The following article appears in the Sept. 1998 issue of "The Messenger", an independent student newspaper published by CCNY students. This, of course, should not be confused with the "CCNY Messenger" which is the official graduate student newspaper at CCNY that has been shut down along with the Graduate Student Council. In the absence of the CCNY Messenger, some students at CCNY have created this new, independent publication, "The Messenger" to carry the news that students won't otherwise be getting. Please feel free to reprint & distribute this.
from the Messenger, September 1998
It was June 1, the day before last spring's commencement, and four days after the CUNY Board of Trustees voted to end all remedial courses at four year colleges at a tumultuous meeting where 24 people were arrested.
On that day, a CCNY employee approached a CCNY student who he knew to be an activist. He told him that what appeared to be a smoke detector in front of NAC room 3/201 really wasn't a smoke detector at all. He said that the "smoke detector" actually was a surveillance camera. The CCNY employee said he had seen the surveillance equipment-a receiving device, a TV monitor and VCR recording the image in front of the "smoke detector" in the room next door to 3/201.
The student, David Suker, gained access to the room where the employee had told him the recording equipment was. Upon entering, a long, bizarre summer started at CCNY.
NAC 3/201 has been the center of student activism on campus since it was taken over by student activists during a student strike in 1989. The room was renamed the "Shakur-Morales Community and Student Center," in honor of two revolutionary leaders who had gone to CCNY in the 1960s, and it was dedicated to student activism and building links between students and the Harlem and Washington Heights communities.
It is the home of the Pre-University Program, a grassroots student-run program to prepare high school students for college. The Pre-University Program brings over 200 high school students to CCNY every Saturday. It is organized and staffed entirely by volunteers, and it is free for the students.
After Suker saw the surveillance equipment, he and two other students-Ydanis Rodriguez and Brad Sigal-videotaped footage of the surveillance camera and equipment, and called student-rights attorney Ron McGuire, who immediately came to campus with a reporter from the Amsterdam News. The equipment was examined and it became clear they had uncovered an organized surveillance operation.
Attorney Ron McGuire filed a lawsuit against City College on behalf of the three students two days later, alleging that their constitutional rights to free assembly had been violated. They did not, however, know who exactly at CCNY was running the surveillance operation. The equipment was anonymously given to Mr. McGuire for safekeeping, who immediately brought it before the judge. At that point the CCNY Security Department, seeing that they had been "caught in the act", acknowledged that the equipment was theirs.
The students held a press conference on the steps of City Hall to break the story to the public. That night, the story broke on all the television news programs (it was the lead news story right after one of the Chicago Bulls playoff games), and over the next week it hit almost all of the New York newspapers including the New York Times, El Diario and the Daily News.
CCNY President Yolanda Moses didn't seem to know how to respond. If she knew about the surveillance, then she authorized spying on students organizing peaceful and legal activities. If she didn't know about it, then she was out of touch with possibly illegal spy operations going on under her reign. So the CCNY administration made up a far-fetched tale to explain their political spying.
The June 5 Daily News reported that, "Officials at the Harlem campus said the camera was a routine security measure to stop thieves from swiping computers." CCNY Security Director Timothy Hubbard stated, "This was just a standard surveillance device we use to determine criminality. It's a standard practice we have employed over the years to combat crime." It is certainly unsettling if it is "standard" for CCNY security to spy on students with hidden cameras. But even that explanation, unsettling as it was, did not give the whole story.
Many on campus questioned Hubbard and Moses's story. The New York Times reported on June 17 that, "Gary Benenson, a Mechanical Engineering professor at City College and chairman of its faculty union chapter, said security officials were correct in saying that there were burglary problems on campus-he has lost six computers in his lab in the last two years, he said. But, he added, the security office had done little to prevent thefts, and he had been told to install his own alarms."
Reality finally caught up with Security Director Hubbard. When he was subpoenaed by McGuire and the students, he was forced to submit an affidavit explaining his reasons for the spying operation. In his affidavit, dated June 10, 1998, he still tried to maintain that the main reason for the surveillance was to prevent computer theft. But the truth squeaked out at the end of his affidavit.
Directly contradicting all the administration's denials of political spying, he said there were also two other reasons, both political. In Hubbard's June 10 affidavit, he states:
"Finally, the third reason for placing the camera outside room 3/201 was in response to a report of a possible student or non-student take over of all or portions of NAC, including room 3/201. [I was informed] that a group of students (or non-students) might be planning to attempt to take over the building sometime around commencement, on June 2, 1998 ... [so] we decided that the security staff would keep an eye out for unauthorized persons on the premises, including in and around 3/201."
This stunning admission directly contradicts every other statement made by President Moses and university spokespeople. For example, Moses stated in a "Presidential Communiqué" dated June 22, 1998, "I wish to assure the College community that [the use of surveillance directed toward students or other persons based upon their political views] has never and will never occur at CCNY." In her affidavit to the court dated June 23, 1998, Moses repeats the same theme, saying, "City College has not conducted and will not conduct any surveillance against any of the plaintiffs or any other students or visitors to City College ..." Hubbard says one of the reasons for the surveillance was to monitor for a political protest or building takeover at commencement, while Moses says City College has never and will never engage in political spying. Since their affidavits contradict each other, it appears that either Hubbard or Moses is lying under oath.
Stung by the bad publicity, President Moses lashed out in retaliation at the students who had discovered the secret camera. On June 18, President Moses took the highly unusual step of declaring last spring's Graduate Student Council elections "null and void," while also changing the locks on all GSC offices to keep out both the outgoing and the incoming student governments. These actions effectively shut down the graduate student government.
CCNY administrators locked the editors of the CCNY Messenger graduate student newspaper out of their office as well, asserting that the CCNY Messenger was actually just a newsletter of the GSC, and therefore it would be shut down along with the GSC. This was convenient for Moses, since one of the plaintiffs, Brad Sigal, was also editor of the CCNY Messenger, which had consistently criticized the Moses administration's inaction in defense of open admissions.
President Moses resorted to these anti-democratic measures because she didn't like the slate who won the GSC election, which included Rodriguez, Sigal and Suker. The election was swept by the "New Millennium" slate, who won 10 of the 11 council seats. The slate included many prominent activists in the struggle to save remediation and open admissions at CUNY. Moses had been wishy-washy on the issue all year, and CCNY students had confronted her numerous times to try to get her to take a stand against Mayor Giuliani and the CUNY Board of Trustees. Moses was fearful of an activist student government that would demand accountability and political backbone in this tumultuous time at CUNY.
The Student Election Review Committee (SERC), which coordinates and certifies student elections, had already certified the GSC election as a free and fair. Normally, this would be the end of the story. But President Moses twisted a rule allowing college presidents to review SERC decisions, declaring that the election was not certified until she said so.
President Moses accused the CCNY Messenger graduate student newspaper of 'biasing' the election, saying that the it was biased toward the New Millennium slate. Even though it did not endorse any candidates, Moses asserted its supposedly slanted coverage constituted a subtle endorsement. Therefore, she said in a twist of logic, the CCNY Messenger constituted campaign literature, and therefore the cost of producing it (which she said cost $1400 even though receipts show it cost less than $400) put the New Millennium slate over their spending limit.
Most student newspapers at CUNY overtly endorse candidates every year. This is normal and acceptable journalism. The New York Times, the Daily News, the Post, etc, also endorse candidates in elections. Elections are not cancelled because a newspaper endorses candidates. This past spring, student newspapers at College of Staten Island, Hunter College, and Brooklyn College all endorsed candidates, including candidates that were on the staff of the endorsing newspaper.
The inconvenient fact for President Moses is that there is nothing illegal, wrong, or even unethical about a newspaper endorsing candidates (which the CCNY Messenger didn't even do!), even if it is an endorsement of a slate that includes members of a paper's own staff. The public can determine the bias of a newspaper on their own; it is not the role of a college president to determine for students that a newspaper is biased and then shut that paper down and cancel an election.
The legal process grinds along at a snail's pace, and if the courts find President Moses's actions illegal, it will probably be after the goal she desired-damaging student activism at CCNY-has already been accomplished. The legal challenge is important, but student activists are focusing more on putting mass pressure on President Moses.
The CCNY Coalition to Defend Open Admissions is demanding that President Moses recognize last spring's legitimate GSC election and re-open the CCNY Messenger graduate student newspaper. While this has not yet happened, the campaign has generated a huge showing of solidarity from students and faculty across the country. Over 50 graduate student governments and graduate student unions signed an open letter to President Moses written by Bryan Hannegan, the President of the National Association of Graduate-Professional Students (NAGPS). Hundreds of individual students around the country have also sent protest letters to Moses.
NAGPS President Hannegan's letter to Moses expressed "strong opposition to your recent actions against the City College of New York's Graduate Student Council (GSC)." Hannegan's letter declares that Moses's actions "set a precedent which threatens the rights of students at any college or university in the United States, and these actions show blatant disregard for the fundamental principles of a free society: freedom of speech and association."
As students are speaking out around the US, students at City College and other CUNY schools must also speak out more vocally if Moses is to feel the pressure. Until CUNY students' bring their collective weight to bear, President Moses will continue to run roughshod over democracy. This will make it that much easier for Giuliani and the Board of Trustees to implement their insidious plan for educational apartheid at CUNY.
Students are encouraged to contact President Moses and let her know that you oppose her actions in shutting down the GSC and the CCNY Messenger. President Moses can be contacted at:
Phone: 212-650-7285
Fax: 212-650-7680
Email: ytm@crow.admin.ccny.cuny.edu
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only.
[posted September 14, 1998]
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