CUNY is retaliating against CCNY student leader Hadeeqa Arzoo Malik for her activism in support of Palestinian life and liberation. CUNY's actions against Hadeeqa, including a one year suspension from all campuses, are Islamophobic and unconstitutional. We demand that CUNY drop the disciplinary charges against Hadeeqa NOW!

Every single university in Gaza has been bombed, our universities invest in genocide, and they are suspending us instead. We call for divestment from destruction while they jump through legal hoops, and move in secret to continue carrying out their onslaught of Gaza through investments and further repression.

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.

CUNY’S VIOLATIONS OF FREE SPEECH ENTAIL:

• Forced requirement of school authorization for any protest on public school grounds. CCNY's new policy requires students to obtain permission before protesting. WE DO NOT NEED A PERMIT TO PROTEST. This is Trump and CUNY administrators’ effort to enter a new phase of fascism in control of free speech. This sets an extremely alarming new standard at public universities, because it attempts to reserve state power to eliminate opposition or any protest. If the state controls when protests are allowed, they may never happen. This shift in the approach to student conduct is a projection of an authoritarian fascist USA and will only get worse if it is not challenged head on.
• Disorderly conduct charges for expressing dissent towards a Muslim NYPD officer: They are claiming that Hadeeqa, a Muslim woman, verbally targeted a Muslim cop in a rally speech or “mic-check”; this is CUNY weaponizing Islamophobia against her and attacking First Amendment-protected criticism towards the NYPD.
  This also illustrates that the university is taking orders from non-university-affiliated, IOF-trained external institutions, outside school jurisdiction, to repress the student movement for Palestine. The NYPD is the most Islamophobic entity in the entire country and dares to claim that they are protecting Muslims. The fascist, racist, Islamophobic NYPD has planted surveillance technology in our mosques, gone undercover to spy on Muslims in our community spaces, ripped off our sisters’ hijabs in the streets, and has the audacity to play victim against a Muslim woman who advocated for divestment from genocide in Gaza.
• Punishing calls for a free Palestine that "interrupted the daily flow of campus activities", including the cancellation of war criminal, Kathy Hochul’s event at CCNY: Governor Kathy Hochul, the NYPD, and CUNY Chancellor Felix Matos Rodriguez have been directly targeting the content of Hadeeqa's speech ever since October 2023. This escalation is in response to the Trump administration’s executive orders to crack down on the student movement for Palestine, a student movement that is successfully holding universities accountable for investments in Gaza’s current genocide which has martyred over 400,000 Palestinians. War criminals are not allowed to comfortably enter campus, nor can there be business as usual without the confrontation of rightful resistance. CUNY is attempting to silence dissent and we cannot not let them get away with it. Our safety depends on our resistance.

This repression is also in preparation for the upcoming House of Representatives propaganda hearing on “anti-semitism at universities”, a space being used as a front to eliminate pro-Palestine activism. University presidents and CUNY Chancellor Matos Rodriguez are planning to bring forth their repressive records of each student they have disciplined for pro-Palestine activism, with the intention of further enabling and codifying attacks on protests for Gaza.

What we are witnessing at CUNY and under this administration is not simply disciplinary action for the so-called “neutral enforcement” of campus policy, it is a repressive tactic pulled directly from the playbook of McCarthyism. Just as Cold War America waged an internal war on leftist thought, today the US is criminalizing student resistance for Palestine under the guise of “safety” and “campus order.” But make no mistake: this is not about safety. It is about silencing political dissent, particularly when that dissent dares to expose the violence of U.S. imperialism and its unwavering support for zionist genocide in Gaza.

This is not about Hadeeqa, nor is it just about students, this is about the full force of imperialism and zionism unleashing itself from the belly of the beast, striking at any sign of resistance that threatens its hold. What we are witnessing is not an isolated disciplinary action; it is part of a broader strategy to criminalize dissent and erase solidarity with Palestine from within the heart of the U.S empire.

As the United States funds, arms, and shields the genocide in Gaza, it simultaneously wages a domestic campaign to suppress those who dare speak out against it. By targeting student organizers, by censoring protests, by punishing those who refuse to be silent, the empire secures its comfort and power at the expense of truth, justice, and liberation.

We cannot let that happen. We must understand that what’s happening on our campuses is directly tied to what’s happening on the ground in Gaza. The repression is international, and so must be the resistance.