(11.29.21) CUNY Law BDS Resolution
TO: CUNY Law Student Government Association
FROM: CUNY Law Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP)
CUNY Law Jewish Law Student Association (JLSA)
DATE: December 2, 2021
ENDORSED BY: South Asian Law Students Association (SALSA)
Women of Color Collective (WOCC)
Foundation for Immigration and Refugee Empowerment (FIRE)
Asian Pacific American Law Student Association (APALSA)
Luis DeGraffe Racial & Social Justice Orientation (RSJO)
Housing Rights Project (HRP)
National Lawyers Guild (NLG)
Latin American Law Students Association (LALSA)
If/When/How
Black Law Students Association (BLSA)
Muslim Students Association (MLSA)
HALT
OUTLaws
Law Students for Accessibility
Irish Law Students Association (ILSA)
Environmental Justice Coalition (EJC)
Students Against Cybersexual Abuse (SACSA)
Public Interest Law Association (PILA)
Formerly Incarcerated Law Students Advocacy Association (FILSAA)
Labor Coalition
CUNY Law Review
International Law Society (ILS)
WHEREAS, the City University of New York (CUNY) has a vibrant community of anti zionist Palestinian, Muslim, Arab, and Jewish students who have been active in resisting Israeli settler colonialism;
WHEREAS, CUNY has a history of censoring, repressing, harassing, and surveilling Palestine solidarity activists, including current CUNY Law students and co-sponsors of this resolution.
WHEREAS settler colonialism and structural racism work across the world, including in the United States, to disenfranchise, dispossess, and inflict violence upon specific groups of people for the benefit of others;
WHEREAS the unceasing military occupation and colonization of Palestine by the Israeli state is a manifestation of both settler colonialism and structural racism, supported politically, financially, and militarily by the U.S.;
WHEREAS the Israeli state systematically violates Palestinians’ rights under international law;
WHEREAS CUNY, including CUNY Law, is directly complicit in the ongoing apartheid, genocide, and war crimes perpetrated by the state of Israel against the Palestinian people through its investments in and contracts with companies profiting off of Israeli war crimes;
WHEREAS, as of 2014, CUNY had close to $1.1 million invested in companies profiting off of Israeli war crimes, including weapons manufacturers (Boeing, General Electric, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Raytheon), tech and security companies (including Hewlett-Packard Enterprise, G4S, and Motorola Solutions), and construction firms (including Caterpillar and Cemex);
WHEREAS, in Fiscal Year 20–21, CUNY had over $8.5 million USD in contracts with companies that aid in or profit from Israeli colonization, occupation, and war crimes, including Dell, IBM, HP, Lenovo, Cisco, and BMC Software.
WHEREAS, CUNY collaborates with the NYPD, including through security MOUs, and academic programs that offer tuition-free, guaranteed admission to NYPD officers. The NYPD participates in Deadly Exchange programs with Israel in which the NYPD sends officers to learn Israeli military and policing tactics and vice versa. In addition, the NYPD has infiltrated and surveilled students at CUNY campuses.
WHEREAS, CUNY offers food and beverage products for purchase on campus that are notorious for violating Palestinian human rights, including PepsiCo and Sabra Hummus.
WHEREAS, CUNY Law contracts with legal research ‘data cartels’ selling surveillance data and services, such as Thomson Reuters (Westlaw) and Reed Elsevier/RELX (LexisNexis). Through its LexisNexis Risk Solutions arm, LexisNexis contracts not only with the Department of Homeland Security/ICE, but also BioCatch, whose founder Avi Turgeman served as head of innovation for the cyber-intelligence unit of the Israel Defence Forces;
WHEREAS CUNY is further directly complicit in the ongoing apartheid, genocide, and war crimes perpetrated by the state of Israel against the Palestinian people through it’s academic collaborations with complicit Israeli academic institutions;
WHEREAS Israeli academic institutions are complicit in the occupation and colonization of Palestine and the state’s violence against Palestinians by developing military hardware, weapons, drones, and surveillance technologies; offering military training courses and posts for high-ranking military officers; declaring, via their leaders and other surrogates, their support for Israeli military offensives; discriminating against Palestinian students; and repressing voices in support of Palestinians and their struggle for self-determination;
WHEREAS, several CUNY campuses receive grants from US-Israel Binational Foundations, which “promotes scientific relations between the U.S. and Israel by supporting collaborative research projects” between complicit Israeli academic institutions and US academic institutions;
WHEREAS a number of CUNY faculty, including CUNY Law faculty, have taught at or collaborated with complicit Israel academic institutions, or have links to the Israeli Defense Forces;
WHEREAS, CUNY, including the Law School, is further directly complicit in the ongoing apartheid, genocide, and war crimes perpetrated by the state of Israel against the Palestinian people through collaboration with and yielding to pressure from organizations that repress Palestinian organizing and its complicity in the ongoing censorship, harassment, and intimidation of Palestine soliarity activists;
WHEREAS, a number of student organizations across CUNY receive money from the State of Israel, or from organizations lobbying on behalf of the State of Israel, and whose mission includes support for the State of Israel, and whose practices include surveillance, intimidation, harassment of Palestine solidarity activists on campuses. These organizations include Hillel, CAMERA, StandWithUs, Bulldogs for Israel, Israel Independence Day Committee, United 4 Israel, Israel Student Association, Students Supporting Israel at City College of New York.
WHEREAS, CUNY is further directly complicit in the ongoing apartheid, genocide, and war crimes perpetrated by the state of Israel against the Palestinian people through the participation of student organizations in “birthright” trips to Israel, which are designed to cover-up Israeli settler colonial and apartheid violence and dispossession in order to generate support for zionism amongst Jewish students in the US. The program essentially provides a free vacation to Jewish students while at the same time the Israeli government refuses to implement the internationally recognized right of return for Palestinian refugees;
WHEREAS, a number of CUNY schools participate in Israel exchange programs, including the Brooklyn College Program Study in Israel (PSI), in collaboration with Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Haifa University, Hebrew University and Tel Aviv University, as well as the City College of New York’s student exchange program with Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, all of which are a form of propaganda, and normalize settler colonial and apartheid rule.
WHEREAS the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement is a Palestinian-led global movement that aims to end international support for Israeli violations of international law by forcing companies, institutions and governments to change their policies. BDS calls for the end of Israeli occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the Wall, the recognition of the fundamental rights of Palestinian citizens of Israel, and the full right of return of Palestinian refugees;
BE IT RESOLVED, that CUNY Law Student Government proudly and unapologetically endorses the Palestinian-led call for Boycott Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel;
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that CUNY Law’s Student Government calls on the institution to divest from and end contracts with all companies that aid in or profit from Israeli colonization, occupation, and war crimes;
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that CUNY Law Student Government calls on the institution to end all Israel exchange programs;
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that CUNY Law Student Government calls on the institution to commit to transparency regarding its finances, contracts, investments, exchanges, and academic collaborations.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that CUNY Law Student Government calls on the institution to cut all ties with organizations that repress Palestinian organizing and end its complicity in the ongoing censorship, harassment, and intimidation of Palestine solidarity activists, including through ending contracts, academic collaborations, and refusing to be complicit in the targeted harassment and silencing of Palestine solidarity activists;
