On International Workers’ Day, students rallied outside Hunter College, a public campus, in front of the west building, in which a franchise of the union-busting Starbucks chain is installed. This backdrop was a useful emblem of what an increasing number of students are agitating against: the commercialized university, hollowed out by budget cuts and deteriorating buildings, while the administration shifts its burdens onto underpaid adjuncts, and constricts organized student activity.

A growing number of students agree: the city’s universities, private and public, should be converted from bastions of capital into beacons of student-labor solidarity.

In response, we promote the politics of socialism as revolutionary students, and in our work we stand in solidarity with people everywhere fighting against forces of imperialism and national oppression. It was in this spirit that we carried out our activities this month, which included co-organizing the Hunter May Day walk-out, joining the coordinated actions across the city for the 75th Nakba Day, and circulating a letter agitating for solidarity with the Palestinian struggle at The New School.

What follows is a brief review of the month of May for the MDSO.

May Day Walkout

On May 1st, students at Hunter walked out of their classes and gathered outside to agitate for a People’s CUNY. The audience heard a militant student testify to the challenges of working full time while still pursuing higher education—as well as contending with bureaucratic red tape. Speakers also included representatives from the Common Ground club at KCC, the Internationalist Club, CAAAV: Organizing Asian Communities, a resident of the Brookdale dorms (affordable student housing slated for demolition), and a UPS worker.

The demand for a People’s CUNY is not only in the interests of students. Capitalism deprives the working class of access to the amassed wealth of human knowledge. Free and universal education is in the interest of all working people.

Nakba Day 2023

May Day members, alongside members of the New School and Sarah Lawrence chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine, rallied and marched in the Nakba Day event in Bay Ridge. Progressive students must answer the call to stand with Palestine—not just on the 75th anniversary of the Nakba, but every day the Zionist occupation continues its crimes and provocations and continues to deny the right to self-determination and freedom to Palestinians.

Open Letter of Solidarity with the Palestinian Struggle at the New School

On the week following Nakba Day, the MDSO and The New School SJP published an open letter calling on The New School to “stand firmly on the side of the Palestinian liberation struggle, as part of the struggles of the people of the world against imperialism.”

“The time has long since come for US students to learn about the role that Israel has played for more than half a century as a strategic outpost of US imperialism in the region and to add ourselves to the voices of refusal.”

We called on students to inform themselves on the Palestinian struggle. We should also take concern with the changing situation in world politics. As US imperialism shifts its footing away from the middle east, the powers of that region—including the American imperialist outpost of Israel—jockey to attain relative independence. All the same, so long as the peoples of the region continue to struggle against their oppressive regimes, there is hope for transformations in the direction of freedom, including for Palestinians.

The Repression of Pro-Palestine Speech at CUNY

This month, CUNY administration cracked down on pro-Palestine students and organizations. The “progressive” CUNY School of Law removed a video recording of Fatima Mohammed’s commencement address. Hunter College prohibited Nerdeen Kiswani’s attendance at the Palestine Solidarity Alliance’s Nakba Day commemoration, on unstated grounds.

“Although a section of the Right in recent years has advanced its program in the university under the guise of defending free speech,” we wrote in our statement, “the widespread acceptance of institutional prohibitions on pro-Palestinian speech exposes the ruse.” The protections of free speech in this society do not apply to speech that challenges the tenets of US foreign policy, or other dominant beliefs.

Moving Forward

We must further our efforts to rebuild the student movement by linking our student organizations together and coordinating around specific issues. Our united action will create the force necessary to reach unorganized students, stage bigger actions, and impose our popular demands. Moreover, this restored student movement must be united with the labor movement in eliminating the latter’s greatest obstacles, such as New York’s Taylor Law preventing public employees from striking.

We hope students in New York City who agree with our vision will not hesitate to reach out.