference ahead of Tuesday’s Council meeting, Menin said the ethics committee has a “very clear and strong process to address these issues.”

The initial inquiry into Paladino’s remarks began at the start of the year, when Menin first took office. Several weeks before the start of the legislative year, Paladino made several posts to X following the killing of 13 people at a Hanukkah celebration in Australia by a pair of gunmen.

In her posts, Paladino said Western governments should restrict Muslims from living within their borders. She also reposted a number of tweets expressing similar sentiments, including one that called on governments to “ban Islam.”

“We need to take very seriously the need to begin the expulsion of Muslims from western nations, or at the very least the severe sanction of them within western borders,” Paladino said in the post that she later deleted after Menin reportedly asked her to. “The administration needs to begin developing a formal legal framework for the denaturalization process and get it over with before we end up with another 9/11 or worse.”

A number of Paladino’s elected colleagues denounced the message at the time, including Queens City Councilmember Shekar Krishnan, who called the posts "absolutely disgusting.”

City Councilmember Vickie Paladino doubled down on Islamophobic remarks she made on social media in December, with a fresh round of anti-Muslim posts made earlier this week. File photo by Gerardo Romo / NYC Council Media Unit

In response, Menin took Paladino off of all but two of her committee assignments – Paladino later claimed that she had requested the pair of committees, hoping to spend more time in her district.

Paladino resumed posting similar messages this month.

When Mamdani tapped Faiza Ali, a Muslim woman who was born and raised in New York City, to serve as the commissioner of the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs, Paladino claimed the city was “under foreign occupation.”

“There's really no other way to put it,” Paladino posted. “Does this administration have one single actual American in it?”

Ali, an American, formerly worked in the City Council.

Paladino’s messages continued on Feb. 23, when she said in a post that Islamophobia was a “fake term invented by radicals to cut off justified criticism of imperialist and violent political Islam and the overwhelmingly negative impacts it's had all across the West for decades now.”

Also on Feb. 23, Paladino railed against a video showing the mayor having breakfast with Muslim Department of Sanitation workers before their fast was set to begin.

“Zohran wants to make sure we know Muslims are apparently in charge of the snow removal and that we see them praying to whatever they pray to I guess,” Paladino posted. “This is part of Islamic conquest. Mass prayers in the streets, call to prayer blasting five times a day throughout the city, and the mayor conspicuously putting Islam first — both in his hires and his public media. The message is very clear — we are being replaced.”

Paladino has also had her defenders, including Queens City Councilmember Joann Ariola, who previously led the GOP in the legislature.

“Although I do not align myself with the recent sentiments of Councilmember Paladino, the Council’s policing of speech is going down a dangerous path and setting a dangerous precedent,” Ariola said in a statement to the Eagle on Tuesday. “There have been plenty of incendiary things said by councilmembers in the past that have gone by without consequence. This is now in the hands of the ethics committee and they will make their determination.”

Update: This story has been updated to reflect that the ethics committee’s review of Paladino’s remarks includes a formal investigation.