CUNY Rallies Against Political Repression: "All Four of Us Will Walk Back Through Brooklyn College's Gates" - Left Voice
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After four Brooklyn College adjuncts were fired for pro-Palestine organizing, three won their positions back through collective struggle against political repression. At a recent rally, one of the reinstated workers spoke about the need to continue the fight for the reinstatement of the remaining "Fired Fourth" alongside union members, students, and the community.

The following is a speech by one of the reinstated members of the “CUNY Fired Four.” In the summer of 2025, four adjuncts at Brooklyn College were fired in retaliation for organizing in solidarity with Palestine. Since then, a growing fightback — led by PSC-CUNY (the union representing 30,000 faculty and staff across CUNY campuses) and powered by students, workers, and community allies — has challenged these political firings.

Three of the four have won reinstatement through collective struggle. But one remains targeted, effectively blacklisted across the entire CUNY system. The charges against her are absurdly thin: she is accused of helping produce a flyer that included the CUNY name and of receiving a single $5 donation from a full-time faculty member. This is not misconduct, it is repression. Read more about the fight to reinstate the Fired Fourth here.

Ahead of her seventh hearing, the PSC, alongside students and union supporters, rallied in her defense in front of CUNY Central. At that rally, Sally, one of the reinstated Fired Four, delivered the following speech. She spoke to the urgency of continuing the fight to win full reinstatement for the fourth adjunct and to the broader struggle to transform the university itself into a university of struggle for the world we deserve.

***

My name is Sally Zieper.
Thanks to everyone here today
and everyone in this movement.
I am one of the reinstated Fired Four
and I am here to say:
there is no conduct separating me
from our comrade who remains fired
except for one thing —
she is better than me,
far more experienced,
an educator i learn from every day;
except that she is braver than me,
that she has given even more of herself to CUNY
to our students,
to our workers.
She is the best of us
and we cannot rest until she is back with us.
For me
Being fired from Brooklyn College
came weeks after graduating
from that same institution.
A ceremony in which Palestinian flags were carried with strength and pride
and then forcibly ripped out of graduates’ hands off stage
only weeks after our administration invited hundreds of riot cops
onto our campus
leading to the worst police brutality i have ever witnessed firsthand.
And they refused to apologize
or admit wrongdoing
because the police beat the students in the head one inch outside the campus gates.
It felt like Brooklyn College was trying to destroy all traces
of Palestine solidarity.
If you’ve been to campus recently
they’re even renovating the quad.
I guess it got too liberated
but just like the McCarthy era
this moment will pass.
History will judge them as we have
and we will be teaching the story of the Fired Fourth
and how a movement brought her back.
And we will celebrate the day
all four of us walk back through those gates
heads held high,
fists raised,
ready to do the work of the university
which should never be to blacklist and punish
and lie and divide us from our own people
but to teach and learn and struggle together,
o make the world we all deserve.
So let’s don’t stop until we do it.

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