The Advocate - May 2005 Index

“City College Reinstates CCNY Four, But Charges Still Pending”

James Hoff

On Wednesday March 9, City College public safety officers arrested three students who were part of a larger group of students and faculty peacefully protesting against the presence of Army National Guard recruiters on their campus. Nick Bergreen, Justino Rodriguez, and Hadas Thier, all full-time students at City College, were arrested and charged with, among other things, assaulting an officer, resisting arrest and disturbing the peace. Carol Lang, a program secretary in the theatre department, long-time CUNY activist, and thirty-year member of the City College staff, was later arrested and charged with assault after security officers showed up in her office the following Friday. According to Lang the officers refused to allow her to call her attorney and immediately escorted her to a waiting NYC police vehicle. Lang was suspended for an entire month without any conviction and without pay. While she was allowed back on campus on April 11, her second criminal hearing, which was scheduled for April 21, was postponed for negotiations with the DA. Thier, Rodriguez, and Bergreen have also recently been allowed back on campus after having been suspended and barred from campus since their arrests. The three had pending criminal hearings scheduled for the 21 of April, which have also been postponed. The DA recently offered the three a reprimand with a verdict of not guilty.

The day after the arrests, City College president Gregory H. Williams, in a public statement issued to the campus community, offered the unqualified assertion that, after the students were asked to leave the Great Hall, “The confrontation escalated and several of the demonstrators grabbed and hit the officer.” (See side panel for more information on the President’s statement). The President’s office has refused to offer any further insight into who “the officer” in question was or any actual proof of injury, but security report forms for March 9, obtained by The Advocate report that it was a Lt. Doug White who was reportedly attacked. In addition to Lt. White, Sgt. Emmanuel Takpui was reportedly admitted to his private physician with “a pain in his right hand” after supposedly being attacked by Carol Lang.

Contrary to President Williams’s statement, however, which has been widely criticized by journalists and activists, witnesses say it was the public safety officers that incited the violence and not the students. According to witnesses who were present that day it began when a group of students, faculty, and staff, who had been organizing against military recruitment on campus, decided to protest at the campus job fair on March 9. Protestors were reportedly angry about the presence of military recruiters on a predominantly minority and working-class campus, where they felt students could be easily manipulated by promises of college tuition and health benefits. Before they could even enter the Great Hall, the protestors were met by a large group of public safety officers and told that they would not be allowed to protest inside where the job fair was being held. Some of the students were told that they could protest outside. The protestors reportedly entered the job fair one by one and then reassembled as a group in front of the Army National Guard table. Witnesses say the protestors began chanting “US, Out of Iraq; Recruiters off our campus.” Protestors were then quickly forced out of the Great Hall by security and pushed into an empty hallway where witnesses report two students were attacked and three arrested.

Several witnesses interviewed by The Advocate reported that City College Public Safety officers beat, pushed, punched, kicked and generally abused student protestors. One witness, who asked to remain unnamed, said that he saw Public safety officers “grab a student who stood in the front of the group of protestors and tackle him to the ground.” This, he argued, was what led to the escalation of violence. This witness said that he later saw the same student “pushed up against the wall where his face was repeatedly banged against it.” Other witnesses reported seeing public safety officers silence one student by pulling his hood over his face as he was slammed into the doorway. CCNY Junior Tiffany Paul said “We were completely peaceful. It was the officers who were violent.”

“They lied about everything,” said Carol Lang, who also said that it was the security officers who attacked the students and accused the public safety officers of trying to cover up their own questionable actions by blaming the violence on the student protestors.

The college administration has repeatedly refused to offer any further details when questioned about the events of March 9 and has stalled to release any further public safety “Incident Report Forms,” even after The Advocate’s injunction of the state Freedom of Information Act. Mary Lou Edmondson, speaking on behalf of the president’s office did say, “We would like to reiterate that the actions taken by the College were in response to several complaints and witnesses’ statements that were made to Campus Public Safety officials.”

Since the arrests, the City College campus community has rallied behind the four protestors. The City Defense Campaign, organized shortly after the arrests, has arranged a number of protests, marches, teach-ins, and press conferences to help spread the word about the arrest and the abuses of the Public Safety officers on campus. In addition to these protests and teach-ins, the City Defense Campaign has drafted a “letter of Support” for the CCNY 4 signed by dozens of CUNY professors, including Ammiel Alcalay and Jackie DiSalvo, City Council member Charles Barron, and such left-wing luminaries as Howard Zinn, Mike Davis (author of City of Quartz), and radical novelist and historian Tariq Ali.

Although Hadas Thier had been described as “posing a continuing danger” to the campus community by the administration and the college has reportedly increased the number of charges against Lang, as of now all four of the individuals arrested have been allowed to return to class and to work.

Brian Jones, a graduate student member of the City Defense Campaign, attributes this change of mind on the part of the administration to the continued efforts of his organization as well as the valiant stand of the faculty senate against the administration’s policy of intimidation. Like the events of last semester at City College, whose proposed “Homeland Security” program was nixed by the faculty senate, the members of the City College Faculty Senate who came out overwhelmingly in favor of reinstating all four of the suspended protestors, even in the presence of President Williams himself, have shown the power that faculty and students have in shaping the policies of their universities. Mr. Jones says that the City Defense Campaign is still considering a counter suit and pursuing its own investigation into what they see as abuses on the part of CCNY Public Safety officers.

James Hoff is a student in the PhD program in English.