The Advocate

When recently asked about the proposed Security Management Certificate Program and the “Homeland Security” course originally slated to appear at Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC) this Fall, BMCC president and member of the American Association of Community College’s “Task Force on Homeland Security” Antonio Perez said simply “the college is no longer moving forward with the proposed certificate program.” This surprising announcement comes just weeks after a slew of student and faculty protests to prevent the proposed certificate program and the infamous “Homeland Security” course from being offered at BMCC this semester.

When asked why the program was cancelled and whether or not the college was responding to pressure from student and faculty activists, the administration was less than forthcoming. BMCC officials including President Perez, Vice President of Academic Affairs Sadie Bragg, and the Public Relations Department, despite numerous attempts to reach them refused to comment. Student and faculty activists, while relieved that the program is no longer being considered, remain wary in the absence of a public statement from the college. They will continue to pursue the issue with the administration and to actively work next semester to assure that the program is indeed not offered and that it does not manifest itself later in some other form.

Since September 11, community colleges have increasingly taken a shine to the prospect of homeland security training and education, including Monroe Community College in Rochester, NY and Iowa Central Community College, which offers courses in, among other things, preventing agro-terrorism. Not to be outdone by a Iowa, BMCC proposed its own Security Management Certificate Program last year. The program, which was sponsored by the Business Management Program, was originally intended to be offered as a ten-course certificate program with required courses in “Security Management Techniques,” and “Homeland Security.” Sample syllabi, which were included in the proposal, contained classes and lectures on such alarming topics as “Interview and Interrogation Techniques,” “Terrorism and Counter-terrorism,” “Intelligence Gathering,” and “Technology for Surveillance.” The proposal was met with a number of organized and sometimes militant protests by student groups and faculty members at BMCC who are opposed to the program and argue that the presence of these courses and students enrolled in these courses would create an atmosphere of repression and fear on a campus whose minority population includes a large number of Arabs and Muslims, targets in the so-called war on terror.

Opposition began to ferment almost as soon as the course was proposed. Abram Negrete, adjunct lecturer at CUNY and president of the Hunter Internationalist Club, was one of the first to discover links between many of the program’s advisory board members and reviled international intelligence agencies, including the CIA, the Israeli Mossad, and Britain’s Special Air Services. Notable board members included Col. John J. Perrone Jr., who served as commander of the Joint Detainee Operations Group in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and Leo Gleser, president of the Israeli firm International Security and Defense Systems, who according to Negrete has been associated with, among others, the Israeli Mossad, and South American death squads in Honduras and Chile.

Negrete argues that the student protests against the program aren’t only about the courses to be offered, but are directly related to larger concerns about the war in Iraq, US imperialism at home and abroad, and the growing threat to civil liberties. “It is only because of the protests that the program has been given pause,” said Negrete, adding that, “In order to definitely squash the program protests have to continue.”

In the aftermath of the Business Management Program proposal, BMCC students and the student government, including representative Rodney Davis and President Jason Negron, took a number of steps opposing the program. In a formal statement, the student government denounced the proposal and “any and all homeland security programs on campus.” Shortly thereafter, the student government made presentations to the New York City Council’s “Higher Education Committee,” and on December 9, students held a vocal and well-attended protest on campus against the program.

On December 22, before the January recess, the issue was again brought before the Faculty Council, which must approve all new programs at BMCC. Students who were present described response to the program as “a firestorm of opposition.” One member of the Faculty Council, Bill Friedheim, Historian and Professor in Social Sciences at BMCC, said that most member of the council vehemently opposed the program and that it had little chance of ever being approved. When asked why he was opposed to the program, Friedheim said he was worried about the growing trend of government privatization of counter-terrorism and argued that the program was a threat to the largely minority student population, especially the Muslim and Arab populations on campus. “I don’t mean to trivialize what happened on 9-11,” said Friedheim, “but what it comes down to is that the war on terror seems to have morphed into a war on civil liberties.”

At the moment it remains to be seen whether the administration is sincere about dropping the proposal. One thing that is clear, however, is that the students and faculty at BMCC and the university will continue to protest and agitate against any proposed university involvement with the Department of Homeland Security now and in the future.