The first faculty-led Gaza solidarity encampment protest in the US was established on Wednesday night at New York’s New School campus.
Nearly two dozen professors and lecturers at the New York City college pitched tents and unrolled sleeping bags in the lobby of an academic building located in Greenwich Village in Manhattan in support of their students, and against Israel’s attack on Gaza and their university’s financial ties to Israel.
The move comes after New York police raided the student encampment protest at the college on 3 May, which led to the arrests of more than 40 students. Arrested students were also subsequently suspended from school.
Despite the incident, dissent continues to grow on the urban campus.
Sunil, a New School faculty member in protest who only gave his first name, told the local news station Spectrum News NY1: “Faculty knew that we had to step up – not just to make sure that this could not happen again, but the students’ demands that they fought so hard for, risked their lives and their careers and futures, that was not in vain.