CUNY

The trouble started this semester when the school enlisted Petraeus, the disgraced ex-commander of U.S. operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and former CIA chief, to teach a class, “The Coming North American Decades,” at its Macaulay Honors College. Course materials included literature espousing the virtues of hydraulic fracturing, aka fracking, but no mention of the general's ties to Kohlberg Kravis & Roberts, a private equity firm with millions invested in the controversial oil and gas extraction method. Yet demonstrations against Petraeus's presence mainly focused on his role as an architect of U.S. wars abroad—part of an ongoing challenge to what critics describe as the increasing militarization of the university. The protests quickly turned violent, with police beating students in the streets this September.