Forwarded below is a message I've posted to the PSC Delegate Assembly listserv.
________________________________
From: psc-delegate-assembly@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
<psc-delegate-assembly@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> on behalf of Sándor John <s_an@xxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, March 15, 2023 1:55 PM
To: PSC-Delegate-Assembly <psc-delegate-assembly@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Escalation of administration repression at KCC -- union action to stop
it needed now
Dear fellow delegates:
Earlier this week I wrote some colleagues seeking to summarize aspects of
ongoing repressive actions by the Kingsborough Community College
administration. At the end of this email I attach notes based on that email.
But last night it came to my attention that the KCC administration has
apparently launched yet another escalation of its attack on basic rights of
students, faculty and staff. Information published by the anti-racist club that
has been targeted by the KCC administration for months indicates that campus
authorites are resorting to blatant McCarthyism against faculty members who are
fellow members of our union, while continuing and in significant ways ramping
up attacks on student rights and attempted intimidation of activists.
It is crucial that our union take action now to put a stop to the KCC
administration's ongoing repression and McCarthyite tactics. And all its
repressive measures and threats against anti-racist students and faculty must
be ended and reversed immeditely.
A leaflet being distributed since last week at Kingsborough by the KCC Common
Ground club states in part:
"Faculty club co-advisors Ryan Schiavone and Patrick Lloyd were each questioned
separately on Thursday March 2 by KCC’s College attorney, the director of human
resources, and an assistant to the President."
Accusations against them include "improper leafleting" (sic).
The KCC Common Ground club's leaflet further states:
"The College attorney ... repeatedly questioned Schiavone and Lloyd for details
about the students they were working with in their club, Common Ground—they
even phrased the question 'naming names.' Each time the attorney asked,
Schiavone and Lloyd refused to name names. Antiracists do not believe in
'naming names' and we will never do so, no matter the consequences."
"Naming names"?! What this report indicates is that the KCC administration is,
ostentatiously at that, trying to bring McCarthyism back to CUNY. Together, we
must respond clearly by showing decisively in practice that we as a union will
not put up with this.
Regarding the KCC administration's third degree of our PSC union brothers Ryan
Schiavone and Patrick Lloyd on March 2, the Common Grounds club leaflet further
states:
"This interrogation came in response to Common Ground students and professors
protesting two racist attacks at KCC last fall. On November 3rd, a racist
attack involving a racist student and campus police occurred in the cafeteria.
The racist student was having an argument with a Black student. At one point,
he started using the n-word (with the hard 'r') and attempted to provoke a
fight among the students. Adrian, a student of the Common Ground club,
attempted to de-escalate the situation. It was then that campus security
flooded the cafeteria. Despite being told the situation, the cops, instead of
detaining the racist, aggressively tackled Adrian, even though at no point did
Adrian make physical contact with anyone. Four officers subdued Adrian with a
knee to his back, detained him in handcuffs, and shoved him out the door into
an SUV."
The leaflet from KCC students and faculty additionally states that the student
targeted in the racist incident of November 3 has been “given six months of
academic probation and ordered to take a course in workplace violence.” A
subsequent communication states that, seeking to justify its actions on
November 3, the KCC administration is trying to pressure the student who was to
say that he somehow "intended" to be violent, despite never having touched the
individual who repeatedly used a racist insult against him.
We must stand together, standing up for each other and the students of CUNY,
against the KCC administration’s months-long repressive, McCarthyite actions.
The KCC administration’s attack on the rights of anti-racist students and
faculty there is an attack on the rights of all of us CUNY-wide – and on our
union as a whole.
This must not be allowed to continue. Our union must take action now to put a
stop to it, in line with the resolution passed by the DA last November.
Union action now to defend student/faculty/staff rights at KCC and stop the
administration’s repressive actions against anti-racist activists is
unpostponable, and inseparable from the range of tasks we face right now,
collectively, of building union power and solidarity.
An injury to one is an injury to all,
Sándor John
Hunter College
________________________________________________________________________
The following notes from earlier this week are based on an email I sent to
colleagues. It refers to an earlier document from members of the Common Ground
club that Brother Glenn Kissack sent to the DA list on February 16:
On KCC, the now publicly recognized fact that on November 3 the student was
charged is indeed central. as is the now publicly stated fact that on November
3 the NYPD was called onto campus, by the head of the KCC Public Safety
department.
With regard to the incident of November 3, the “Student and faculty reaction
and response...” document that brother Glenn Kissack forwarded to the DA list
on February 16 includes a series of other important statements (for example,
its reference to a Public Safety officer’s “appalling tackle of ‘Student 3,’
hereafter called Adrian”). There seems to be a consensus that the charge was
subsequently dismissed, when late last December the officer did not show up for
the student's court appearance.
Reported ongoing aspects of the situation of KCC are also highly important --
and I believe must also be explicitly addressed by our union. These include but
are not limited to reports, including in the “Student and faculty reaction and
response” document forwarded on February 16, of what that document calls “the
administration and Public Safety’s indefensible and ongoing student and faculty
harassment in an attempt to whitewash this racist incident and absolve
themselves of guilt.”
-- The message to Colleagues from Scott Cally, which was forwarded on February
26, includes this statement: "The college has charged several students with
violation of CUNY’s Henderson rules."
For its part, the "Student and faculty reaction and response" document
forwarded on February 16 states: “Four students have received CUNY academic
charges, so far, allegedly violating the CUNY Henderson Rules. All four
students had their spring registration put on hold.”
-- The "Student and faculty reaction and response" document also states that in
late January, the KCC HR department “announced an investigation into the two
faculty co-advisors of Common Ground,” including for supposed “improper
leafleting.”
-- The "Student and faculty reaction and response" document underscores
additional aspects of the situation at KCC that I was told about back in
November when, along with Hunter student activists, I spoke with students and
faculty members involved with the Common Ground club outside the KCC campus.
For example, it states that campus authorities harassed “students and faculty
who either distributed or received leaflets about the incident” of November 3.
It further states: “An officer in student government (SGA) was assaulted by
officers attempting to grab Common Ground leaflets from their arms. Students
who received leaflets were told to give them to Public Safety officers.”
-- There are other alarming aspects of the situation at KCC described in the
above-cited document.
For example, discussing a student protest at KCC on November 11, it states that
on that morning, "NYPD officers and uniformed NYPD cadets alongside Public
Safety filled the campus and the cafeteria. Uniformed and plainclothes officers
patrolled the campus in groups. NYPD vans sat outside the campus gates, and
non-KCC students and faculty were barred from entering campus."
In these brief comments I have not sought to underscore all pertinent aspects
of the above and other materials and discussions about the KCC situation.
Highlighted above are just some of the aspects that I believe are clearly of
concern to the PSC as a whole. As I know we agree, our union's long tradition
of upholding the rights of students, faculty and staff is crucial to building
union strength and solidarity, and inseparable from active and all-sided
struggle against racism.
In solidarity,
Sándor
