CUNY suspends student activist leader, fires four faculty members in escalation of repression against Palestine activism by Billie Estrine

In a move that activists are saying is an attempt to quell the passionate student and worker movement for Palestinian liberation within the City University of New York (CUNY), student organizer Hadeeqa Arzoo Malik has been suspended for a year. While she is suspended from CCNY, she is not permitted to enroll in any other CUNY college. 

Malik is a courageous organizer and leader of CCNY’s Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter. She has become a public face of the student movement for Palestine in New York City and across the nation since the movement accelerated worldwide to end Israel’s escalated genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza.

… Along with CCNY’s academic sanction case against Malik, CUNY has also fired four faculty members, including Corinna Mullin. Mullin held teaching positions at CUNY as an adjunct professor at Brooklyn College and John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Mullin told Mondoweiss, “Because of our weak contractual protections, adjuncts are some of the most vulnerable among CUNY workers, as demonstrated by the fact at least four adjunct faculty members have recently had their employment terminated by CUNY in apparent retaliation for protected speech against genocide and in violation of the principles of academic freedom.”