From Columbia University to the University of Texas to the University of Southern California, a draconian new McCarthyism has sought to discipline campus activists protesting Israel’s genocidal onslaught on Gaza. This crackdown comes amid a long-simmering crisis in higher education: a growing proportion of academic labor is being performed by an underpaid, overworked army of contingent workers, while many institutions — especially public ones — suffer wave after wave of disinvestment, foisting higher costs onto students in the form of debt.

Among the public schools facing such cuts are those that make up the City University of New York (CUNY), the twenty-five-campus, quarter-million-student system that was once celebrated as the “Harvard of the proletariat” for its high educational standards and accessibility to working-class New Yorkers. Eighty percent of CUNY students are people of color, and half come from families earning less than $30,000 a year.

Austerity measures imposed by the city and state government, however, are now threatening the university’s standards and its accessibility to less affluent students. Once tuition-free, CUNY has become increasingly dependent on tuition to fund its operations. Meanwhile, the university’s faculty and staff work in increasingly precarious conditions for worse pay.