For Student-Teacher-Worker Mobilization
Against Police Repression!

Vicious Cop Riot Against
Pro-Palestinian Protesters
at Brooklyn College

By the CUNY Internationalist Clubs

On May 8, a phalanx of several dozen New York City Police officers stormed onto the campus of Brooklyn College (BC), part of the City University of New York (CUNY), to violently repress and viciously beat demonstrators protesting the escalating genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza. Around noon, some 30-50 student protesters gathered with tents on the lawn of the East Quad to proclaim it the Hasan Ayyad Liberation zone, named after a 14-year-old Gazan singer killed in an airstrike just days before. The small protest continued for several hours with back and forth with BC authorities over the tents until the administration, determined to prevent a restart of last year’s Gaza solidarity encampments, ordered CUNY “Public Safety” officers to clear the campus, and brought in the NYPD.

This was a deliberately laid trap. The protesters had received reports of a big build-up of city police outside, with a whole street filled with NYPD vans. Already when a university cop car tried to enter the sealed-off campus, protesters blocking the entrance were fiercely attacked by CUNY’s Orwellian named S.A.F.E. (“Special Assistance For Events”) squad. And then, the minute the student protesters were pushed out the gate, the militarized NYPD Strategic Response Group (SRG) let loose. Multiple extensive videos show the SRG thugs, including “white shirts” (supervisors), repeatedly punching demonstrators, throwing them to the pavement, slamming them up against a fence, charging into the crowd to grab someone, then going back and punching some more victims.¹ This display of wanton cop violence was greater even than against the 2020 protests over the racist police murder of George Floyd.

Altogether, at least 14 students were detained, dozens were pushed, punched and kicked and one was tazed at BC. Under New York City’s cop mayor Eric Adams, and in Donald Trump’s increasingly authoritarian regime, the police clearly figure they have “open season” on protesters. Adams, in fact, visited Trump in the White House the very next day. The lurid police repression at Brooklyn College on May 8, came on the heels of the intensification of the genocide in Gaza, with the population on the brink of mass starvation. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu announces a “concluding” offensive while Trump talks of displacing all 2 million Palestinians living there, to turn Gaza into valuable beachfront property. Meanwhile, federal agents grab Columbia graduate Mahmoud Khalil at the door to his apartment building, and masked Department of Homeland Security thugs abduct Tuft student Rümeysa Öztürk.

The Democratic Party has been acting together with would-be strongman Trump to censor and assault dissent against the “Gaza Genocide Made in U.S.A.” (The Internationalist No. 73, July-August 2024). This includes New York’s Democratic governor Kathy Hochul ordering CUNY’s Hunter College to withdraw a hiring position for “Palestine studies” – a gross violation of academic freedom.

Brooklyn College is in the eye of the storm. It is located near the South Brooklyn hotbed of virulent Zionists, who this spring set upon demonstrators protesting Israel’s fascist security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir. In October 2023, a pistol-packing Republican NYC councilwoman showed up at a BC Gaza solidarity protest denouncing the demonstrators as “terrorists.” The college is also not far from the heavily Arab neighborhood of Bay Ridge. Meanwhile, the May 8 ambush of BC protesters set off an outpouring of angry condemnation from students and faculty at a May 12 CUNY Board of Trustees meeting. At the college itself, a number of faculty stood between the encampment and the campus cops on May 8, and the Professional Staff Congress (PSC), representing CUNY faculty and staff, has denounced the administration for this attack, demanding that charges against those arrested and detained be dropped.

The police riot at Brooklyn College was emblematic of the broad assault on universities and pro-Palestinian protests today. The events reflect the dire situation facing those who dare to resist the offensive to regiment U.S. society, starting by victimizing the most vulnerable sectors. This can only be fought by bringing out the only force capable of defeating this all-sided reaction: that of the organized working class. Students, faculty and all defenders of democratic rights should seek the active support of NYC labor to stop the witch-hunters and uniformed thugs at Brooklyn College, throughout CUNY and elsewhere. Drop all charges against the pro-Palestinian Brooklyn College protesters! For student-teacher-worker mobilization against police repression! Cops off campus, including campus cops!

What Happened at BC

Around 1 p.m. on May 8, Mobina Hashmi, an assistant professor and co-chair of the BC chapter of the PSC, was at a “grade-in” organized by adjunct faculty members when participants decided to cut the event short and some went to support the student protesters across the quad. Hashmi said that once it became clear police were forming up outside campus, the group of faculty and staff “decided that what we could do was link arms, stand in front and let people know we did not think it was right for the NYPD to disperse peaceful protesters.” As police began massing at the gate, the about 20 faculty/staff members repeatedly chanted “Hands off our students.” When the cops entered in formation, as students were being dispersed the faculty accompanied them, trying “to ensure that we all had the space to do that as safely as possible.” The intentions of the police were the opposite.

By 5 p.m., CUNY “Public Safety” helped clear the Bedford Street gate by pushing students to the ground, opening the way for NYPD’s notorious SRG to enter the campus. The entrance nearest to the protest on Campus Road was blocked off, so the only exit was where police were pouring through. “People didn’t want to go right in front of the cops who said they were going to arrest them. [The cops] all had riot gear, and were clearly there to fight.” said Oscar Docavo, a BC alum who came to the East Quad to support the encampment. Professor Hashmi said, “That was the scariest part because the path that we were supposed to take was lined with police officers.” According to an email sent to faculty by BC president Michelle J. Anderson, two students were arrested on campus.

The tactics utilized by the SRG were designed to stage a spectacle of wanton violence. Once the students were off campus, on the sidewalk, dispersing as the police had demanded, the police pounced on them. Cops pummeled students right outside the gates, while other officers pushed journalists away. “I saw police officers slamming people on the ground, grabbing people by the shirt, ripping them around,” Docavo said. Following the police assault, the library and multiple entrances to campus were cleared out and shut down by police. Professor Hashmi said it was reported that students and faculty who were off campus on a break in the middle of a class were not allowed to come back to collect their belongings.

The police occupation left the campus in shock. A letter by 19 BC student clubs condemned the police violence. On the day of the cop riot, the PSC fired off a statement to CUNY chancellor Félix Matos Rodríguez and BC president Anderson which “condemns your use of NYPD Strategic Response Group (SRG) to intimidate and disperse a group of roughly 30 non-violent student protesters on the Brooklyn College campus today.” The BC Policing and Social Justice Project issued a statement (May 10) condemning the police violence and the CUNY and BC administration for bringing the NYPD on campus. On May 16, the PSC issued a further statement reiterating its condemnation of the administration and linking this to previous denunciations of state repression such as its denunciation in 2013 of the police violence unleashed against students protesting CUNY’s appointment of former general David Petraeus to teach at the Macaulay Honors College.⁴

The day after the police attack, the entire BC campus was shut down at 2 p.m., with no official explanation. Only people with a BC ID were allowed on campus. The Brooklyn College Student Union, a campus activist group, called an assembly on May 12 on the East Quad lawn to “stand in solidarity with student protesters,” notifying the administration via email. BC responded by emailing and messaging all student groups who had reposted the flier, saying the event was in violation of a recently created “Brooklyn College Events Protocol,” and demanded it take place at a different location. On the day of the assembly, when student organizers were accosted by campus cops on the quad as NYPD officers massed outside, they decided to call off the assembly.

CUNY “Rules” of Repression

During the afternoon of May 8, when the administration was trying to push protesters off campus, it distributed a pink sheet with the order, “Go to class or leave campus.” The college alleged that students had violated CUNY’s “Henderson rules,” without saying what rule the students supposedly violated. The Henderson rules prohibit “obstructing” campus activities, or “forcibly prevent[ing] others from exercise of their rights,” but at Brooklyn College on May 8, the student protesters did not obstruct any processes or facilities, while it was the administration that did the obstructing and violently prevented students from exercising their rights. Last spring semester, these rules were brandished against pro-Palestinian demonstrators at Hunter College. The Hunter Internationalist Club issued a letter demanding charges be dropped, noting “the administration is stretching and distorting even those rules.” We added:

“We must also all be aware that the very purpose of the Henderson rules – decreed by the Board of Trustees amidst the historic 1969 upsurge of CUNY student protest against racism and the Vietnam War – has always been to provide pretexts for repression and undemocratic restrictions, strengthening the control of CUNY campuses by unelected and arbitrary authorities hand-picked by the capitalist elite.”

–Revolution No. 21, September 2024

The “unelected and arbitrary authorities” referred to are the CUNY administration and Board of Trustees (BoT), 15 of whose members are appointed by the governor and the mayor. (The other two are the heads of the University Faculty Senate and the University Student Senate.) At the May 12 hearing of the BoT held at LaGuardia Community College, a CUNY Internationalist Clubs contingent denounced the administration for setting up the cop riot at BC. Internationalist activists protested outside and attended the meeting holding signs reading “Cops Get Out of CUNY!” “[BC president] Anderson and Felo [Matos Rodríguez] Must Go,” “Enough Is Enough! Abolish the Admin and Board of Trustees” and “Police Repression Won’t Stop Us From Denouncing the Genocide in Gaza.”

A CUNY student, one of several who spoke in the hearing to denounce CUNY’s use of the police against the BC Gaza solidarity encampment, gave moving testimony that began contrasting the student’s experience of recovering from cancer with that of Mohammad Mater, a Palestinian university student and cancer patient who died due to a lack of medical care: “Even before October 7, radiotherapy in Gaza was non-existent due to an Israeli ban on equipment entering Palestine, and chemotherapy drugs were in short supply. Now the situation is far worse. Israeli bombardment has left no fully functioning hospitals in Gaza.”

Many PSC members spoke to denounce the police violence unleashed by the university administration. This, along with the PSC’s immediate condemnation on May 8 and PSC union members’ actions placing themselves between student protesters and the campus cops, underline the importance of students, faculty and staff working together. This was also seen in February when Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) and other agencies of the Department of Homeland Security sought to recruit students at CUNY’s John Jay College. Protests initiated by the Internationalist Clubs with strong participation from PSC members as well as supporters of the Labor Committee to Defend Immigrants led to the cancellation of the scheduled CBP recruitment event.⁵ Against the onslaught of repression from the CUNY administration working hand-in-glove with the NYPD, the CUNY Internationalist Clubs call for student/faculty/worker control of the university.

For Student-Faculty-Worker Action Against Attacks on Free Speech, Immigrants’ Rights

With the implementation of its “Events Protocol,” the Brooklyn College administration is establishing a system to crush dissent and stifle free speech, reflecting attempts to clamp down on basic rights at other CUNY campuses, part of the nationwide drive to repress protest against the Gaza genocide and ramped-up attacks on immigrants. At the BoT meeting students testified that administration officials at Lehman College threatened student protestors with disciplinary action for failing to provide a form two weeks in advance with a list of participants’ names. Faculty at Queens College reported multiple instances of harassment by campus cops after the QC administration issued a new “Interim Guidance Regarding Demonstrations.” (In February, union members held a protest against these new “time. place and manner” restrictions aimed at chilling free speech and protest.). The next escalation or attack on the rights of us all at CUNY should be met with a CUNY-wide mobilization to defeat such censorship policies aimed at crushing protests across the board.

The May 8 cop riot at Brooklyn College was not an isolated event. It is no accident that this orgy of police violence took place on the eve of Mayor Eric Adams’ May 9 visit to the White House, where he thanked Donald Trump for dropping the multiple corruption charges against him in exchange for carrying out Trump’s agenda in NYC, particularly in regard to the I.C.E. onslaught against immigrants. The images of police punching and slamming pro-Palestinian protesters to the pavement served as proof that Adams was keeping up his end of the bargain. Meanwhile, similar censorship and repression are being carried out by college administrations (in many cases aligned with the Democrats) under fire from the White House and Congress, as well as by Democrats in city halls and statehouses across the U.S. It is part of an overall drive toward an authoritarian “strong state” regime on the road to world war.

This all points to the urgent need to unchain the power of the working class, breaking from bourgeois politicians and forging a class-struggle leadership instead of the labor bureaucracy that chains workers and the oppressed to the Democratic and Republican parties of U.S. imperialism.

In these days of intense partisan feuding among the capitalist politicians, it is noteworthy that Democrats and Republicans join in smearing anti-Zionist protests as “antisemitic” (even as many Jewish students participate in them) and in violently repressing them. The assault on dissent in the universities comes as the Trump administration is resorting to police-state methods in its mass deportations operation, threatening millions of immigrants nationally. The Internationalist Club at Hunter College, which has been in the forefront of fighting McCarthyite censorship on campus, last year initiated the Hunter Committee to Defend Immigrants which has attracted scores of students, joining with workers citywide in the Labor Committee to Defend Immigrants, made up of members of a broad range of NYC-area unions. The PSC, meanwhile, has formed an active Immigrant Solidarity Working Group.

Following the successful protest that forced the cancellation of the border cops’ recruitment event at John Jay, the PSC launched a petition drive under the watchword, “No ICE/DHS at CUNY!” It demanded that the University administration:

1) Refuse to capitulate to authoritarian demands that threaten academic freedom, free speech, faculty governance, free association, and our right to protest on campus; refuse to curtail CUNY’s commitment to racial, gender and other forms of diversity.

2) Provide emergency legal representation for any CUNY student or worker facing the threat of deportation or cancellation of visa.

3) Ensure that no CUNY college will allow ICE and Homeland Security to enter or recruit on CUNY campuses.

On May 27, the union delivered the petition to the University administration that was signed by over 7,300 people at CUNY, including more than 3,000 faculty and staff and 3,900 students. Of those, more than 2,400 signatures were gathered at Hunter College as the Internationalist Club and the Hunter Club to Defend Immigrants went all-out in this effort, and also spoke at the PSC event presenting them.

To defeat the attacks on basic democratic rights by the capitalist government, parties and politicians, and the university administrations that do their bidding, student-faculty-staff action on the road to mobilizing the power of the organized workers movement will be key. NYPD and all cops off campus! ICE out of CUNY! ICE out of New York! For workers action to stop the deportations!

To get in touch with the CUNY Internationalist Clubs, write to cunyinternationalists@gmail.com

To contact the Internationalist Group and the League for the Fourth International, send e-mail to: internationalistgroup@msn.com

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