CITY COLLEGE — On the morning of Thursday, April 25, CUNY students, alumni, faculty, and other people affiliated with the coalition CUNY for Palestine established an encampment, similar to other protests on campuses across the nation, on the CCNY quad. Activists set up tents and put up banners along with the Palestinian flag on the flagpole in the center of the quad, and set up stations for distributing literature, food, and water.
Calling back to the five demands of the 1969 student takeover of CCNY, the organizers of the encampment, called the Gaza Solidarity Encampment, are asking for five changes to be made by the CUNY administration. A post made by the Instagram account @cunygse, representing the encampment, lists these as divestment from companies that produce weapons used by Israel, academic boycott, removal of NYPD and IDF presence from CUNY campuses, a statement of solidarity, and “a free CUNY,” with a return to a tuition-free CUNY and for CUNY to “adopt a fair contract for staff and faculty.”
