The alumni of SUNY Purchase are appalled by the Administration’s actions that occurred on the night of May 2nd, 2024. 

On the night of May 2nd, 2024, SUNY Purchase student activists were intimidated and illuminated by search helicopters. Student activists and professors were detained, restrained, and thrown to the ground. Student activists were cornered and threatened with batons on live video. Their food and personal belongings were needlessly confiscated and destroyed in several blatant displays of theft and destruction.

The choice to protest and create an encampment was decided upon as a result of the Administration’s refusal to concede on any of the community’s stated goals. The student activists have demanded divestment from and a boycott of the apartheid state of Israel over their well-documented ethnic cleansing and displacement of Palestinians. 

The alumni stand behind the student activists who were arrested and support their goals. As Alumni, we demand:

1.  Financial transparency: Purchase College Board of Trustees and SUNY board must make public all investment records in the interest of transparency and to ensure that these institutions engage in ethical financial practices. The college must also establish a diverse committee of elected faculty and students responsible for ensuring ethical investment in the future.

2.  Divestment from companies with ties to the Zionist entity and from any defense contractor, weapons manufacturer, or surveillance company in the form of investments and institutional partnerships.

3.  Enforcement of a full academic boycott of "Israeli" academic institutions, including exchange programs and collaborative education projects

4. A full acknowledgment of the genocide currently taking place in Gaza, through which a distinction is made between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, a ceasefire is called for, and a public apology is issued to Palestinian students who have been offered not even a kind word from the administration since the siege of Gaza began.

5. Amnesty from criminal charges and academic sanctions must be granted to all comrades occupying the liberation encampment, as well as to non-violent protesters such as CJ who have been sanctioned unfairly in the past.

6.  Removal of Paul Nicholson from campus as a consequence of physically attacking a nonviolent protester in December.

As alumni, we promise to henceforth discourage any and all hopeful college attendees from ever attending SUNY Purchase until our demands are met. We also promise to never attend Alumni gatherings or submit donations in the future, and we will actively discourage future Alumni from doing the same until our demands are met. 

We are proud to be alumni to the student body and hope to guide undergraduates through our example. However, we are embarrassed to be alumni of the school that violently suppresses these students.

As Purchase alumni, we have always taken the slogan “Think Wide Open” very seriously. These three words have always inspired us to work towards a better world. It has been made clear that the Administration does not believe in this message as thoroughly as the alumni, students, professors, and workers of Purchase College do. The Administration has made it obvious that thinking wide open and fighting for the lives of the defenseless should never take priority over profit, and it should never threaten unjust power structures. 

Signed,

SUNY Purchase Alumni