A new semester is beginning at the City University of New York (CUNY) with the fight against repression and for Palestine at the center. While we are facing intense crackdowns, including the firing of four faculty members over their pro-Palestine activism and the suspension of at least one student, there is also a movement fighting back. Amid these attacks, we’ve also had victories — most recently, a court decision forcing CUNY to disclose its investments in Israel. 

As Israel escalates its genocidal campaign in Gaza, including a famine, with full support from the U.S. government, CUNY has targeted faculty who speak out against it. This comes as President Trump intensifies his attacks on immigrants, mobilizes the National Guard in major cities, and escalates a broader assault on democratic rights. 

University presidents, including the CUNY Chancellor, have been called before the reactionary House Education and Workforce Committee in order to pressure administrators to discipline the movement for Palestine. The Trump administration and the Far Right are working with Zionist organizations such as Betar and Canary Mission to target the movement, using it as the point of the spear to repress unions, social movements, and free speech. 

Repression of Students and Faculty

Over the summer, CUNY fired four adjunct faculty members from their fall classes through “non-reappointment,” a process that requires no justification. These faculty received strong evaluations from their colleagues and students, and had the support of their department chairs for reappointment, yet they were terminated. 

What do they have in common? All four were active in the Palestine solidarity movement and in the union. As adjuncts, they are not only the low-wage labor that makes the university run, they have few labor protections and the university is able to fire them without any due process and without providing justification and that’s exactly what they are doing.

One of the four was initially fired from her summer course “for just cause” on laughable charges: a $5 donation from a faculty member, a pamphlet using the word “CUNY,” and a voluntary sign-up sheet in a pamphlet. She was charged with “conduct unbecoming” — a label historically used to purge Leftists in the 1940s. Now, Brooklyn College claims she was only terminated for the summer, and was later “non-reappointed” like the other three adjuncts for the Fall.

The Professional Staff Congress (PSC), the union representing faculty, staff, and graduate assistants at the university, has called this an “ideological purge” that is part of the “new McCarthyism.”

Meanwhile, at least eight students have also been suspended. Hadeeqa Arzoo Malik, president of City College Students for Justice in Palestine, has been banned from all CUNY campuses for one year and placed on probation for any future campus activity after the one year suspension. As CUNY for Palestine said in its statement, 

Hadeeqa is being made an example of for the sake of setting the tone across the nation at public universities. Universities seek further control over the student movement for Palestine. This sets a dangerous precedent–if CUNY goes unchallenged public schools nationally will follow suit in a new stage of state repression on our campuses.

These terminations and suspensions were offered up as trophies to the far right when CUNY Chancellor Félix Matos Rodríguez testified before the House Education and Workforce Committee in July. In his testimony, he proudly cited disciplinary actions against four faculty and multiple students and boasted about increased policing on CUNY campuses. He accepted the premise of the hearing — that anti-Zionism is antisemitism — and refused to defend either Mahmoud Khalil or the CUNY Clear lawyers who represented him in court.

PSC President James Davis responded:

We do not accept the false premise that underlies today’s hearing — that any campus activism in support of the Palestinian people is antisemitic, if not criminal….All of CUNY should be proud that faculty working at our university are part of the legal team defending our constitutional rights and the rights of Mahmoud Khalil, who was abducted for his political speech.

CUNY administrators may be throwing students and faculty under the bus — but the CUNY community is fighting back.

Come for Four, Face Us All!

Ahead of the congressional hearing, the PSC held a press conference condemning this new McCarthyism, the war on universities, and the firing of the four adjuncts. The union’s summer delegate assembly unanimously passed a resolution opposing the terminations. This is meaningful because despite the varying opinions within the delegate assembly, all agreed on condemning these firings, demonstrating the potential to build a broad movement against these charges. 

However, the Brooklyn College administration has refused to budge. The four fired faculty were told no reason was required for their dismissal, yet President Michelle Anderson claimed in an email to faculty and staff that they were let go “based on conduct, not political belief.” The university has the audacity to send mass emails to all faculty and staff about the firing, and amazingly, refuses to say to the four fired what conduct got them fired. This authoritarian action by the administration and complete disregard for the faculty and due process should concern us all. 

Over the summer, the Brooklyn College PSC organized a rally under the slogan “Come for Four, Face Us All!” In the middle of pouring rain, over 100 members of the CUNY community showed up in support — including students, faculty, and K-12 educators from Educators for Palestine. Speakers included City Councilwoman Alexa Aviles; Ellen Shrecker, a noted scholar on McCarthyism; Jeane Theoharris, a Brooklyn College professor and scholar on the Civil Rights Movement; and Chenjerai Kumanyija, member of AAUP’s governing Council. Students from the Brooklyn College student union also read a statement in solidarity with the fired faculty. 

Corinna Mullin, one of the fired faculty, addressed the crowd saying, “I am a firm believer in worker-student solidarity and I have always viewed this organizing work as central to my role as an educator. The mantra that our working conditions are our student’s learning conditions and vice versa has always resonated with me.” Indeed, the firing of these faculty, alongside the student suspensions, create a repressive atmosphere for students, where critical inquiry, free speech and activism are tamped down on. As the speakers highlighted, this is an attack on everyone who believes in universities as places to think critically. 

Solidarity statements have already begun coming in, including from the Rutgers adjunct union and the Middle East Studies Association. Coverage of the fired four and the larger political context in which these dismissals are taking place has appeared in The Intercept,The Nation, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The American Prospect, the Indypendent, Jacobin, Mondoweiss, and in Left Voice. If you are part of a union or group, we invite you to make a statement for the fired four and against the repression of students at CUNY. 

The movement to fight back continued in the summer at an “Angry Hour” (as opposed to Happy Hour) held at Franklin Park in Brooklyn. Roughly 100 CUNY community members, alongside K-12 teachers and other supporters, made buttons, gathered materials for the semester, and connected with others organizing the campaign. Some community members also made t-shirts that say “Conduct Unbecoming: Reinstate the CUNY Fired 4,” which dozens of CUNY faculty members wore on the first day of classes. 

As the semester began, the struggle is broadening and bringing more people in. Faculty and students on at least seven CUNY campuses set up tables to advocate for the reinstatement of the fired four and raise awareness about this new wave of McCarthyism. Committees are now organizing on multiple campuses, bringing together over 150 students, staff, and faculty to coordinate the fight.

Brooklyn College opened the semester with two panels. The first, titled “Challenging the New McCarthyism,” featured Ellen Shrecker, a scholar on McCarthyism; Chenjerai Kumanyija, a member of AAUP’s governing Council; Evan Rothman, the co-chair of The Graduate Center’s PSC chapter; and Shana Redmond, a professor at Columbia. The second was a screening of a film on Puerto Rico, followed by a discussion with numerous students involved in the movement for Palestine, as well as the director of the film and Pamela Sporn, a former Brooklyn College student who participated in the struggle for Puerto Rican studies at Brooklyn College. 

These films highlighted the legacy of McCarthyism that is rearing its ugly head, as well as student and worker resistance, both historically and today. The panels posed the question: who runs the university? As numerous panelists highlighted, universities today serve capitalist interests, and that is why they are repressing the movement for Palestine, the Left, and the unions. But universities can and should serve students, workers, and the community, and in our fight against repression, we fight for that vision.

Disclose, Divest — We Will Not Stop, We Will Not Rest!

But the semester has not only started with repression — there has been a step forward. In a major victory for the boycott and divestment movement, the New York Supreme Court ordered CUNY to disclose its investments in Israel. A state judge ruled in Southey v. CUNY that the university must release records of its investment funds, bonds, private equity holdings, and any contracts with weapons manufacturers like Dell, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and Northrop Grumman.

Transparency has been one of the main roadblocks in the fight for divestment. CUNY has long refused to disclose where its money — derived from student tuition and worker labor — is invested. For months, the movement for Palestine has rallied around the slogan:“Disclose, divest — we will not stop, we will not rest.” And now, the movement has won disclosure of investments, setting an example for other public universities. 

Plaintiff Sarah Southey declared:

This decision is a huge win for institutional transparency, accountability, and CUNY4Palestine’s campaign demanding CUNY divest from Israel. For months, CUNY has selectively targeted pro-Palestine organizing — denying FOIL requests, firing faculty, suspending students, and allowing police to brutalize protests. This ruling makes it clear: CUNY cannot hide public information or silence the movement for Palestinian life and liberation. CUNY is not above the law.

This rule is the result of the struggles for Palestine at CUNY and beyond; it’s a product of the encampment that demanded divestment, as well as the marches in New York City and around the world have resulted in a crisis for the Zionist project. 

Stand Up, Fight Back

We begin this school year under the shadow of intensifying repression — driven by the Trump administration and the far right, but already embedded within CUNY. The attacks on Palestine solidarity are just the beginning. Immigrant students and faculty, international students, and the broader working class are also in the crosshairs. 

The fight against this new McCarthyism is not only about Palestine — it’s about defending our right to speak, teach, and organize. It’s about fighting for a university that is run by and for workers and students, not the administrators who kowtow to the far right. It’s about fighting the imperialist capitalist system that is perpetrating a genocide in Gaza and repressing workers and students at home.

The time to act is now.
The fight at CUNY is a fight for all of us.

If you would like to join the fired 4 campaign: 

• Follow, like and share the fired four instagram.
• Sign up to organize for the fired 4
• Join us for a rally at the CUNY Graduate Center at 11:30 am on Wednesday 
• If you are in a group or union, pass a resolution in solidarity with the fired four