Save the Guillermo Morales-Assata Shakur Student & Community Center!

#savemscc #ccnyshutdown #reasons4

Defend Student & Community Voice!

Guillermo Morales/Assata Shakur Student & Community Center (MSCC) Fact Sheet
The MSCC was founded on February 14, 1990 by the Students for Educational Rights (SER). A sign within the MSCC stating, THIS SPACE WAS WON THROUGH STRUGGLE, referred to how CCNY students 1989 successfully led a CUNY-wide struggle against tuition hikes. The MSCC was in 3/201 of the North Academic Building at CCNY. The SER won a legal settlement with CCNY and the City University of New York (CUNY) that made the MSCC a fully sovereign safe space, separate from CCNY and CUNY. The MSCC is a Nonsectarian Collective of organizations, groups, and individuals that help to build strong voices against poverty, racism, sexism, homophobia, imperialist wars, the prison industrial complex, police brutality and FBI repression, the military industrial complex, budget cuts, and reduction in social services. The MSCC is named after Guillermo Morales and Assata Shakur, two revolutionaries who have fought for the liberation and self-determination of all people oppressed by racism, imperialism, and colonialism. The MSCC was attacked in 2006, when CCNY administration stole its name sign. Then, on October 20th, 2013, the MSCC was officially raided, shutdown, and taken over by CCNY.

Victories and Achievements:

CCNY Library Hours Extended 24/7 Library Hours During Midterm and Finals Weeks Blocking Printing Fees Preventing the Elimination of the Marshak Library at CCNY Gender Neutral Bathrooms Inclusion of Gender Identity in CCNY Anti-Discrimination Policy

Ongoing Projects and Services Provided at the Center:

Reinstitution of CUNY-wide Free Tuition & Open Admissions Reinstitution of the Black Studies, Asian Studies, and Womens Studies Departments @ CCNY Creation of a Multicultural Gender Resource Center Student & Community Youth Advocacy Advocacy & Freedom for All U.S. Held Political Prisoners/POWs & Exiles The Peoples Survival Program Book X Change (Alternative to CCNYs Bookstore) English as a Second Language Classes Accessible Research & Study Space Anti-Police Terror & Community Control of the NYPD Workshops Soup Kitchens A Safe Space for LGBTQ Community and Solution Building Low-cost Farm Food Sharing Program Know Your Rights Trainings Can Food and Clothing Drives

What is the Morales/ Shakur Center?

The Morales/Shakur Center was won in 1989 through a student and community occupation led by the club Students for Educational Rights (SER). It was established as a student and community Center, aiming to fight back against a college administration that was and continues to decrease community access to the institution through tuition increases and budget cuts. Throughout the years, the Center has been a space thats housed political education programs, a soup kitchen, a farm share, know-your-rights trainings, healing circles, campus activism, can and clothing drives, newspapers, support for political prisoners and so much more.

Our S/Heroes
Assata Shakur was born on July 16, 1947 in Jamaica, Queens, as JoAnne Deborah Byron. In the 1960s, Assata attended the CUNY Borough of Manhattan Community College and then the CUNY City College of New York, where she wanted a name that had something to do with Assata Shakur and struggle, something to do with the liberation of Guillermo Morales our people. [see Assata: An Autobiography] She posing for a picture decided to change her name to Assata Olugba(both have political la Shakur; Assata means She who struggles, asylum in Cuba) Olugbala means Love for the people, and Shakur means the thankful. Assata eventually joined the Black Panther Party, the Black Liberation Army, and the Republic of New Afrika. On May 2, 1973, Assata was shot by policy and falsely charged with the murder of a New Jersey State Trooper. She was tortured and incarcerated for six years until 1979, when she finally escaped her chains. She then fled to Cuba for political asylum in 1984, where she now lives in exile. Guillermo Morales, born in 1950, also attended CCNY, and was one of the students who, along with organizations like the Black Panther Party, organized the historic strike by Black and Puerto Rican students at CCNY in 1969 that forced CUNY to implement Open Admissions and establish Ethnic Studies departments and programs in all CUNY colleges. Morales eventually became a Puerto Rican nationalist and member of the Armed Forces of National Liberation (FALN). On July 12, 1978, he was incarcerated for accidently detonating a bomb that blew away one eye and all ten fingers. Like Assata, Morales later escaped prison in 1979, and went to Cuba in 1988 where he now lives in exile. Guillermo Morales and Assata Shakur grew up during a time when the U.S. government killed everyone from Black and Latino people, such as Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., and Pedro Albizu Campos, to Asian people in Vietnam, to even the countrys own president, John F. Kennedy. Morales and Shakur experienced an era of terror and violence that influenced them to fight in self-defense for their communities. They are living testaments of revolutionary struggle.

Because of the activism that has come out of the Center, SER has prevented the further criminalization of black and brown youth, printing fees, the elimination of the Marshak Library, and the raising of the student activity fee. SER has also won (until most recently) extended library hours and 24/7 library during midterms and finals week, gender neutral bathrooms on campus, the inclusion of gender identity in our anti-discrimination policy, and much more throughout the years. Plans to institute a Multicultural Gender Resource Center on campus have been ground to a halt since the takeover.

What happened to the Morales/Shakur Center?

Early in the morning of Sunday October 20, 2013, the City College administration took over the Center under orders from CUNY Central. The North Academic Center, which houses the Morales/Shakur Center and the Cohen library, were both lockdowned by the Office of Public Safety. Although the library has since reopened, the Morales/Shakur remains closed. Police, CUNY Security, and administrators have been refusing to let students into the Morales/ Shakur Center, and have already detained a former and current CCNY student. The administration has placed a sign in front of the Morales/Shakur Center that reads Careers & Professional Development Institute. A University representative informed students in a press release that the Morales/Shakur center has been closed and will be designated furthermore as a Career Resource center. Books, documents, and personal belongings of students were removed from the center and are being held and examined.

Letter to Faculty from Deirdra Hill

The following letter was sent to faculty on Monday the day after the Center was broken into. No students were notified of this expansion. Several campus policies and federal laws were violated.

October 21, 2013 Dear Colleagues, A room in the North Academic Center (NAC) has been reallocated for the expansion of the City College Careers and Professional Development Institute to provide additional services to students seeking assistance in transitioning from college to the workplace. City College students have every access to campus facilities and are encouraged to use existing procedures to schedule meetings and events. Launched in spring 2012, the Careers and Professional Development Institute is located in the first floor of the NAC on campus. The expansion now includes an additional office on the third floor of the NAC for students involved in experiential learning. The expansion provides a quiet space for City College students to meet with alumni and professional employers to talk about internships and seek advice on various careers. The close proximity to the first floor office is convenient, useful and practical. City College is committed to meeting the needs of students by ensuring they have the resources and professional assistance to get a job in their fields of study upon graduation. The move took place during the weekend so that it would be less disruptive to the college. All the previous contents from the third floor room prior to the expansion are in storage for safekeeping and will be returned appropriately. City College remains committed to its mission of supporting free speech, students rights to protest, and being responsive to the community as exemplified by the year-round activities and events hosted by the college. Sincerely, Deirdra Hill Vice President for Communications and Marketing The City College of New York 160 Convent Avenue

Students Organize to Demand Center Back

Student/Faculty/ Community Teach-in @ CCNY

Students across CUNY and SUNY campuses have been organizing non-stop since the illegal take over of our center. We have launched a series of speaks outs, sit ins, and teach ins to reclaim the space on campus, as our administration is increasingly displacing our community.

Outrage Throughout CUNY

This exercise of totalitarian power is unacceptable and a direct violation to the rights of our CUNY students. SGA of BMCC condemns this action because if left alone, this will become a precedent that will serve to justify similar, future administerial injustices and thus negatively impacting our CUNY student posterity. [...] This action thusly circumvents and undermines our CUNY student democracy. -Eduardo Viera, Treasurer, Student Government Association (BMCC) Todays action by the CCNY administrationtaking over student space without the consent of the Student Government and the student groups which use that spaceis deplorable and incomprehensible. [...] Student spaces need to be respected and preserved, not violated and destroyed. -David Rosenberg, President, CLAS Student Government (Brooklyn) The Center was our base for years when we were organizing up in the Heights with la Union de Jovenes Dominicanos. All Fall the students and community have used the center as home base to protest the presence of General Petraeus at City College and this is the push-back. Now we have to push-back even harder. (Junot Diaz) Without the Center, there would not be a Black Student Union. The closure of this space is significant because it violates our rights as students.We are appalled by the actions of the City College of New Yorks administration, and are actively working with a collective coalition; made up of community members, students, faculty and staff across CCNY, as well as the City University of New York campuses, and the public at large; that are dedicated towards the reinstallation of the Morales Shakur Community Center. Zirayyide, President, Black Student Union (CCNY) The use of police to close the Center, and to change the name and close the campus in order to do so, speaks to an unacceptable, undemocratic climate at The College that must be publicly rejected. Because the students who meet and talk at the Center are often known for expressing dissent, the closing of the Center is an obvious suppression of the freedom of expression that is the mainstay of a democratic university. -Professors Elizabeth Starevi, Alan Feigenberg, & William Crain (CCNY)

What The Take Over Of Our Center Means In The Larger Context
Our college administration has not only taken away a free speech as our right to protest was stifled, but all students had rights violated with universal degradation of human rights. The illegal taking over of the Morales Shakur space is a violation of the contract between CCNY and the center and signifies the corporatization of our campus. On November 25th the Board of Trustees is going to pass a measure to limit political expression on a public university. Our administration has taken to making use of baton and happy trigger public safety juxtaposed to the increase of NYPD on campus. We are not only facing an attack on a community and student run center, but an attack on our rights in a Public University. As corporate right wing interest that toy with the strings to our futures, as the Board of Trustees measure hangs in the air like a threat. This is a sham democracy, a corporate democracy that puts the interests of the people that are the board of trustees, who use law and order to repress students and fill our campus with more NYPD and public safety officers. It is an attack on education, to decrease public goods and services and defund public education to make space for corporate interest who wish to increase our tuition while the quality of our education goes down the toilet. We must put an end to the criminalization of dissent, and put an end to our administrations loyalty to profit and property over students right to protest and political expression. The administration has made it clear that they are committed to cementing a legacy of repression. Where students are locked out of a public university, and where we have the right to protest under the first amendment, and access the space as students and community members. We are in a civic recession, where a war has been launched to stifle the sound of injustice, where our democracy has been hijacked by our administration and our countrys leaders as our heroes, Guillermo Morales and Assata Shakur who have resisted, and have survived and have won, are characterized as terrorist. The take over and illegal raid of our center is no different from the attacks launched by the state through COINTELPRO to target and eliminate freedom fighters as the ideology of law and order was put down to criminalize dissent and political prisoners. This is grounded in a colonizers logic, in the colonizers imagination that does not stop and think about what was there before, but relies on the displacement, removal, and criminalization of black and brown bodies in order to establish institutions of repression. -Natasha Adams Students For Educational Rights Vice President

Organizations Displaced By Takeover

Next Steps
Until the CCNY administration responds to our demands, we will continue organizing on several levels:

16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence Ad-hoc Committee Against the Militarization of CUNY Ad-hoc Committee for a Multicultural Gender Resource Center Black Panther Commemoration Committee Black Souljahz Black Student Union @ CCNY Campus Agricultural Network Community Vision Council Corbin Hill Farmshare Healing Drum Collective Jericho Movement Malcolm X Commemoration Committee Malcolm X Grassroots Movement New Black Panther Party Nosotr@s L@s Pobres People Power Movement Radical Women Revolutionary Student Coordinating Committee Safiya Bukhari-Albert Nuh Washington Foundation Sekou Odinga Defense Committee Students for Educational Rights United Muslim Alliance Universal Zulu Nation

1) Legal: Our Legal team is working around the area of the infringement of our rights of free speech, the illegal seizure of private property as well as an infringement on the contract that the center has with CCNYs administration, and the overall degradation of human rights. 2) Political Education: Though many students are absorbed in midterms and unaware of the true depth of the events that are happening, we are connecting with groups on and off the CCNY campus to get student support, raise awareness, and build for future actions. 3) Community: Weve received a lot of support from community organizations and residents, and we must strengthen those connections to make CCNY open its doors once and for all. 4) Media and Outreach: We are launching a series of events and hope to document everything that happens until we get our center back and our demands are met. To add your ideas and energy to this work and to plug into at least one of the above areas of organizing, please email: liberateCUNYfront@gmail.com for more info and directions liberateCUNYfront.com facebook.com/liberatecunyfront citycollegeser.wordpress.com/about

Demands
As is fit, SER and Liberate CUNY Front have drafted up a list of demands that will continue to inform all further activities related to liberating the Morales/Shakur Student & Community Center. 1. Reclaim the Morales/Shakur Community Center with its original name. 2. Reclaim all stolen property and resources from the Morales/Shakur Community Center. 3. Require administration to stop the criminalization of dissent and prevent the Expressive Activities Policy at CUNY. 4. An apology from CCNY administration for closing the Morales/Shakur Community Center and CCNY Library.

So What Can We Do?

It is important to remember that SER and the organizers who work out of the Morales/Shakur Center fight for our communities. We are urging the student body, faculty, staff, alumni, and community members to join us in taking back a space steeped in struggle, where so many would-be organizers have grown as individuals and done good in their communities; where the possibility of change feels real; where we receive the genuine love and support so often lacking in the self-preserving institutions whose oppressive actions we must constantly endure. What we need to do is unite and share knowledge of whats been happening. Share news articles, let the folks around you know whats going on, get the people in power you know to issue statements of solidarity with our struggle, wear red squares to symbolize the door that was taken away from us, and if you want to get deeply involved, email harlemuniversitystudentunion@gmail. com and well figure out where youre needed most. I would also contact the ones who ordered our space removed--Chancellor William Kelly and President Lisa Coico--to tell them how you really feel.

The Short of It
CUNY is composed of 20 schools located on 18 campuses in all 5 boroughs of NYC. These include 6 community colleges (Hostos, Borough of Manhattan Community College BMCC, Bronx Community College BCC, Queensborough, Kingsborough, LaGuardia), 11 senior colleges (City College CCNY, Hunter, Brooklyn, Queens, York, Baruch, Lehman, New York Technical College City Tech, Medgar Evers, John Jay, and the College of Staten Island CSI), and 3 graduate schools (the Graduate Center, CUNY Law School @ Queens, and CUNY Medical School @ CCNY). History of CUNY 1847 Free Academy founded (later CCNY) 1861 1865 Civil War; 1865 Emancipation Proclamation issued 1870 Normal Schools founded (later Hunter) 1914-1919 World War I 1929-1930s Great Depression 1929 Bronx campus of Hunter College added (became independent Lehman College in 1968) 1930 Brooklyn College founded 1937 Queens College founded 1935-1945 World War II 1954 U.S. Supreme Court rules against separate but equal doctrine (Brown v. Board of Education) 1956 Staten Island Community College incorporated into CUNY (became CSI and began to offer B.A.s in 1976) 1957 BCC added to CUNY system 1958 Queensborough added to CUNY 1960-1975 Vietnam War 1964 Kingsborough Community College & BMCC founded City Tech & John Jay added to CUNY 1965 SEEK & CD programs initiated to gradually integrate CUNY 1966 York College founded 1968 Baruch (previously an extension of City College) added to CUNY as an independent college 1969 Campus takeover at CCNY by 250 black and Puerto Rican students resulted in CUNY-wide Open Admissions Policy & creation of ethnic studies programs; CCNY renamed Harlem University 1970 Hostos Community College & Medgar Evers College founded 1973 LaGuardia Community College founded 1976 First non-white majority of incoming freshmen Tuition first imposed due to NYCs fiscal crisis Hostos, Medgar Evers, John Jay, & York saved by student protest 1989 Student protest & building takeovers led to defeat of proposed tuition hike 1991 Student protest & building takeovers scaled back tuition hike 1995 Massive student rally restored TAP funding that was going to be cut and deferred another tuition increase 1998 Guiliani administration eliminated all remedial classes at the senior colleges effectively ending Open Admissions 2003 Tuition was raised $400/semester in spite of student protest (the proposed hike was $600/semester) 2005 Undergrads barely escaped ANOTHER tuition hike & withholding of TAP Per-credit (part-time) & graduate tuition WAS raised; so were undergraduate student fees Information brought to you by Students for Education Rights (SER) and the Student Liberation Action Movement (SLAM!)

CUNY Chancellor William Kellys Office 205 East 42nd Street New York, NY 10017 Phone: 646.664.9100 Fax: 646.664.3868 chancellor@cuny.edu

CCNYs President Lisa Coicos Office City College of New York 160 Convent Avenue Willie Administration Building, Rm. A300 New York, NY 10001 Phone: 212.650.7285 president@ccny.cuny.edu

HISTORY OF CUNY QUIZ

When the Free Academy was founded in 1847, its stated mission was a.to educate all who meet the standards. b. to educated the children of the whole people. c. To train the next generation of leaders. d. to prepare the workforce of tomorrow. Remediation a. Reinforces academic standards by preparing new high school graduates, returning adult students, and recent immigrants by helping develop the language, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills required for college courses. b. Is no longer offered at CUNY senior colleges as of 1998. c. Is offered at most U.S public AND private universities d. All of the above The following was NOT a demand of the 1969 Open Admissions Strike at CCNY a. CUNY should open admissions to all graduates of NYC public high schools b. The proportion of Black and Puerto Rican students in the freshman class should at least equal their proportion in NYC public high schools c. A separate School of Third World Studies should be created. d. All Education majors must take courses in the Spanish language and Black and Puerto Rican History In 1976, NYC residents experienced a major budget crisis and suffered drastic cuts in public services. What happened in UCNY that year? a. Tuition was implemented for the first time b. The first majority non white freshmen class entered CUNY. c. Enrollment dropped from 250,000 to 170,000 d. All of the above In response to a $200/year tuition hike approved by the state legislature in 1989: a. Students took over buildings and/or offices at 13 of the 20 CUNY campuses, resulting in the suspension of classes at several colleges b. 5,000-10,000 students marched downtown NYC. c. Governor Cuomo vetoed the tuition hikes d. All of the above

History of CUNY

In 1847, the Free Academy was established under pressure to provide higher education, and therefore, social mobility for immigrants. The mission statement is to educate the underprivileged and working classes of the city. Until the 1960s the college fulfilled its mission successfully, but only for predominantly white students. In the 60s, the racial make up of the college was 92% white and 2% black. 1965 saw the beginning of the Search for Education, Elevation and Knowledge (SEEK) program, which moderately sought to integrate the college. By 1969, the strides made were not sufficient to make a difference within the student body and the surrounding community.

The Black and Puerto Rican Student Community (BPRSC) took the initiative by listing 5 demands to integrate the college. After 6 months of inactivity by the administration, the students occupied buildings, renamed them, and held classes run by students and some faculty for residents of the neighborhood. The occupation lasted two weeks and forced the administration to cede to the students demands. Open Admissions was established and a major victory gained in the Civil Rights movement. Open Admissions was met by many setbacks at first, which were taken by politicians as a failure of the program. Despite the ill wishes, Open Admissions successfully integrated the university system, and by 1976, the entering freshman class was predominately people of color. From 1847 to 1976, tuition was free despite the 1893 depression, WWI, the Great Depression, WWII, Korea and Vietnam. Coincidentally, 1976 was the year that tuition was imposed due to the artificial financial crisis the city was facing. Enrollment dropped from 250,000 to 180,000, and massive budget cuts were imposed, a devastating blow to the people of New York and the university system, from which it has not yet recovered. Since tuition was imposed, CUNY students have suffered regular tuition increases and attacks on our funding, following the pre-Open Admissions pattern of racism, exclusions, and elitism. - Article from Freedom Road

Information brought to you by Students for Education Rights (SER) and the Student Liberation Action Movement (SLAM!)

Open Admission in CUNY

A Major Victory of the Opressed

When the history of civil rights struggle is summarized on corporate television, there will inevitably be footage of sit-ins at Greensboro lunch counters and of MLKs I have a Dream speech. If the viewer is very lucky, there might be scenes of Malcom X or the Black Panther Party. But one of the most important battles of the freedom movements of the Black and Puerto Rican communities that you will never hear about in such places is the CUNY open admissions strike. Before 1970, CUNY was a sea of whiteness in a city that was fast becoming majority people of color; It was a scene straight out of South African Apartheid. City college was known as the white Rhodesia of Harlem.: This despite CUNYs stated mission from the very beginning of providing higher education to the poor and disenfranchised of the city. In practice, this mission was limited to educating mainly poor and disenfranchised white men. It is no wonder then that the closed doors of CUNY became a major target of the burgeoning mass movements of the city. On April 22, 1968, the Black and Puerto Rican students of City College, with support from the progressive section of the white students chained shut the doors of South Campus, renamed the school the University of Harlem, and declared a strike. Over the course of more than two weeks, the campus witnessed the campus turned into a police state by the administration, a divided faculty, and furious organizing on the part of the students. The turning point was a pitched battle between about 30 black students and a mob of a couple hundred white racist opposed to the strike. The strikers routed the white mob. Subsequently, divisions in the opposition began to sharpen, and some of them came out in support of the strike. Eventually the administration caved in and acceded to the five demands of the strikers. Why was the open admissions strike so important? Open admissions forced CUNY to turn itself into an institution that gave more degrees to students of color than any other higher education institution in the country. In fact, CUNY grants more such degrees than the next two institutions after it, SUNY and the whole of Cal state system, combined. The direct benefit to the Black, Latino, and Asian populations of all hundreds of thousands of people coming out of CUNY with a higher education they might not otherwise have is immeasurable. Open admissions was a victory for the self determination struggles of Black and Puerto Ricans. But as often the case, this victory on the part of some of societies most downtrodden was one that served everybody in the end. Thats a lesson the white supremacist ruling class wants us to forget. Open admissions set a standard of open access that created momentum for schools across the country to follow. The shock waves the victory sent out were felt both as pressure on other administrations and as inspiration to thousands of students of color everywhere fighting to open up their own institutions. Open admissions challenged the reigning capitalist view that education is about providing the student customer with a diploma that has the highest possible exchange value so the graduate can turn himself into an elite corporate commodity. In its place it put forward the radical notion that education is about self improvement on the individual level, about all of us becoming the best, most developed individuals we can become. More than that, education is about the uplift of the downtrodden communities, about the advancement of oppressed people in our society.

Open admission taught a lesson that relatively small numbers of people at the core of a much broader struggle, with the right strategy and under appropriate conditions, can shake the foundations of heaven. It gives us an inspiring lesson against demoralization, that fundamental change in institutions is possible and that it always starts with a relative handful of committed people. On the other hand, it reminds us that if that handful is to succeed, it must not stay isolated. In the end, victory can only be achieved through the involvement and support of the broad masses of people whose interests are at stake. The open admissions victory was won in the context of an entire society in motion. Without that context, the support from the community, which was absolutely essential to the victory, wouldnt have been nearly as broad nor as active as it was. Since the 1969 victory, the enemy has been trying to beat us back, in one attack after another. We must fight them every step of the way. Even battles we fight and lose are important because they slow and limit the advances of the ruling class against our interests, and preserve as much of our gains won earlier as possible. Even today, after years of retreat and an outright frontal assault on open admissions by former Mayor Giuliani, we still have many aspects of the policy preserved, even as others have been damaged or eliminated entirely. This way, when the next big upsurge throughout society comes around (and its likely to be sooner rather than later), we will have a higher starting point from which to push things forward. These days, the visions of higher education as liberation, which motivated the heroes of 1969, has been largely crushed. The white supremacist ruling class has done everything it can to bury that vision under mountains of talk about diversity and affirmative action. In their view, higher education is about reproducing the layers of elitesthe ruling class itself and the various managerial layers below themneeded to perpetuate the rule of their class. Within this vision, giving an elite education to a fraction of the oppressed nationality populations in this country is crucial to them for a number of reasons. First, giving elites exposure to a diversity of populations and cultures gives them experiences and knowledge that that will help them more effectively rule over and manage those populations. Second, granting privileges to a small proportion of the oppressed nationality people helps to buy off some of the leaders of those populations and thus to create a class of vendidos that can be led to act against the interests of the communities they come from. Finally, a measure of diversity is useful to provide a faade to the existing white-supremacist system, to make it appear to be fair to anyone who doesnt take the time to look beneath the surface. The main mechanism in higher education the ruling class uses to achieve this diversity is affirmative action. It is interesting to see corporate elites defending affirmative action programs in higher education and in corporate hiring policies as being in their interests, against the more clueless white supremacists on the ideological right who attack these programs. We should keep in mind when we defend affirmative action programs in other places (as defend them we must) that they are but a pale shadow of the open admissions policy that was won at CUNY. There is a final lesson that has been taught to us not so much by the 1969 strike but by all of the years of retrenchment since then. Mass student organizations come and go. Leaders graduate and move on. Relationships and alliances with other mass-based groups on other campus and in the communities dissipate. The 1969 struggle and all the subsequent struggles in CUNY have turned out thousands of revolutionaries who understand the real nature of white-supremacist bourgeois rule and who have a vision for a fundamentally different society. Some of those revolutionary students have remained committed and have fought the good fight in other places, but many have dropped out of the struggle, with nothing left but memories of fire. The only certain way to build a movement that can be sustained over the years, and one that can connect the struggles throughout all sectors of society, is through revolutionary organization. It provides the training, the information flow across the generations, the links between sectors that otherwise arent made. If youre an activist and you consider yourself a revolutionary, you should be in a revolutionary organization, looking for one, or trying to build one, along with maintaining your work in a mass-based group. Thats how we will create two, three, many CCNYs. Information brought to you by Students for Education Rights (SER) and the Student Liberation Action Movement (SLAM!)

Open Admission in CUNY

Continued

This is what you Need To Read to be a specialist in the Unspoken Forgotten Struggle for CUNY NYCs Biggest Secret
1969 Student Strikes Open Admissions: A Case Study in the Politics of Race in Higher Education Allen Ballard April 22, 1969 Some Memories Ron McGuire http://cunyunderground.proboards3.com/index.cgi?board=history&action=display&thread=1080602040 The Struggle At CUNY: Open Admissions & Civil Rights Ron McGuire http://cunyunderground.proboards3.com/index.cgi?board=history&action=display&thread=1086628844 Demands of the Black and Puerto Rican Student Community of Harlem University (Formerly the City College of New York) BPRSC April-May 1969 http://cunyunderground.proboards3.com/index.cgi?board=history&action=display&thread=1080095416 1976 The Battle for Hostos Community College Hostos Community College: Battle of the Seventies - Ramon J. Jimenez http://cunyunderground.proboards3.com/index.edi?board-history&action-display&thread-1083607504 Save Hostos: Politics and Community Mobilization to Save a College in the Bronx, 19731978- Gerald Meyer Centro Journal Volume XV Number 1 Spring 2003 (Found in El Centro, Hunter College) 1989-1991 Student Strikes: I Dont Want to be a Biscuit babe: The CUNY Strike Paul R. Loeb 1995 and Beyond A Brief History of SLAM! Christopher Day The Struggle of the CUNY Student Movement 1969-1999 Christopher Gunderson A Perspective on Mayor Giulianis Relationship with the City University of New York Akara Alleni Holder a.k.a (Master Thesis Spring 2004 Queens College) Open Admissions CUNY 1969 Open Admissions Resolution N. Michael Carfora (Secretary of the Board of Education) July 9, 1969 Video Closing the Open Door Ellie Bernstein Open Admissions in CUNY: A Major Victory for the Oppressed Freedom Road [*means that these documents were available at the Assata Shakur Guillermo Morales Center, however, because our center and its property have been illegally confiscated, you can find these sources on the world wide web/internet] Brought to you by the Student Liberation Action Movement (SLAM!) & www.CUNYunderground.org

2006 Attack on the Center

A student center at City College of New York (CCNY) is under political attack from the gutter press, the cops and the City University (CUNY) administration because of its name. As a result of the successful CUNY-wide student protest against tuition hikes in 1989, the City College group that initiated the struggle was given permanent use of a centrally located office room. They named it the Guillermo Morales/Assata Shakur Community and Student Center, after two former CCNY students who had become political prisoners as fighters for Puerto Rican independence and Black liberation. Their backgrounds in brief: Morales was a member of the FALN, a Puerto Rican liberation group that took responsibility for several bombings in New York and nearby in the 1970s. Shakur had been a member of the Black Panthers and the Black Liberation Army. She had been charged with several bank robberies and other crimes, but was acquitted every time. Then in 1973, when she and two comrades were driving on the New Jersey Turnpike and were pulled over by state troopers, shootings broke out. Assatas companion, Zayd Malik Shakur, was killed by the cops; Assata was wounded. She and the other comrade, Sundiata Acoli, were caught and arrested. A cop who had arrived at the scene ended up dead, shot by persons unknown. Assata and Sundiata were charged with both killings, even though defense witnesses who proved that she had not fired a gun were unchallenged by the prosecution. In an atmosphere of hysteria, they were convicted by an all-white jury and sentenced to life-plus. Later, both Morales and Shakur escaped prison and ended up in exile in Cuba; Acoli remains a political prisoner. Shakur has since been officially labeled a dangerous terrorist, and the U.S. government has offered a $1 million bounty for her capture. The Center, ironically directly beneath the office suite of campus security, has remained under the control of radical student groups since 1989. A large sign with its full name and pictures of Morales and Shakur has been hanging outside the room above the door all that time. There have been various hassles over the years, including a still-pending lawsuit against the College for setting up a disguised surveillance camera covering the room entrance. On December 12, the Daily News, the second-most scurrilous rag among major New York tabloids, ran a page-one photo of a young Black woman with a gun under the headline DISGRACE!, complaining that the sign over the student center has been named after the notorious cop killer, Joanne Chesimard, Assata Shakurs given name. An inside headline read, Terrorists Lauded at CCNY. Other bourgeois media joined in the garish coverage. And although the City College administration at first said it would not intervene, CUNY Chancellor Goldstein demanded that the sign be removed, and the College capitulated. The next night the sign was surreptitiously taken down by the authorities, and the students from the Center were told that they would be disciplined if they put it back up. The Colleges new-found concern about this terrorist in their midst is especially hypocritical, since they repeatedly bestow honors upon Colin Powell, a CCNY graduate who has had a distinguished career involving planning mass slaughters in Panama and Iraq, covering up of the My Lai massacre in Vietnam, and lying (as he has now admitted) to the U.N. over Saddam Husseins invisible weapons of mass destruction. Most recently CCNY has proudly announced a $10 million grant to the Colin Powell Center for Policy Studies on campus. - From marxists.org

Chronology of Events
12/11-12/15/2006 - Morales/Shakur Community Center
December 11, 2006 1. The Daily News publishes a letter from Sergey Kadinsky, a CCNY student who writes for the conservative Campus newspaper and is a member of Hillel, about the naming of the center after Assata Shakur. 2. The Daily News comes down to the Center to collect material for the story. They conduct interviews and take pictures without proper introduction, clearly in order to skew the story. December 12, 2006 1. The Daily News front page shows a doctored photograph of Assata Shakur under the headline Disgrace! The paper includes a special report and an editorial. 2. The Daily News, New York Times, AP, Channel 2, FOX News, and other media outlets descent on the Center. In response, SLAM! President Igwe. Williams and SER President/Centers Director Rodolfo Leyton issue a press statement clearing Assata Shakurs name, asserting academic freedom, and the right to organize on campus. 3. Students from the Center put out a call for a December 15th community meeting at the Center. December 13, 2006 1. A group of students, including the Presidents of SLAM! and SER, SLAM! faculty advisor, and Attorney Ron McGuire attend scheduled meeting with Dr. Ramona Brown, Acting Vice-President of Student Affairs. The meeting does not take place because the administration refuses reallow the students to have a lawyer present and to tape record the meeting. 2. The group of students, SLAM!s faculty advisor, and Ron McGuire proceed upstairs to speak to City College President Gregory H. Williams. He is said to be out of the office and the students are directed to make and appointment to see him by Michael Rogovin, the Presidents Deputy and Chief of Staff. Three students and SLAM!s faculty advisor leave their contact information for President Williams. December 14, 2006 1. In the morning, students arrive at the Center to find that the sign had been stolen overnight by Physical Plant Services. A memo from VP Brown threatens students with suspension or expulsion if they attempt to replace the sign. The students file a complain with the Office of Public Safety, reporting the sign as stolen. 2. The office of Public Safety has the sign and release it only to Rodolfo Leyton, Director of the Center. When the sign is retrieved, it is missing the photographs of Assata Shakur and Guillermo Morales. The students file another complaint with Public Safety, this time to report vandalism. 3. President Willaims office is locked and empty when students attempt to deliver a memo informing him of our willingness to meet. 4. At 1pm, City Council representative Charles Barron holds a press conference at City Hall. The sign is authorized to hold a rally in our space. The office of StudentAffairs does not contact the Center. 5. The coverage continues in the media, through articles, editorials, and radio interviews. December 15, 2006 1. A small rally protesting the naming of the center is held near City College gates on Amsterdam Avenue and 137th Street. 2. The Daily News published article ridiculing Bronx high school teacher for covering Assata Shakur in his 12th grade social studies class. 3. The community meeting is scheduled for 7:30pm. PROTEST CCNYS INFRINGEMENT ON ACADEMIC FREEDOM & STUDENT RIGHTS! Information brought to you by Students for Education Rights (SER) and the Student Liberation Action Movement (SLAM!)

Justice for the CUNY 6

In the events that unfolded around the appointment of David Petraeus, 6 CUNY students were recently beaten and arrested by police for protesting his appointment to teach in the Macaulay Honors Program. The title of Petraeus class is: The Coming North American Decade(s)? It will highlight pro-fracking research, papers from entities like the industry-funded National Economic Research Associates (NERA), and former Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) research professor Ernest Moniz. This was completely unprovoked, as demonstrators made clear that they were there to defend our university in a peaceful protest.- City College student, Yexenia Vanegas The Ad-Hoc Committee against the Militarization of CUNY consists of a number of left organizations and even student groups like Students without Borders at Queens College and the Internationalist Group. The Committee is centered on these key demands: 1)CUNY Must Not Be a War College and 2) War Criminal Petraeus, ROTC, Military Contracts, and Military Recruiters Out of CUNY. On September 9, 40 to 60 students, activists, and professors had protested Petraeus first day of classes. The protests highlight was shown on YouTube video which resulted in subsequent news coverage showing Petraeus walking by himself on the streets of Upper Manhattan as CUNY student activists serenade Petraeus with chants of War Criminal. The committee then prepared to protest an upcoming special gala event for Petraeus who originally was to be paid $200,000 for his semester at CUNY. His salary was met with so much widespread outrage that CUNY reduced it to one dollar. The brutal and unprovoked attack on the CUNY students and activists on September 17 was meant to answer for the protest on September 9 and give a warning message to other CUNY students who might join future protests. If you organize and speak out, you will receive batons and brute force. In the wake of the police violence on September 17, CUNY students (Luis Henriquez, 25, Jose Disla, 25, Denise Ford, 24, Angelica Hernandez, 18, and Rafael Pena, 24) were charged with obstruction of governmental administration, riot, resisting arrest, and disorderly conduct, enduring 28 hours in a cell after being already beaten and bruised. The ruling elite has shown again that they will answer dissent and organizing with surveillance, violent force and prison, as evident through the programs of stop and frisk and their national coordinated attacks two years ago on Occupy protesters. -SocialistAlternative.org

The CUNY Policy on Expressive Activity

Analysis from Professor Vitale (Brooklyn College)

A Statement on Speech and Protest

By Carlos Pazmino, CCNY Student

CUNYs new draft policy on Expressive Activity in paying rhetorical allegiance to the important of a free exchange of ideas and expression of all points of view, makes the fundamental mistake of equating protest with speech. Throughout the document, the right to protest is restricted by concerns about order, disruption, and the rights of others. These restrictions indicate a basic misunderstanding of the nature of the right to assembly as distinct from the right to freedom of speech. There are many possible outlets for ideas including interpersonal speech, published writing, and social media. The right to assemble, however, involves the physical manifestation of people in space as both an exercise in communication and an expression of power. As such it is inherently disruptive, disorderly, and interferes with the rights of others. Any policy that attempts to eliminate these qualities reduces protest to speech. The constitution specifically protects the right to such manifestations by listing assembly as a right distinct from that of speech. The framers understood the importance of public gatherings in rallying opposition to the Crown and in holding colonial officials accountable. It was not enough to circulate pamphlets and make arguments, since the British government was only interested in exploiting the wealth of the colonies and had no interest in a considered debate. Both the constitution and case law do require that demonstrations be peaceable. This limit should not, however, be equated with orderly. The framers were concerned about limiting the insurrectionist impulses of crowds not in micromanaging their assemblies. It is understood that public assemblies involve an inconvenience to others. It is precisely the physicality of assembly that embodies its forcefulness in distinction to mere speech. Occupying streets, sidewalks, and public plazas and loudly and dramatically communicating to those nearby is precisely the point of political assembly. While we primarily associate universities with speech, protest has also been at the center of university life and the protest activities of students and faculty around the world has played a pivotal role in shaping the modern political landscape. Pro-democracy demonstrations in China and South Korea, anti-Vietnam War demonstrations in the US and Europe, and Anti-Apartheid protest on colleges around the world have shaped social movements, changed governments, and inspired millions to take political action. CUNY management has a legitimate interest in ensuring the physical safety of the CUNY community and in protecting the physical infrastructure of the university. But the proposed policy goes too far by trying to take the disorder out of assembly. Notification requirements, the establishment of restrictive protest zones, and the intent to forcibly terminate protests that threaten to disrupt any aspect of life at the university are an unreasonable abridgement of the right to assemble. Furthermore, the process of drafting this policy is another example of the CUNY administrations disregard for the members of the university community. No effort was made to seriously engage students, faculty, or staff in the production of this policy. While CUNY claims its purpose is to protect the safety of students and employees, CUNY continues to tolerate more pressing threats to safety by allowing bullying of staff by administrators, inadequately funding mental health and crisis intervention services, and failing to properly maintain buildings and campus infrastructures. The CUNY administration should immediately withdraw this policy from consideration and initiate a much broader policy conversation that involves students, faculty and staff. In addition, any new policy resulting from this process should first be approved by appropriate governing bodies before being considered by the Board of Trustees for adoption. Alex S. Vitale is Associate Professor of Sociology at Brooklyn College and writes about the policing of protests. Link to Proposed Expressive Policy to be voted on at the next Board of Trustees Meeting set to take place on November 25th, 2013: http://www.cunyufs.org/EXPRESSIVEACTIVITIES.pdf

For all that has been done and protested in this particularly tumultuous semester in CUNY, no action has met more institutional controversy and ideological unity than City Colleges closing of the Guillermo Morales/ Assata Shakur Community Center (MSCC). Aside from its history, its name, and its existence, the center proved to be more than just a clenched-fisted quirk on the south side of the NAC. Behind its red doors a broad community thrived in assembly; a book exchange was facilitated for students with financial need, a farm-share fed Harlems most impoverished addresses, and political dissent was administered by a broad coalition of both institutional and revolutionary students. The debate and admonition created by critics, shaming the college for the existence of the MSCC, was ignored by the community the center served. Mainly due to the importance and necessity of the services provided. But on the night of Saturday October 19th, City College seemed to have had enough and claimed the space to expand its Career and Professional Institute. No message was sent to the director of the center, all the property inside the space was moved to a safe space in-presumed- Shepard hall, and security began to increase on the twilight hours of Sunday October 20th. As expected, the centers community united in protest against the colleges action. But whilst coordinated protocol followed suit to an arrest, something strange happened, the entire North Academic Center was shut down. The colleges library, whose hours ironically were extended for midterms to serve a 24/7 schedule based on victories from the activists who organized in the MSCC, was shut down. Students inside the NAC were stuck without exit. The protesters, now growing in numbers with angered students wanting to study for their midterms, were demanding answers from an increasingly dodgy Public Safety. It would be wise to note that this piece is not just being written to detail the events that transpired midterms week, but to highlight a disturbing trend in our college and our university system. Measures have been drafted by the Board of Trustees to regulate and update the Universitys policy on expression. Behind a cautious message of respect of freedom speech, the Board is set on passing new rules in which protests can be administered. These measures arent just affecting students who participate in dissent, but faculty who stand in solidarity. The central executive body of CUNY intends to do what the Democratic and Republican National Committees have done in response to protests, the implementation of regulated free speech in the vicinity of the campuses. Calling it The City University of New York Policy on Expressive Activities, the current Board of Trustees will approve a plan that further expands the role of the New York Police Department inside the University, and through broad legal language enforces, making loud noise that seriously threatens to interfere with classes, absolutely prohibited and may refer the matter to external law enforcement authorities (CUNY, 2013). This policy effectively shuts up the protestors CUNY-wide, which I can imagine is the point and is supported by the people who are annoyed by the flare of sudden anger against the school. But that seeming annoyance, that complete rejection of expression and speech takes away what makes our system valid and democratic. It criminalizes speech and it creates a wall of authority against criticism over a system that deserves to be criticized.

A Statement on Speech and Protest Continued

#reasons4 Campaign
We want to know: Why is the MSCC important to you? There are a few ways you can tell us. 1. You can tweet about it using the hashtag #reasons4. 2. You can take a picture of yourself holding a paper with the reason and post it on our facebook and/or twitter account with the hashtag #reasons4 and we will repost. 3. During an event, we will have an individual interviewing and asking supporters for their reason and then we will post it on our facebook page.

What supporters of these measures dont understand is the full extent of the promise of democracy. They pretend like democracy should be a front-page Vogue catalogue of civilized dialogue, when in fact the notion could not be further from the truth. The truth about democracy is that democracy is ugly, its edges are rough, and democratic dialogue is often coarse and divisive. But its the process of refining those course edges that builds a more perfect democratic union. For the sake of order and authority we should be very cynical to motions that offer the easiest way out. Agreeing to these measures is the easiest response to a more systemic problem. From collected experience I can tell you that the protests are not being administered by people who want to create willing chaos, they are trying to make a statement to the student body and the New York taxpayer. A statement with a message to the problems we deal with everyday in our college. A message that places focus on the payment rates of CUNYs top officials, some who make more than the President of the United States. They are making a statement based on the rising tuition, an increasing $300 yearly dollars that dont seem to go to fixing our mediocre facilities, employment programs, and whose success varies more on their stories of failure than their tangible successes. Protesters have every right to also focus on the uncomfortable role of the military in our school, a valid response when military action faces record cynicism across the board in the United States and ROTC suddenly comes back after 40 years. When these problems are so flagrant in our schools, when the access to education is met with more struggle than its worth, this public institution deserves to be subject to its constituency. When a community center offers more alternatives to a more affordable education than the school, and this community center is closed down at the dead of night, its only crime being servicing its community, the constituency is more than entitled to demand answers. Thats the difference between CUNY and a private institution like Columbia. CUNY offers a public service and it is subject to our constitutional laws at a more direct level. CUNYs share of the taxpayers burden leaves them also subject to be responsible to the success of their institutions. Threatening their employees, and their student body, with authoritarian measures to quiet them down also subjects the taxpayer with these motions. Us, the taxpayers and residents of New York, have every right to protest and demand answers and not hold us subject to flagrant violations to our laws. Us, the students, and New York taxpayers, should be outraged at the administrations reaction to these protests. Us, the students, and taxpayers, should be outraged at the suppression of our free speech. We should be outraged at the fact that our College President, and her administration, would be so unwilling to use diplomacy with the students of the MSCC and, adding insult to injury, ignoring the name of the center in her emails. Instead the subsequent reaction to the appropriation of the space led to public safety shutting down the NAC several times and subsequently arresting of an unrelated student trying to leave his own school. In fact, the failure of leadership and communication with one group of students should never castigate an entire student body. We should be outraged at the schools decision to suspend two of its students, whom had every right to organize and protest peacefully. The same way we should keep our direct public officials accountable, we should direct our ire at the larger system. Because the unelected CUNY Board of Trustees failure to address systematic problems in their system should never punish the constitutional liberties of the larger CUNY community. Leave the protesters alone.

#reasons4 #savemscc #ccnyshutdown

An Open Letter to the Students of City College - Alyssia Osorio

Dear Students, The Morales Shakur Center was won in 1989 through an student and community occupation by the club Students for Educational Rights, it was established as a student and community Center, aiming to fight back against the college administration who was continuously shutting the community out through tuition increases and budget cuts. It is not a coincidence that the removal of our center comes when the resurgence of CUNY-wide activism. The Ad-Hoc Committee Against the Militarization of CUNY had 60 person meetings in our center. We see more funding to public safety and less funding towards repairing our crumbling infrastructure. I should not go to a school where Ive seen public safety officers beat up my friends, and I also have to worry about leaks, rodents, and broken floors in my classrooms. This is a larger question systemically, why are our institutions starved for funding so that corporate interests are taking over? Head over to Liberate CUNY Front for some info on the big picture analysis. After the protest, I keep hearing students being critical of what protests can actually do. I can tell you now - A LOT. Last semester, I was apart of a national network of students fed up with the business practices of Sallie Mae. Sallie Mae is a student loan company that has been sued in the past for racial discrimination, and personally I did a plan with them where they were supposed to split my tuition into thirds. They charged me all of my tuition at once and my bank account was overdrawn so I couldnt do things like pay rent, and eat. When I tried everything and called their customer service, they gave me two options, deal with it or sue. So many students were fed up, that they started protesting, nationally. Through these protests, the CEO stepped down, and the company split into two. Students, organizations, and labor leaders confronted the company at their shareholders meeting and won a meeting with the new CEO. After the meeting, where pressure continued, Sallie Mae left the American Legislative Exchange Council, which was one of our demands. But in order to get the center back, we need mass protests, we need to unite with each other. We need to use our privileges and our resources to put pressure on CUNY Central and City College administration. We need to take personal responsibility for ourselves and our school, while building a collective consciousness about whats going on. This isnt only a fight for the radicals, this is a fight for everyone that needs a safe space or a community, that cant afford printing unless its free, that thinks people should have a right to claim space that isnt controlled by administration, that we have a right to study in a library WHEN WE NEED TO, rather than when the school arbitrarily decides to open its doors. The fight for this center is pivotal in figuring out who this school is for, the students and community, or the administration. I truly believe that each and every one of us has power, and we can make the change that we want to see in our communities (including our student community) if we are dedicated to putting our energy towards uplifting and building ourselves and each other. So what you can do is attend our events, which will from now on, be listed on this wordpress and shared with our facebook page, share news articles, let the folks around you know whats going on, get the people in power you know to issue statements of solidarity with our struggle, wear red squares to symbolize the door that was taken away from us (just buy some felt, cut it up, pin it, then share the rest of the squares with your friends!) and if you want to get deeply involved, email harlemuniversitystudentunion@gmail.com and well figure out where youre needed most. If you can, I would also contact Chancellor Kelly and President Lisa to tell them how you really feel. Love and Solidarity, Alyssia Osorio Students For Educational Rights, President Director of The Morales Shakur Center