Alumni Call: Divest from CUNY’s Complicity, Invest in Palestinian Liberation

As alums of the City University of New York (CUNY), we have always felt proud. The City University of New York (CUNY) is the nation’s most extensive public, urban university system with a majority black and brown student population.

As students from working-class backgrounds, we saw CUNY as more reflective of the diverse demographics of our city than private, elite universities. The inherent diversity of our campus communities has provided us with an invaluable education that goes beyond the curriculum – we have earned from the facts and histories of our peers. At CUNY, we learned how to build community. We have learned to organize. We spent our time mobilizing for the liberation of Palestine.

Last month, students and workers held a solidarity camp in Gaza, demonstrating CUNY’s true potential to become a famous university. Years after we graduated, we returned to campus to help organize and witness this historic event.

The camp presented five demands to the CUNY administration: divestment from companies and military contractors complicit in genocide and Zionist occupation; Boycott of academic institutions complicit with Zionist settler colonialism; Solidarity with the Palestinian national liberation struggle; demilitarize the campus; And return to the fully funded, tuition-free City University of New York.

While the focus was on ending CUNY’s complicity in the Gaza genocide, the camp built a community based on solidarity and care. Those removing the occupiers organized daily meals, an accessible food pantry, and a 24/7 medical tent in case of emergencies. The camp offers daily political education, film screenings and activities for children.

The camp also praised the rich history of radical organizing at CUNY and Harlem. Students publicly renamed City College the University of Harlem. In 2024, echoing this mobilization, we also raised five demands and declared in a banner: “University of Harlem: founded 1969, re-established. 2024.”

The camp’s students, CUNY alums, faculty, and community, created something extraordinary: a collaborative, safe, and transformative space rooted in radical love and commitment to Palestinian liberation.

But the camp was not intended to be a utopia that offered peace alone. It is an escalation that threatens the dominance of the university administration and its pursuit of profit from colonialism and war. 

As Israel escalated 76 years of colonialism and dispossession into full-scale genocide, the students had no choice but to respond accordingly with more decisive action, setting up protest and occupation camps.

Although we expected CUNY to respond to the camp with repression, we were surprised by the sheer violence of its response. Instead of heeding its students’ call, CUNY sent in the NYPD to brutalize protesters, arrest nearly 200 of them, and slap 28 protesters with life-changing criminal charges.

The students who set up camps and decide to step up now for Palestine do so in fulfilment of the legacy of their fathers. Throughout the past century, American students have rallied against the war in Vietnam and apartheid in South Africa. The cause of liberating Palestine is just, and the university uprising is merely fulfilling its duty.

That is why we say that escalation is noble and necessary to end universities’ participation in the genocide in Gaza. The best time to step up was yesterday. The second best time is now.

Stop all donations and collaboration with this university that uses alum influence to promote its false image of teaching social justice and inclusivity. Instead, they invested in Palestinian life, liberation, and the student movement that courageously paved the way for our collective liberation.