Also see "Witch-Hunters Target 'The Unpatriotic University," beginning on p. 2
of Revolution No 3 (November 2005):
http://www.internationalist.org/Revolution3web.pdf
________________________________
From: cs_edworkers-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <cs_edworkers-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> on
behalf of Sándor John <s_an@xxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, February 6, 2019 4:06 AM
To: Marjorie Stamberg; cs_edworkers@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [cs_edworkers] Re: CUNY-Wide Conference wrecked by anti-red ban
Given the ugly smear barrage about our "real motivations," I have to say (just
to comrades) that it makes one's blood boil, thinking back to how campus
red-hunts brought the FBI to our door with deportation threats and demands to
name names during McCarthyism, and things this led to all the way up to INS
interrogations on "political affiliations" (and worse) decades later. I keep
thinking "here we go again."
On a somewhat lighter note at this odd hour (Charlie B. will see why below),
I'm recalling that when comrades were being hassled by cops and "left"
red-baiters outside the University of Illinois campus when they were selling at
the DSA conference in August 2017, an unusually courteous SLer (probably Mark
from Chicago, who used to be a close friend) mentioned that to sell on that
campus, they use a free-speech precedent protecting it there, from a judgment
in the civil case that stemmed from my 1977 "criminal trespass" arrest for
distributing leftist literature (i.e., handing out leaflets and selling Young
Spartacus) there. I just looked the civil suit judgement up:
https://www.casemine.com/judgement/us/5914c4d7add7b049347d0362<https://nam03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.casemine.com%2Fjudgement%2Fus%2F5914c4d7add7b049347d0362&data=02%7C01%7C%7C6039b70fe1ab4422794908d68c125ea8%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C636850407852455594&sdata=T2cA28RieAeyv6p3Vb2kAsKwvfqQfrcscJotFiK6000%3D&reserved=0>
The case stemmed my arrest for breaking a ban on me as an "outside agitator"
selling leftist newspapers on campus. As noted in the judgement, "on several
occasions" in the fall of 1977, campus honchos "told John to stop selling,"
they called the campus police, who "told John he would be arrested for criminal
trespass unless he discontinued his sales activities." When I said that
violated my rights, told me I "would be arrested for criminal trespass unless"
I stopped. I refused, was arrested, then taken to the Chicago PD, booked,
jailed and later prosecuted. I think I had to appear in court 11 times over 9
months, though it might have been 9 times over 11 months. (The judge, whose
summary rulings against black defendants were flagrant, was also visibly drunk
much of the time.)
Anyway, Charlie B. will recall this case (given the jingle he made up at the
time), which got quite a bit of coverage in the local press (the case, not the
jingle), as reported in YSp (see e.g. p. 2 here:
https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/youngspart-sl/B-064-1978-05.pdf<https://nam03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.marxists.org%2Fhistory%2Fetol%2Fnewspape%2Fyoungspart-sl%2FB-064-1978-05.pdf&data=02%7C01%7C%7C6039b70fe1ab4422794908d68c125ea8%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C636850407852475616&sdata=Annnb9v8MU%2Fmg7hLtM8ZUO2i%2BfMq1yIxjJzh0stUjB0%3D&reserved=0>
; on the beginning of the case, see p. 12 here:
https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/youngspart-sl/B-060-1977-12_1978-01.pdf<https://nam03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.marxists.org%2Fhistory%2Fetol%2Fnewspape%2Fyoungspart-sl%2FB-060-1977-12_1978-01.pdf&data=02%7C01%7C%7C6039b70fe1ab4422794908d68c125ea8%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C636850407852485382&sdata=Q4xY%2Fz8AwAompMBRjscHEFIP7x0ZpPDZYuL8jTCehWs%3D&reserved=0>).
So if I really had to give a quick one-liner to one of the insufferably
arrogant, entitled white grad student Junior Joes in training today, baiting us
about "hidden motivations" for not signing onto to a ban on leftists expressing
their views, it might be: Sonny, I wasn't raised to give in to McCarthyism, and
the first anti-red ban I broke myself was back in '67 (when the State Dept.
specifically banned me from going to Cuba with Roy, and we very proudly broke
the ban). But of course we need to stay on message about the broad political
ramifications of them trying to create a brand-new "people's CUNY"
no-red-literature-allowed zone.
So I'm very proud of all our comrades at CUNY, Kaitlan and Gordon and Yari,
Sara, Jacob, Maeve and all the others, for being part of what one hopes will be
a whole new generation of proud red ban-breakers today.
SJ
________________________________
From: cs_edworkers-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <cs_edworkers-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> on
behalf of Marjorie Stamberg <marjoriestamberg@xxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, February 5, 2019 6:07 PM
To: cs_edworkers
Subject: [cs_edworkers] CUNY-Wide Conference wrecked by anti-red ban
Thanks to Sandor and Gordon for this powerful summary statement against the
lightning-fast move to impose an anti-red ban on the proposed CUNY-wide
conference for 7 K.
Comrades can probably amplify here, but I wanted to write a note to explain to
CSEWers on our list what has been going on: our comrades initiated and did a
great deal of the organizing work to get this planned citywide CUNY conference
off the ground. We had secured space at the Grad Center for the event. But
the "CUNY Struggle" group of opportunists were hell-bent at holding the
conference at the People's Forum, a new work-and-conference venue in a "WeWork
for non-profits" space in midtown Manhattan that has an explicit rule banning
left press to be distributed or sold on its premises:"to be as clear as
possible. We do not allow for left political formations to distribute their
newspapers or literature in our space regardless of where they fall on the left
spectrum.“
The ban went through amidst a barrage of bone-chilling anti-communist slanders
and slurs thrown at us, racist arrogance toward our comrades, and
mind-bogglingly ignorant language-parsing to "cover it up".
I want to note comrade Kaitlan's terrific statement from the Hunter
Internationalist Club against the ban. Also, an educator S. Tumino (I believe
he is now at BMCC) this morning wrote an excellent critique of these
anti-Marxist ideologues. I hope some of these can be published here or on our
site. Also, you probably have to read some of the anti-communist filth to get
a feeling for what is going on.
I
On Tue, Feb 5, 2019 at 12:35 PM Sándor John <s_an@xxxxxxx<mailto:s_an@xxxxxxx>>
wrote:
________________________________
From:
adjuncts-for-7k-organizing-group@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:adjuncts-for-7k-organizing-group@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
<adjuncts-for-7k-organizing-group@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:adjuncts-for-7k-organizing-group@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>>
on behalf of Sándor John <s_an@xxxxxxx<mailto:s_an@xxxxxxx>>
Sent: Tuesday, February 5, 2019 12:33 PM
To:
adjuncts-for-7k-organizing-group@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:adjuncts-for-7k-organizing-group@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: CUNY-Wide Conference wrecked by anti-red ban
Last Friday, February 1, the meeting of “7K or Strike” activists sponsoring the
CUNY-Wide Conference and Organizing Day voted a motion “to uphold the right of
all in the labor and left movement to put forward their views, including by
distributing or selling literature.” Yesterday, February 4, a farcical online
“vote to amend” the motion was held to insert an exception clause enabling
decisions to “abide by” policies “which may contradict this principle,” if
judged convenient at the time. As one of the supporters of this maneuver
accurately stated, the motion was not a vote on a venue. To vote “yes” meant
agreeing that this entire principle as stated (the right to put forward your
views, including by distributing literature) could and would now be canceled
out at the CUNY-Wide Conference. Signing on to such a “red ban” is a
destructive and profoundly unprincipled action that will come back to haunt
those of you who claim to be socialists, communists, or indeed leftists of any
kind.
Look at what was approved. The “#1 rule” that is now to be applied, against
distributing “outside” groups’ fliers, putting them on tables or selling
newspapers, states that anyone doing so would be immediately “removed.” This
rule was made “as clear as possible” in a text late Saturday night: “We do not
allow for left political formations to distribute their newspapers or
literature in our space regardless of where they fall on the left spectrum.”
Please note: this rule applies not only to “the Internationalists,” against
whom a hate-filled red-baiting slander campaign has been whipped up on this
list, it applies to the entire left. In opposing and refusing to sign on to
such a ban, we are not only defending our own rights, but those of all. Do not
be surprised when in the future, moves are made to enforce just such a ban in
CUNY facilities as well.
To set the record straight once again after the most recent claims, the vote at
last Friday’s meeting to uphold the principle of workers democracy at the
conference came before the vote on venue. As for the idea that upholding that
principle was part of some kind of sinister scheme or “bureaucratic trick” to
hide a priori opposition to holding the event at The People’s Forum, this is an
outright fabrication, as easily shown by the written record.
What was the purpose of the CUNY-Wide “7K or Strike” Conference and Organizing
Day to be? As stated in the official description: to help “build, broaden, and
deepen support” including through discussion and debate on “linking up with
undergrads; lessons from education workers’ strikes, labor, and
immigrant-worker struggles in NYC and beyond; and how to overcome obstacles
posed by New York State’s Taylor Law and CUNY’s multi-tier labor system, in
order to build the kind of power and unity needed to win.” Not by coincidence,
this was drafted by those of us who proposed and intensively built for the
conference from the beginning, and in fact initiated the fight for 7K way back
in 2014, and who are now labeled “wreckers” for refusing to submit to an
anti-communist gag order.
Free discussion and organizing on the Conference topics (which are, as S.
Tumino notes, eminently political) is clearly incompatible with censoring
undergrads, unionists, immigrant-worker organizers and anyone else who wants to
share their views and experiences through leftist fliers or papers, and
agreeing to having them “removed” from the conference space if they do so. To
those who have freely made the choice to sign on to such a ban, “voting yes” to
accept it: stop trying to push the responsibility for that choice onto the
staff of The People’s Forum – it is you who have made that decision. And now
that you have signed onto making the conference a no-leftist-literature zone,
you will doubtless be expected to enforce this, which some of you will
evidently do with considerable glee.
What you have now done is establish a dangerous and shameful new precedent for
activism at the City University: a “CUNY-wide” event where the free expression
of leftist views, including through leftist literature, is prohibited. All of
us will now be faced with where that leads. Recall CUNY leftists’ “Struggle for
Free Speech at CCNY, 1931-42,” and that the stage was set for the infamous
red-baiting witch-hunt Rapp-Coudert Committee* by a decade of persecution of
leftist faculty at City College, particularly those who lacked tenure, over
distributing leftist leaflets and newspapers like the Teacher-Worker, or just
being faculty advisors to student groups that violated such bans, while liberal
and even supposed socialist professors went along with the bans because they
were directed at communists.** That is the pre-history to the red purges in
academia from the late 1940s to the 1960s.
Have you really learned nothing from the whole history of McCarthyism? Or, even
before that, of so-called “Communists” embracing the Smith Act when applied to
“Trotskyist wreckers,” setting the stage for it to be applied just a few years
later to the CP itself?
In all the decades of CUNY activism, has there ever been an organizing
conference held on the basis of applying such a ban on leftist literature? Not
in the 1969 struggles that won Open Admissions; not in the Fight to Save
Hostos; not in the mass upheaval against budget cuts; not in the fight to stop
the trustees’ “expressive conduct” policy restricting free speech; not in the
campaigns against militarization of CUNY – never! How dare you disgrace this
proud history of struggle at CUNY – led by an entire spectrum of leftists and
radicals – by insisting on adherence to an infamous anti-red literature ban,
smearing those who uphold the principles of those fights as “unprincipled
wreckers,” and falsely claiming that it is we who seek problems at the
conference we initiated.
And to think that those pushing hardest to make us all complicit in besmirching
that history of struggle have the nerve to call themselves “CUNY Struggle”!
What you are struggling to do, with ever-shifting arguments, assurances, claims
and pretexts, is to uphold an anti-communist ban, each new day launching new
red-baiting smears and slanders against those who know that for genuine
communists, anti-red bans are, and always have been, meant to be broken!
So no, we will not help you in such an endeavor, which “busts up” the entire
purpose of the conference, nor will we fall into the trap of being smeared as
causing some kind of incident, “disrespecting the space,” or any other such
thing that would be used by the enemies of us all to discredit and harm the
struggle for 7K. Since the CUNY-Wide Conference has been transformed into its
opposite and a precedent for exclusion of leftists at CUNY, we hereby withdraw
from what has become an anti-communist conclave as we continue the struggle for
adjuncts’ rights.
The whole odious structure of tiered academic labor in this decaying capitalist
system depends on the relegation of contingent faculty and staff to the hell of
poverty wages without job security. To overcome that will require precisely the
revolutionary perspective of a class mobilization, uniting teachers and
students with powerful sectors of the workers and oppressed inside and
“outside” the university, that your ban stands in the way of.
Signed,
Gordon Barnes and Sándor John
CUNY Contingents Unite and Class Struggle Education Workers
Yari Rodríguez and Kaitlan Russell
CUNY Internationalist Clubs
* See "The Struggle for Free Speech at CCCNY, 1931-42,"
https://virtualny.ashp.cuny.edu/gutter/panels/panel15.html<https://nam03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fvirtualny.ashp.cuny.edu%2Fgutter%2Fpanels%2Fpanel15.html&data=02%7C01%7C%7C6039b70fe1ab4422794908d68c125ea8%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C636850407852495634&sdata=%2BJjp5mlaIrflDLJdTZBcjYHN%2BM7WeoqN%2FQVqMFRcrgs%3D&reserved=0>
**See Ellen W. Schrecker, No Ivory Tower: McCarthyism and the Universities
(1986)
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