Faculty at Brooklyn College in New York City linked arms to protect a student protest denouncing the genocide in Palestine.
University administrators sent campus security and the NYPD to repress the action and brutally arrest students.
Today Brooklyn College showed the strength of student-worker unity.
And today Brooklyn College showed the brutality of university administrators and the NYPD.
On May 8 CUNY-PSC — the union representing 30,000 faculty and staff at the City University of New York — organized an action to support adjunct faculty, the most precarious and lowest-paid faculty who struggle to make ends meet each month.
At the same time, students organized an action in solidarity with Palestine to denounce the ongoing genocide, the bombardments, and the forced starvation of Palestinians by the brutal Zionist state of Israel, as well as CUNY’s continued investments in Israel. The students called for five demands, including divestment from Israel, an end to the repression of students, cops off campus, and for a free, people’s CUNY.
The students invited faculty to join their action: “your struggle is our struggle,” a student explained. The faculty protesters stood alongside the students, forging a unity that would continue throughout the day. While the U.S. government has endless funds for Israel, it never has funds for education; while CUNY’s infrastructure falls apart and adjuncts can’t make ends meet, they send billions of dollars to fund the U.S. imperialist machine.
Students soon put up three tents in the middle of Brooklyn College’s East Lawn. Campus security officers immediately surrounded them to clear the lawn; faculty and students alike sprung into action. “Hands off our students!” faculty chanted, linked arm-in-arm. Public safety pushed the protesters, attempting to break the line and take down the tents. Students and faculty held fast as other students gathered to denounce the violence.
It was not lost on all those at Brooklyn College today that all across New York City campuses, administrators are cracking down on student protests for Palestine at a moment when the genocide in Gaza is escalating. At Columbia University last night, campus security and NYPD brutalized students in the library. In April public safety tased students at City College.
Today students and faculty together wanted to write a new chapter, defending student protesters and the right to speak against the genocide. The strength of the unity of workers and students changed the situation and forced public safety to retreat. If this unity is magnified, drawing more people into the struggle against the genocide and the Far Right, students and workers together can fight back against brutal repression and win our demands.
For the next few hours, we chanted together in the sun. We stood our ground. Word came that CUNY-PSC called on the Chancellor to not call the police to campus and that the President of CUNY had been sent the students’ five demands. Nevertheless, in just a few hours, hundreds of cops from NYPD’s riot squad — the brutal Strategic Response Group — gathered off campus alongside campus security; with zip ties in hand, they threatened to move in on students.
After a short meeting where we discussed and decided next steps, over 40 faculty — some whom have been protesting alongside students or in their union for over a year and others who came out today to protect their students — stood together, making a line for the second time on Thursday. “Hands off our students!” we chanted again. A student who was filming said, “This is so beautiful. This is what it should be like — students and faculty together.”
With hundreds of police standing by, Brooklyn College administrators closed down the campus, prohibiting anyone from entering. University officials, led by college president Michelle J. Anderson, called the cops on their students — immigrant students, undocumented students, and Black and brown students who are targeted and threatened by the police.
University officials are trying to paint today’s action as a violent protest. They claim in a statement: “The safety of our campus community will always be paramount, and Brooklyn College respects the right to protest while also adhering to strict rules meant to ensure the safe operation of our University and prohibit individuals from impeding access to educational facilities. Brooklyn College remains dedicated to fostering a respectful space for all voices to be heard in accordance with CUNY policy.” We must be clear: this protest was entirely safe. The protest was an example of solidarity and collective action. What is unsafe is calling the police on students and the brutality unleashed on campus.
As the police entered campus, the students decided to leave, carrying a tent over their heads. As they were exiting campus, the police attacked, grabbing and arresting students as they marched down the street. A student was punched repeatedly. Another was tased more than three times. People from the Flatbush community — a predominantly Black working-class neighborhood in Brooklyn — confronted the police as they arrested students. Police arrested at least seven people and two students were detained overnight. They are facing charges for resisting arrest, assault, and reckless endangerment.
Now is the moment to build on the solidarity we saw today to demand that the charges against these students are dropped, along with the charges of all those persecuted for protesting the genocide.
Today was a day of beautiful solidarity. Faculty stood alongside students together against the genocide as Israel launches a new offensive in Palestine, forcibly starving Palestinians with the support of Donald Trump and the U.S. government like Biden before him. In this imperialist capitalist system, chanting and setting up tents to support Palestine is a crime, while starving and bombing children is not.
The university administrators prize their investments in the state of Israel over the lives of Palestinians and ultimately those of their students; rather than standing alongside students and faculty against the genocide, they bring in the cops to taser students, to beat and brutalize them. This is what a university run by and for the bosses and capitalists looks like.
It is essential that the entire CUNY community stand up to reject this repression and say clearly: Drop the charges; No cops or ICE on our campus; no investments in genocide.
The unity of students and faculty highlighted the reality of this political moment. It’s one struggle, one fight. At CUNY and across university campuses, we need to stand together to fight for immigrants rights, against police violence, for free Palestine, to free all those imprisoned for speaking out against genocide, and for free education. We are stronger together. And today was just the beginning of the solidarity we are building.