Pro-Palestine Academics Have Been Fighting the New McCarthyism
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The Trump administration has been going on an offensive to suppress social movements. From unprecedented criminal sentences against immigrant rights activists to a recent State Department report trying to link prominent left-wing figures and organizations to the Cuban government, the administration’s actions harken back to an era of “McCarthyism” in which the government ostracized left-wing activists, intellectuals, and artists.
Before the recent headlines, however, pro-Palestine academics were already on the receiving end of a Republican-led campaign against free speech. In recent years hundreds of academics have been fired, censored, threatened, or otherwise punished for their research and advocacy. The movement for Palestine has been one of the Trump administration’s main targets. It has also provided important examples of how those facing repression are fighting back.
One such case is that of the Fired Four, referring to four adjunct faculty who were fired from the City University of New York (CUNY) in June 2025 because of their Palestine activism. Shortly after the four learned of their firings, PSC CUNY, the union representing faculty at the university, released a statement condemning what they called “retaliatory firing,” labeling it as part of the “New McCarthyism.”
Corinna Mullin, one of the Fired Four and an organizer with the group CUNY for Palestine, said that she has been deeply inspired by the campaign.
“It’s been a truly amazing campaign. We have been so heartened, really impressed and touched, moved by the support of our colleagues and the student body. The union has been incredible.”
How unions are fighting back
Members of the union took the campaign into their own hands with a range of creative initiatives to spread the word about the firings. Faculty tabled at nine different campuses across the university, often working alongside students to educate CUNY community members about the campaign. Others printed t-shirts saying “Reinstate the Fired Four” which they sold to raise funds for the campaign and raise awareness. These shirts can still be regularly spotted being worn throughout CUNY campuses.
There is also an Instagram page which the campaign has used to share updates, provide coverage of protests the union has held in support for the Fired Four, and publish expressions of solidarity from left-wing academics and political figures including Marc Lamont Hill, Robin D.G. Kelly, Claire Valdez, and Darializa Chevalier. The account was also used to post “pets for the Fired Four,” a series of pictures submitted by campaign supporters showing their pets displaying messages of solidarity.
The campaign has connected with other sectors of the labor movement, participating in a panel at the Labor Notes Conference in Chicago and organizing a joint picket with the Starbucks workers union when Starbucks workers went on strike.
This widespread publicity contributed to CUNY reinstating three of the faculty, but the union has continued to fight for the reinstatement of the fourth faculty who has not yet gotten their job back. The remaining faculty member, now dubbed the Fired Fourth, spoke about the importance of the campaign.
“It shows the ways in which the university is, on one hand, deeply invested in U.S. imperialism, in Zionism, and the ways in which there’s bipartisan consensus in attacking the movement for Palestine,” they said. “The fight against repression has to be part of our movement. In order to fight for Palestine, in order to fight for divestment, we need to make sure that we’re not being attacked.”
The Fired Fourth and Mullin both expressed that CUNY has a reputation as a university for the people and for working class communities, but that this is reflected in the actions of the CUNY workers, students, and community members, not the administration.
“The Fired Four and the students and the other faculty and staff, who have risked so much to stand up for Palestinian liberation, we’ve been fighting for this for so long to make CUNY live up to its name as the people’s university, and that means it shouldn’t be a university that’s invested in imperialist war and genocide,” Mullin said.
The campaign is an example of the power that unions have to resist repression of social movements. Another example can be found at Rutgers University.
David Letwin, an anti-Zionist Jew who has been part of the movement for Palestine for over 20 years, is on the executive board of Rutgers Adjunct Faculty Union (PTLFC-AAUP-AFT Local 6324). He said that it has been one of the most pro-Palestine union executive bodies in the country, releasing multiple statements against the genocide in Gaza and efforts to suppress Palestine solidarity. In January 2025, members of the union voted in favor of a resolution for divestment from the genocide.
The union also organized a panel which connected repression of pro-Palestine academics to larger attacks on academic freedom. The panel included a representative of the CUNY Fired Four campaign. Letwin explained the importance of making these connections.
“In the eyes of the MAGA right and its Zionist allies, higher education is enemy territory to be conquered, occupied, and purged of dissenters. They are not going to let academic freedom, or first amendment rights, for that matter, stand in their way of that goal.”
Resisting the new McCarthyism
As more pro-Palestine academics have come under fire, networks have formed to connect those fighting repression, such as the Palestine Anti-Repression Network (PARN) — a group of academics who have been targeted for their pro-Palestine advocacy — and the Coalition for Action in Higher Education (CAHE) — which brings together over 35 organizations to defend academic freedom. These coalitions have been important because not all academics have found their unions willing to defend them.
Sang Kil, a Full Professor in the Justice Studies Department at San Jose State University, recently won her job back after being fired in July 2025. She also just stepped down as PARN’s interim chair. She said that many in the group are part of unions whose leaderships are closely affiliated with the Democratic Party, contributing to these unions’ leaderships being unwilling or unprepared to confront the repression which has been bipartisan.
Kil explained that after she was fired for pro-Palestine activism, one of the procedures she could choose to fight for her reinstatement was a public hearing in which her case would be decided by three random faculty members. She said that her union tried to dissuade her from choosing that option even though she believed it would be the most effective.
“They don’t do [public hearings] frequently enough,” Kil said. “They just don’t have the skills or the motivation, or understand the power of public hearings, and what a powerful union tool this is, not only to show what happens to faculty at the hands of bad actors, like administrators, but to also show our union power. A faculty can choose to go public with their case and win.”
Despite opposition from her union’s leadership, Kil chose the public hearing and was reinstated. “I told the union that most people are against the genocide, so I have all the faith in the world that three random faculty will side with me. And they did.”
A common sentiment among faculty who’ve faced repression for Palestine solidarity is that the repression has only been possible when otherwise progressive colleagues refuse to support the movement for Palestine.
Michel DeGraff, who teaches what he calls “liberatory linguistics” at MIT and organizes with PARN and CAHE, elaborated on this.
“Even so-called progressive and liberal colleagues… they themselves have allowed that repression by either remaining silent or by giving in on anticipatory compliance,” DeGraff said.
DeGraff was named in a Congressional report by the House Committee on Education and Workforce, the notorious body that has held panels interrogating heads of universities over their responses to Palestine activism on their campuses. The Committee has used a common tactic of equating Palestine activism with antisemitism. DeGraff has sued the Committee after it accused him of promoting “antisemitic conspiracy theories.” He is also suing MIT, deeming them a “state actor” on behalf of Congress, saying they have violated his First Amendment Rights by punishing him for his Palestine advocacy at the university.
DeGraff said that the false conflation between anti-Zionism and antisemitism is effectively used to weaken solidarity with targeted academics. “Even progressive or liberal allies will freeze in silence or fall into moral panic whenever it comes time to speak up in solidarity with professors like myself.”
Letwin also expressed that this false conflation remains an obstacle. However, he suggested that Palestine activists can bring in more support by showing how repression of pro-Palestine academics is connected to a larger crackdown of free speech and progressive movements.
“The key, it seems to me, is connecting the call for free Palestine with other social justice struggles: anti-ICE organizing, BLM, LGBTQ rights, opposition to imperial wars, that have established organizing networks,” Letwin said. “The forces of reaction are united against these movements, right? It only makes sense that our support for those movements be unified too.”
This article was first published on Sam Carliner’s Substack which focuses on issues of internationalism and social movements.
