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CUNY Students Won on Investment Disclosure. Now They’re Demanding Divestment.

The records reveal that the public university was invested in companies—including Lockheed Martin, Caterpillar, and Elbit—that are linked to Israeli military operations in Gaza.

After battling for two years to obtain the City University of New York’s (CUNY) investment records, student divestment activists won a big victory on September 9. A Supreme Court decision ruled in favor of the students, who argued that under New York’s Freedom of Information Law, the university could no longer withhold its records from the public.

Despite the ruling, CUNY, which operates 26 colleges across all five boroughs of New York City, has failed to disclose the full cache of materials students have requested, including purchase order histories for the 30 companies whose financial ties to CUNY organizers sought to investigate. Of these, the university only provided records for two—the American technology companies Dell and IBM. Through these holdings, organizers were looking to identify the university’s financial ties to companies they believed profited from Israeli military actions.

Since 2024, CUNY4Palestine, an organization of CUNY students and workers, has been the force behind calls for the university to disclose investments in companies that are connected to Israeli military operations in Gaza. Across all 26 schools, CUNY4Palestine has organized divestment efforts for years, connecting this investment campaign to broader demands for institutional change.

The newly released forms reveal that from 2020 until 2025, CUNY was invested in companies, including Boeing, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Elbit Systems, and Caterpillar, that have provided Israel with weapons and military equipment used in its decimation of Gaza. CUNY also held stock in mass detention and surveillance companies such as Palantir, Geo Group, and CoreCivic.

For many students, the newly released information raises another question: What should CUNY do now?

A draft resolution, a collaboration by Hunter College’s student government and Hunter SJP members, demands that CUNY “immediately divest from these harmful holdings” and instead “adopt an ethical investment policy.”

For many students, the university has failed to uphold its mission as a university “for the whole people of New York.” They believe the university has profited from genocide,........

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