The City University of New York will disclose information about its investment holdings and contracts with 30 companies with alleged connections to Israel’s military campaigns, including Dell Technologies Inc. and Lockheed Martin Corp.
The Midtown Manhattan-based school on Tuesday agreed to settle the New York Civil Liberties Union’s lawsuit seeking to compel CUNY to release the documents and shed light on how the university is spending and investing public money.
“Investment records disclosure is a basic responsibility and function of a public institution, and CUNY students, faculty, and the entire campus community are entitled to transparency and equal treatment from their administration — no matter their viewpoint or their purpose in seeking those records,” NYCLU senior staff attorney Veronica Salama said in a press release.
The NYCLU filed its lawsuit in state court in November 2024 after the school largely denied a public records request submitted by CUNY law student Sarah Southey. The request was part of Southey’s advocacy work with CUNY for Palestine and CUNY Law Students for Justice in Palestine, which advocate for the school to divest from certain companies that the groups say profit from ties to Israel.
CUNY claimed it was exempt because the documents include company trade secrets.
Tuesday’s settlement requires the school to provide the NYCLU and Southey with reports about CUNY’s stock and bond holdings for every fiscal year since 2020 and purchase orders from companies dating back to July 1, 2023. Companies on the list include Boeing Co., General Electric Co., Northrop Grumman Corp., Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co., Barclays Bank Plc, Chevron Corp., and Siemens AG.
The university also will pay $20,000 in attorney’s fees to the NYCLU and drop its appeal of the trial court’s August 2025 decision requiring the school to disclose certain information in response to the records request.
CUNY, which is represented by the attorney general’s office, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The case is Southey v. City University of New York, N.Y. Sup. Ct., No. 160213/2024, Settlement 8/18/26.