In Solidarity with the International Women’s Strike

Thank you everyone who joined NYU Sanctuary’s contingent at the International Women’s Strike today. Today, we marched in solidarity with thousands of working women around the world. Above all, we recognize that this is an intersectional struggle.

As our undergraduate representative Nour Obeidallah said in her powerful speech today:

“We will continue to support and prioritize the most vulnerable members of our community and build our movements around their needs. We will follow their lead in the struggle and we will rally around those who have been doing this work for longer than we have. We will continue to center around women of color, undocumented folks, queer and trans folks, Muslims, and immigrants.”

Transcript:

Hello, my name is Nour Obeidallah. I am a Palestinian-American immigrant. I am also a United States citizen. Because of this, I have not been affected by the new regime’s recent executive order. I realize that this is not the case for every one here and the people I surround myself with on a daily basis. I have the privilege to be here today as a member of NYU Sanctuary and on behalf of Sanctuary Campus movements across the city. My statements today have been collectively authored by Sanctuary Organizers from NYU, The New School, Columbia and CUNY.

So, first, on behalf of Sanctuary Campus organizers across the city, I would like to extend a thank you to the organizers of the International Women’s Strike NYC for inviting us to speak here today. We are humbled to share the stage with so many incredible organizations and to be here with you all.

We are a cross-campus group of Sanctuary organizers putting pressure on our respective universities to declare themselves Sanctuary Campuses. We believe that the word Sanctuary has important symbolic meaning as a vital show of solidarity. But more than that, Sanctuary is about adopting a proactive response to violence by pledging to enlist all financial, legal, institutional, and political means at our disposal to protect affected members of our community.

We recognize that the Sanctuary Campus movement must position the University as part of — and responsible to — the broader community in which it exists. In a moment of profound uncertainty for so many, our universities must allocate their financial resources to aid threatened populations throughout New York City and support university constituents as they channel their knowledge and efforts toward city-wide resistances against the Trump regime. Today, I stand here ashamed that our university administrations can’t even commit themselves to systematically protecting their own students, staff, and faculty.

Sanctuary campus movements across the city come together today to make a clear statement to the Trump administration and to our university administrations. We are also here to make a commitment to each other and to you all that we will continue to prioritize and support the most vulnerable members of our communities and build our movement around their needs. We will follow their lead in this struggle. We will rally behind those who have been doing this work for a long time. We will continue to center women of color, undocumented folks, queer and trans folks, Muslims, and immigrants. Lastly, we will work together to do what those in power refuse to do and commit ourselves to helping build a feminism for the 99%. As student-led movements in collaboration with faculty, staff, and other community members, we insist that other forms of political power are possible; that we can help shift the balance of power at our schools and in this country; that we can hold those in power accountable and demand that they protect our interests over those of wealthy Board of Trustees members or other Trump-supporting stakeholders; and, importantly, we are creating infrastructure — networks of care, support, and rapid response, which those in power refuse to provide.

Let us be very clear: We are committed to resisting the hate, ignorance, fear-mongering and racism of this administration. We are here today to stand in solidarity — in love and in power — with all of you who are in this fight. We are honored to stand by your side. And we are here to tell our university administrations and to tell this city and this country, that we refuse to be separated from one another; that we are not singular; that we will stand up even when, and especially when, it is difficult. and we will resist. We will not be silent, and we will not stand down. We are fighting back, and we will win.

I have never expected to be here, giving a speech on a stage in a park that my university has built itself around. But I am here, and I am speaking. And I will be heard.

I want to thank you all for coming out here today to stand in solidarity. I want to thank the Organizers here today for giving the Sanctuary movement a platform to speak and I especially want to thank every single one of you for giving me your time and attention.