Stony Brook University Alumna Sues School Over Failure to Disclose Records In Response To FOIL Relating to Mass Arrests at 2024 Protest Regarding Investments In Israel
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Stony Brook Alumna Ella Engel-Snow Charges School with Stonewalling, Demands Compliance with NYS Law
On November 12th, 2025, Stony Brook alumna Ella Engel-Snow (graduated May 2025), served the university with an Article 78 petition after the university administration failed to respond to multiple Freedom of Information Law (“FOIL”) requests.
Article from The Statesman covering the arrest of Stony Brook students arrested while protesting for Palestine from their encampment in May 2024.
The FOIL requests are part of a larger effort by SUNY BDS (not affiliated with SUNY or NYS), a group of students, staff, faculty, and alumni calling on New York State to divest from Israeli apartheid. Initially, Ms Engel-Snow filed a FOIL requesting for Stony Brook’s investments, but the Stony Brook Records Access Officer was not forthcoming with any documents, according to a press release submitted by SUNY BDS.
“I was grateful to be part of Stony Brook Graduate Students for Palestine and to work alongside students committed to social justice. Throughout that time, I was appalled by the administration’s suppression of student activism. We have a right to this information. ”
Engel-Snow was one of 29 people, including students, faculty, and alumni, arrested on the Stony Brook campus in May 2024 as reported by The Statesman during a student encampment in which participants set up sleeping bags on campus grounds and refused to leave, demanding an end to university complicity in the genocide in Palestine. The campus was stormed with approximately 150 police officers and state troopers. The Statesman reported that “Stony Brook University police, state troopers, Suffolk police and a mobile field unit arrested 29 people including students, faculty members and community members participating in a Gaza solidarity encampment protest organized by Sb4Palestine.”
While Ms. Engel-Snow was detained, she says her phone was illegally seized by the police and kept for approximately 10 days as “evidence,” along with at least 15 other phones, all of which were held without warrants, according to the press release.
Ms. Engel-Snow submitted the FOIL request in January 2025 seeking legal and business correspondence to and from Stony Brook University Police Command Staff containing specific key words. Those legal requests having gone ignored, SUNY BDS says. The resulting lawsuit seeks legal and business correspondence between the university and police regarding their actions in response to student protests, among other information.
According to Engel-Snow, “I submitted the FOIL request because I wanted to know how the administration came to the conclusion to send 150 armed police and state troopers to chase down peacefully protesting students. Who made that decision? And what are they so afraid of?” she said in the press release.
“During my two years as a graduate student,” Ms. Engel-Snow reflected, “I was grateful to be part of Stony Brook Graduate Students for Palestine and to work alongside students committed to social justice. Throughout that time, I was appalled by the administration’s suppression of student activism. We have a right to this information. The New York Freedom of Information Law (“FOIL”) requires that Stony Brook release these records. What kind of example is university leadership setting when they threaten students and at the same time disregard the law?”
According to reporting at The Statesman, “According to SUNY BDS, many SUNY campuses have repeatedly delayed releasing records, and SUNY Campus Foundations, which manage university funds for those campuses, have argued that they are exempt from FOIL because they operate as private nonprofit organizations.” Stony Brook University told The Statesman that it does not “comment on pending legal matters.”
After being stonewalled repeatedly, she submitted an appeal, SUNY BDS said in the press release. “Stony Brook’s further failure to respond has forced Ms. Engel-Snow to serve them with the Article 78 petition, which allows individuals or groups to seek a court’s review of a decision of a public body,” the group said.
For more information, contact SUNY BDS at sunybds1@gmail.com.
