By staff |
New York, NY - On Oct. 20, the City College of New York (CCNY)
administration shut down the Guillermo Morales/Assata Shakur Student
and Community Center in the North Academic Center (NAC) building. The
Morales/Shakur Center is a hub of political and social activism at CCNY
and the surrounding Harlem and Washington Heights communities.
As of early Sunday morning Oct. 20, the NAC building, which houses
the Morales/Shakur Center and the library, were both closed during the
day. Though the library has since reopened, the Morales/Shakur Center
remains closed, despite a policy for all CCNY buildings to be open 24
hours during midterms week to allow students to study.
Police, CUNY security and administrators have been refusing to let
students into the Morales/Shakur Center. Police arrested David Suker, a
former CCNY student who sat in front of the door of the Center, as can be seen in
this video (Preview) .
Student and community activists are inviting everyone to come to an emergency
press conference and protest in defense of the Morales/Shakur Center on
Monday, Oct. 21 outside City College at 138th Street and Amsterdam.
The administration has placed a new sign in front of the
Morales/Shakur Center that reads “Center for Professional Development.”
A university representative informed students in a press release that
the Morales/Shakur center has been closed and they intend to convert it
into a Career Resource center. Books, documents and personal belongings
of students were removed from the center and are being held and
“examined.”
Students won use of the Morales/Shakur Center space in North
Academic Center room 3/201 as a result of the 1989 CUNY student strike
against a proposed tuition increase. The purpose of the space was for
students to engage in activism and build links with the surrounding
Harlem and Washington Heights communities. The administration tried to retake the space
from student activists several times and also got caught engaging
in video
surveillance of the activist space in 1998. However, students and
community members repeatedly fended off administrative attacks.
During one
of those attempts to get rid of the Morales/Shakur Center in 2006,
Ydanis Rodriguez, a leader in the 1989 student strike and a longtime
leader of the Center’s community projects, stated, “In 1989 when we
ended our organizing movement against the tuition increase proposed by
Governor Mario Cuomo, we were able to persuade the governor not to
increase tuition. At the end of that movement, as part of the
negotiation, we got that space to use as a student and community
center. The center has been a very important place at City College
because this is a real link between the university and the surrounding
community, especially Harlem, Washington Heights and El Barrio.”
A press release from Students
for Education Rights (SER), one of the groups housed in the
Morales-Shakur Center, says, “The Morales/Shakur Center is a space for
community groups to meet on campus, for students to connect with their
political elders and for movement histories to be retained and shared
in Harlem. The Center has provided a space for students to organize
around a number of issues recently, including the addition of gender
identity into the school’s anti-discrimination policy and the combating
of rape culture at City College. The closure of this space is a serious
assault on our right as students to organize and cultivate community.
This follows the Sept. 17 arrest of six CUNY students peacefully
protesting David Petraeus’s teaching appointment. Furthermore, the CUNY
Board of Trustees plans to impose a policy broadly curtailing our right
to political assembly on CUNY campuses at its next Nov. 25 business
meeting. Please join us Monday, Oct. 21 at 12:30 pm outside the North
Academic Center to hold CUNY accountable for its stifling of student
voices and disempowerment of community organizing.”
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