The following letter is an opinion piece by Jason Cohen and does not represent the views of The Campus.
My name is Jason Cohen, I am a graduate of the City College class of 2024 and received bachelor’s degrees in history and political science and a master’s in history. My time at City College has been characterized by my personal conscientization regarding the oppressive nature of the world capitalist order in which we live under and the numerous ways that multifarious institutions such as the University are integrated and act as mediums in which to ensure the continued reproduction of subjectivities as a method to maintain the hegemonic systems of oppression. Thus, I have found myself as an anti-Zionist Jew, who not only struggles for the liberation of Palestine, but against all injustices meted upon marginalized populations by the capitalist order. Integral to my political education has been studying the historical development of radical social movements in the United States and worldwide along with the various theoretical contributions that such movements have contributed to the growth of an epistemology that aims to lay the foundation for the construction of not just radical subjectivities, but the construction of a world without oppression, a world unlike the hegemonic capitalist world order.
One such activist academic I have encountered during this process is Vivian Gornick, a groundbreaking member of the movement for the radical transformation of society, a transformation that would abolish the oppressive social relations that have constricted the lives of women from the beginning of the class society to the contemporary era. To this day as a professor at the New School for Social Research, Vivian Gornick continues to analyze the gendered and sexual oppression that characterize life in this period of rising militarization and securitization by the state apparatuses of the United States and the European Union in order to coercively maintain the system of neoliberalism in a period of popular uprisings against the intersectional oppressions endemic to our epoch of late-stage capitalism. We must recognize that these contemporary social movements for revolutionary change have been influenced by both the theoretical contributions and praxis of revolutionaries before us, such as Vivian Gornick and her comrades within the Women’s Liberation Movement of the 1960s and ’70s.
Thus, the news that Gornick would be the commencement speaker for my Commencement brought mixed feelings. First of all, I am glad to learn that such an important figure within the movement for liberation went to City College, and it bolsters the fact that the CCNY student body has consistently fought for the lofty goals of liberation from oppressive systems and have stayed true to such egalitarian principles their whole lives because they could not ignore the brutal nature of hegemonic capitalism.
Yet, as a student activist I am dismayed at the choice of Vivian Gornick accepting the offer to speak at Commencement. I write this criticism in a comradely manner, one in which I maintain the utmost respect for the life and struggles that you have waged personally and for the liberation of humanity. Commencement comes a mere few weeks after the City College administration brutally destroyed and repressed the CUNY Gaza Solidarity Encampment, criminalizing the student body and community members who sought to build community and continue our struggle to democratize City College and the CUNY system, and ensure that they divest from companies that are arming and profiting from the current genocide unfolding in Gaza by the Israeli settler colonial state. We also called for the end of study abroad programs at City College which—as numerous Palestinians have noted—is a tactic to “normalize” the Israeli state within the reigning international order. It should be noted that the study abroad program in Israel that is connected to the Grove School of Engineering takes students to a university named after David Ben Gurion, the first prime minister of Israel and one of the architects of the 1948 Nakba, and is located just minutes away from a modern-day concentration camp in which Palestinians are held captive within the Negev desert.
Connected demands of our CUNY Gaza Solidarity Encampment included the call for a CUNY system that was free, and ensured that the workers obtained greater labor rights, ranging from a fair contract to the right of academic freedom, and the complete delinking of our university from the overarching structure of U.S. imperialism.
These are the reasons why student activists and community members set up a beautiful encampment at City College. This space of collective struggle—an area in which we could show our solidarity with the valiant struggle of the Palestinian nation and also learn about various other struggles for liberation via teach-ins—was deemed a threat by City College and CUNY administration. We consistently connected our struggle to the valiant occupation of City College of 1969, and the legacy of revolutionaries that have walked through the halls of City College before us, thus your legacy of struggle is intimately intertwined with our contemporary struggles.
Therefore, I sincerely ask you that in light of the brutal repression that the City College administration has meted upon this generation of students, and especially Palestinian solidarity activists, that you decline the invitation to speak at this year’s commencement ceremony. Notice the juxtaposition in the way that the City College administration valorizes such revolutionaries like yourself who went to City College in the past and the treatment of student activists whether it was in 1969, 2013, or 2024. They hope to use you as a token in order to exemplify the college’s “social justice” credentials by allowing you to speak at commencement yet refuse to listen to students and community members demands to make sure our university is not complicit in genocide in Palestine.
In light of my request, I would love to invite you instead to join in a communal gathering with current City College and CUNY activists for a night of revolutionary discussion, learning and communal solidarity based upon the collective principles for a just world that we both hold dear to our hearts.
Thank you for reading this letter.
In Revolutionary Solidarity,
Jason Cohen
