College students rally on the steps of Tweed Courthouse in decrease Manhattan on Tuesday, April 8, 2025.
Photograph courtesy Leaders Excessive Faculty / Individuals’s Plan NYC
College students from Leaders Excessive Faculty in Brooklyn gathered on the steps of the Tweed Courthouse in decrease Manhattan on Tuesday, April 8, demanding that Mayor Eric Adams reverse what they described as “dangerous funds cuts to crucial public companies.”
Leaders Excessive Faculty is positioned at 2630 Benson Ave. in Brooklyn.
The rally was a part of the Fiscal 12 months 2026 Individuals’s Finances Marketing campaign led by The Individuals’s Plan, calling for “a simply and equitable metropolis funds that facilities communities as a substitute of particular pursuits.”
“At present, I’m proud to face as your MC and communicate on behalf of our college neighborhood,” stated Marely, a scholar at Leaders Excessive Faculty, when opening the rally. “Collectively, with the Individuals’s Plan, we’re combating for reasonably priced futures for households and actual public security for all New Yorkers.
“We reject the funds cuts and mass deportations occurring below each the Trump administration and Mayor Eric Adams,” Marley added. “We demand full funding for 3K, CUNY, immigrant protections, and psychological well being companies — as a result of our future will depend on it.”
Zara Nasir, director of The Individuals’s Plan and the Individuals’s Finances Marketing campaign, emphasised the stake.
“Mayor Adams’ relentless funds cuts usually are not simply numbers on a spreadsheet — they’re direct assaults on the futures of immigrant college students and households throughout this metropolis,” Nasir stated. “Slashing funding for schooling whereas our communities are already under-resourced is a merciless alternative, not a fiscal necessity.
“As director of The Individuals’s Plan and the Individuals’s Finances marketing campaign, I stand with younger individuals demanding actual funding of their colleges, their security, and their futures. New York should select care, not cuts,” Nasir added.
The rally featured testimony from college students and advocates. It was joined by Council Members Alexa Avilés, Jen Gutiérrez, Shahana Hanif, and allies from the Skilled Workers Congress and Alliance for High quality Schooling, in addition to Public Advocate Jumaane Williams.
Nasir stated Leaders Excessive Faculty, a small, project-based public college with a various scholar physique—together with massive immigrant communities from Pakistan, Mexico, Uzbekistan, China, and Russia—is instantly impacted by these funds choices.
College students lifted their lived experiences and known as on metropolis management to spend money on a imaginative and prescient of New York Metropolis that prioritizes schooling from 3K to CUNY, psychological well being care, immigrant protections, and housing-first methods as the muse of correct public security.
“This youth-led motion builds on 5 months of advocacy by way of the Individuals’s Finances Marketing campaign, which is pushing again in opposition to an austerity agenda and demanding a funds rooted in #CareNotCuts,” Nasir stated.
