Nutty professor who once threatened Post reporter with machete runs ‘speakeasy’ tattoo parlor — inking communist-inspired art
The deranged ex-CUNY professor who once held a machete to a Post reporter’s neck is now running a “speakeasy tattoo parlor” where she inks communist-inspired body art on her radical customers.
Shellyne Rodriguez, 46, who was fired from Hunter College in 2023 shortly after being filmed menacing Post reporter Reuven Fenton with a machete and threatening to “chop him up,” has found a new calling as a tattoo artist.
The Instagram for the business, called Comrade Comadre, bills it as a “speakeasy tattoo parlor and community library.”
The account is filled with images of radical tattoo designs — including Soviet-inspired red star and sickle.
Photos show Rodriguez inking the quarter-sized red five pointed star on the right arm of CUNY graduate school Professor Ruth Wilson Gilmore, 76, who advocates for abolition of prisons.
Her husband Craig, 58, a community organizer, got a black and gray sickle tattoo right above his wrist resembling the one on the former Soviet flag. .
Manhattan Institute investigative analyst Stu Smith said it was no surprise that both Rodriguez and Wilson taught at CUNY.
“CUNY has an unchecked level of radicalism there, there’s so many issues with CUNY it makes me sad that what should be a gem of New York City is tarnished by these activist professors, it’s really sad,” Smith said.
Rodriguez, 48, posted tattoos she gave herself, including the Arabic word “sumud” which means steadfastness and is also the name of the Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood-linked Gaza flotilla.
She also inked a black and white headshot of Italian communist theorist Antonoio Gramsci on a man’s left arm.
Another customer received a black and white section of barbed wire on his right arm just below his elbow symbolizing “Palestinian land defense.”
She also posts selections from her library, including a book entitled “In Defense of Looting” by Vicky Osterwell.
Other books she offers are “The Radical Politics Coloring Book” and “Anarchy Explained to Children.”
Rodriguez’s name did not appear on any city database stating she was licensed, and the health department said TK.
Rodriguez was also fired from Cooper Union over antisemitic social media posts in 2024, and is currently listed as a part time faculty at Parsons School of Design at The New School.
She was awarded $407,000 by the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs to erect a 23-foot-tall brick, steel and terracotta statue adorned with Black Power fists in The Bronx, which was unveiled in November 2025.
The nutty professor, who took home $81,400 for constructing the Marxist monstrosity, said she conceived of the work during a time when “the violent foundations of the United States was collectively being called into question.”