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In March 2024, then-first-year law student at the City University of New York’s Law School, Sarah Southey, filed a Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request to obtain CUNY’s financial investment information, including what companies are held in their financial portfolio. This came months into the ongoing genocide waged by Israel in Gaza, as well as a growing pro-Palestine movement on college campuses across the United States. One of the demands of the student activists was — and still is at many colleges — for colleges and universities to disclose what financial ties they have with companies and businesses supporting the Israeli occupation in Palestine.

A couple of months later, in May 2024 — mere weeks after the police raid and mass arrest at the CUNY students’ Gaza Solidarity Encampment — CUNY rejected the FOIL request.

“We were furious and angry. CUNY has constantly tried to silence organizing for Palestine. [They] called the NYPD to brutalize Palestine protestors. And so this just seemed one more example of repression against our organizing for Palestinian liberation,” said Southey, a member of both CUNY Law Students for Justice and Palestine and CUNY for Palestine.

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Southey didn’t take no for an answer. Instead, she went to court, filing a suit with the New York Civil Liberties Union in November 2024. The case’s preliminary statement wrote that Southey, the plaintiff, “seeks these records to support student efforts to advocate for CUNY’s divestment from certain companies implicated in Israel’s military campaigns.”

And last week, Southey and the pro-Palestine movement won.

In a highly anticipated decision, the Supreme Court of New York ruled on August 20 that CUNY must disclose its financial portfolio, specifically contracts with businesses supporting........

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