Four reporters blocked from entering Brooklyn College campus during a pro-Palestinian student demonstration on May 8 plan to sue, arguing the college violated their First Amendment right to freedom of the press.
In a notice of intention to file a claim sent to Brooklyn College and the City University of New York Friday afternoon, Wylie Stecklow, an attorney for four independent journalists – Neil Constatine, Jon Farina, Michael Nigro and Madison Stewart – described them being blocked from entering campus by public safety officers after they presented city-issued press passes.
Unlike Columbia University, a private institution, Brooklyn College, as part of the public City University of New York, has a higher duty to uphold the First Amendment, Stecklow argued.
“As an arm of the state of New York, they owe all the rights and privileges guaranteed by both the U.S. Constitution and the New York State constitution,” Stecklow said.
“If we allow government actors to decide when the press is allowed in newsworthy events, then there is no freedom of the press,” he said.
Spokespeople for Brooklyn College and the City University of New York didn’t immediately return requests for comment.
As reporters with press credentials were turned away by security officers at the gates of the usually open Brooklyn College campus during the demonstration, Stecklow emailed and called campus leadership attempting to help the four gain access to no avail.
Dozens of NYPD officers enter Brooklyn College to break up a small pro-Palestinian encampment, May 8, 2025. Credit: Alex Krales/THE CITY
In an email replying to Steklow the following day, Catherine Freeland, a Brooklyn College communications officer, explained the college had blocked the reporters “due to safety concerns related to a group establishing an encampment on the East Quad.”
“This decision was based on an evolving situation, including growing external calls on social media for others to join the encampment,” she wrote. “Media access was restricted only to the extent necessary to preserve safety and campus operations.”
About three dozen students waving flags and chanting had spent several hours in what they called a “liberated zone” on a campus lawn, with some of them pitching tents before taking them down after public safety officers ordered them to do so.
Pro-Palestinian demonstrators occupy a lawn on the Brooklyn College campus, May 8, 2025. Credit: Gwynne Hogan/THE CITY
“There was no safety concern,” Steklow asserted. “It was a peaceful protest.”
Still, dozens of NYPD police officers entered the campus at around 6 p.m., swiftly clearing out the protesters without incident. But outside the gates, chaos broke out as NYPD officers started making a series of violent arrests.
Students attempting to disperse and walk towards the nearest subway, stopped briefly outside Tanger Hillel, a club house for Jewish students, where they were again confronted by the NYPD. An officer tased one demonstrator, while several others were punched, kicked and body-slammed by officers, THE CITY reported. Seven people were arrested and seven others were given summonses, a NYPD spokesperson said, without answering a question about what charges they faced.
At a press conference outside CUNY’s Central offices in Midtown Friday afternoon, a group of professors called out Chancellor Félix Matos Rodríguez and Brooklyn College President Michelle Anderson’s decision to call in the NYPD a week earlier.
“We’re proud of our students for being on the right side of history and on Friday, we will tell the Chancellor that we stand with them in their struggle,” CUNY Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine member Chris Stone, who teaches at Hunter College, said in a statement.
The outside demonstration on the Brooklyn College campus took place a day after the NYPD was called into Columbia and 80 people, most of them Columbia or Barnard students, were arrested as they attempted to occupy part of the building where students were studying for finals as the “Bassel Al-Araj Popular University.”.
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