Pro-Palestine advocates are criticizing Queens College, a school of the City University of New York (CUNY), for hosting a two-day TV production involving a prop protest encampment following an administrative crackdown on students for their Gaza advocacy efforts earlier this year.
The imitation campsite, consisting of multicolored tents and signs featuring ambiguous environmental protest language and deliberately misspelled words mocking the students, is part of an ongoing shoot for CBS’s FBI: Most Wanted, a television series by Wolf Entertainment.
According to an email sent by Queens College to community members, shared on X by Within Our Lifetime (WOL) organizer Nerdeen Kiswani, the mock encampment would feature “signage and branding for a fictitious university”; a “chase and arrest scene”; and a staged set with tents, firecrackers, and smoke effects.
In response to Hyperallergic’s request for comment, a Queens College representative stated that the school “is often the site of television and film shoots by reputable production companies and media outlets.”
“The campus community was advised in advance of the anticipated media shoot parameters, including the fact that the episode would focus on a climate change/environmental issue protest at a fictitious college,” the spokesperson said, adding that filming was completed today before noon.
Yesterday, July 22, the shoot was the focus of at least two actions led by pro-Palestine groups WOL, CUNY for Palestine, and National Students for Justice in Palestine. At Queens College, protesters alleged that their demonstration forced filming to wrap early, and outside the CUNY Graduate Center in Midtown Manhattan, more than 150 pro-Palestine advocates gathered to protest, joined by around 30 pro-Israel counterprotesters.
“We’re here to send a very clear message to the CUNY administration that we will not stop until they drop the charges and until they meet the demands of student organizers,” Kiswani and other protesters at the Manhattan rally said in a call-and-response chant.
“But instead, what does CUNY do? They rent out Queens College for a film shoot for FBI: Most Wanted, where they set up a fake encampment to capitalize [on] the momentum of the Palestinian struggle,” the protesters continued, echoing long-standing calls for the school to divest from Israeli military interests and sever its relations with all Israeli academic institutions.
Carol Lang, an assistant professor at Bronx Community College who was at yesterday’s protest at the Graduate Center, told Hyperallergic that she broke a rib when police raided the City College of New York’s student solidarity encampment at the end of April, arresting 173 people.
“[The police] knocked me down, and kept saying, ‘Move! Move!’ but there was no place to move. It was just this really big crowd, so we all fell on top of each other and my knee got all messed up when I slammed it against the ground,” Lang said.
Hyperallergic has reached out to the New York Police Department about the allegations.
“The criminalization of students who participated in encampments to stop a genocide is comical,” a protester at the Graduate Center who asked to remain anonymous told Hyperallergic. They added that they were suspended from their out-of-state school for participating in a solidarity encampment, which was also targeted by “many arrests and many suspensions.”
Editor’s Note, 7/23/2024, 2:50pm EDT: This report has been modified to include updated information about the TV production set on campus.
