NY students go on hunger strike, demand school cut ties with companies linked to Israel
Organizers planned activities for attendees at their hunger strike, including poetry reading, letter writing, and teach-ins.
The hunger strike began on May 27, with demonstrators gathering daily outside CUNY’s Graduate Center in Manhattan from 12 p.m. to 6 p.m. to voice their demand.
Students and staff at the City University of New York (CUNY) went on a hunger strike as they called on administrators to divest from companies they say are complicit in the Israel-Hamas war.
The hunger strike began on May 27, with demonstrators gathering daily outside CUNY’s Graduate Center in Manhattan from 12 p.m. to 6 p.m. to voice their demands, Left Voice reports.
According to Left Voice, CUNY students and faculty assembled to demand that “Chancellor Félix Matos Rodríguez and the CUNY Board of Trustees immediately divest from the zionist state and from all weapons and technology manufacturers equipping the Israeli-US genocide in Palestine.”
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The hunger strike reportedly lasted 16 days, according to Democracy Now!.
The protesters demanded that the university sever its ties with military contracting companies such as Raytheon and Lockheed Martin—with both companies manufacturing weapons being supplied to Israel against Hamas terrorists.
Raytheon currently collaborates with CUNY’s research activities and partners with the Student Veterans of America to provide thousands of dollars in scholarships for students.
In addition to the hunger strike, organizers programmed various events including poetry readings and teach-ins, reading titles like “Eco-Apartheid as a Tool of Zionist Settler Colonialism” and “Recalling Marxist Internationalism.”
The group also reportedly launched a fundraising campaign with the goal of raising $20,000 for families in Gaza by CUNY’s graduation date on June 10.
Protesters were holding letter-writing events in solidarity with individuals they describe as political prisoners, such as the George Floyd rioters and Kojo Bomani Sababu.
Sababu was arrested for bank robbery, murder, and actions he took with the Black Liberation Army—a Marxist militant organization that fights for the “armed struggle” and the “self-determination” of black people through violent actions like robberies and bombings.
The protesters complained that instead of CUNY feeding its students and paying its workers, CUNY chose to increase their funding for the “notoriously racist New York Police Department,” which had previously arrested protesters.
The students and staff participating in the hunger strike said they planned to continue their actions indefinitely until the university administration agreed to meet their demands.
Campus Reform contacted CUNY for comment but has not heard back by publication. This article will be updated accordingly.