CCNY'S INDEPENDENT
STUDENT NEWSPAPER
MAY 2000 VOLUME
2, NUMBER 5
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CCNY'S INDEPENDENT
STUDENT NEWSPAPER |
CUNY News
Feds to Monitor Racial Impact of CUNY's New Admissions Policies
City Psychology Professor Bill Crain reports that the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) will thoroughly monitor the racial impact of CUNY’s new admissions policy, which bars students who need any remediation from CUNY’s bachelor’s degree programs. In August, 1999, a group of CUNY faculty, prospective students, and parents of prospective students filed a complaint with the OCR charging that the new policy will disproportionately exclude students of color, and do so on the basis of inappropriate and invalid tests. CUNY will be required to report wide-ranging data through 2002.
During recent months, the complaint has been joined by four civil rights groups: the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, the American Jewish Congress, and the Center for Constitutional Rights.
Many people have assisted with the complaint, including CUNY faculty members Gary Benenson, Susan DiRaimo, Sandi Cooper, Henry Lesnick, Barbara Gleason, David Lavin, Cecelia McCall, and our own Bill Crain.
Remedial Classes. . . But Not Here.
The CUNY board has announced that CUNY will seek proposals from outside firms, both profit and non-profit, to offer remediation to students scoring low on placement tests. Because CUNY is nationally recognized for its excellence in remedial instruction, the CUNY action makes no sense—unless, of course, its goal is simply to give private firms a chance to make money off our students.
Filmmaker Ellie Bernstein has developed a nine-minute pilot of a documentary on Open Admissions to be narrated by Ossie Davis. Bernstein is seeking funding to turn it into a longer work.
Despite NYPIRG’s rosy report on the NY State budget process (see the current issue of The Paper), initial reports on next year’s state budget for CUNY indicate that many of Governor Pataki’s cuts still stand, including a veto on requested funds for more full time faculty. While TAP grants were spared, next year’s budget still might include cuts to the SEEK and College Discovery programs for financially disadvantaged students and cuts in child-care services. It also includes no money for new full-time faculty, even though CUNY’s loss of full-time faculty has been enormous. The big winner (if there is one) appears to be the middle class. The maximum family income eligibility for TAP (tuition assistance) awards will be raised from $50,000 to $80,000. Will this increase for the middle class soon mean less for the working class? Stay tuned. . .
An important report was issued by the NY State Senate’s committee on financial aid. The committee recommends that TAP cover full tuition for students in need, rather than the present 90%, and that it cover all 4 years, rather than dropping off after 2 years, as it now does. The committee’s emphasis differs sharply from the widely publicized financial aid initiatives prevalent today by addressing the needs of poor and working class students rather than those in the middle class.
A recent Associated Press news feature centered on City College grad Maurice Ashley, the world’s first—and only—Black grandmaster of chess. Through the Harlem Chess Center he opened at the Police Athletic League community center in central Harlem, Ashley is helping to bring the strategic game played predominantly by whites to minority kids.
Ashley has become part of a select group: Only 500 others hold the rank of grandmaster—the game’s highest title—around the world, including Garry Kasparov and Bobby Fischer.
As a result, Ashley has become a celebrity of sorts in chess circles. “I have people calling from all over wanting him to come to their schools,” Barbara DeMaro of the United States Chess Federation told AP. “Kids look up to him. There’s a feeling, if he can do it, we can do it.”
“One of the most depressing things about growing up in the inner city—and
I did—is that there’s handball, basketball, football, all kinds of sports
things, but very little in the way that is intellectually stimulating,” Ashley
said.
Studies show that young chess players raise their reading scores and concentrate
better. The game teaches strategy and consequences and instills confidence.
Administrators in, Administrators out. . .
In the latest swing of the CUNY revolving-door personnel situation, the CUNY Board of Trustees has appointed presidents to fill vacancies at Baruch College and LaGuardia, Kingsborough, and Queensborough Community Colleges. Former New York State Comptroller Edward Regan is the new president at Baruch, Gail Mellow will head LaGuardia, Byron McClenney takes office at Kingsborough, and Eduardo Martí becomes head honcho at Queensborough. The decision is not without controversy, however, as CUNY trustee John Morning criticized the board for not hiring more African-American candidates or candidates from within the CUNY system. Martí is a Cuban emigre; the rest of the appointees are white. Morning said that CUNY should have “a leadership that is more reflective of the student body” (which is 32% Black).
Simply hiring minority candidates does not automatically guarantee progressive policies, however. Former CCNY president Yolanda Moses, who is Black, played a key role in squashing student protest against, and implementing, budget cuts that have seriously hurt the college. Queens College president Allen Sessoms has resigned, citing “personal problems.” Sessoms, who is Black, was a staunch supporter of the decision of the CUNY board to end remediation and enact stricter “standards.” Sessoms drew a lot of heat last year for allegedly saying, “Shit in, shit out. If you take in shit and you turn out shit that is slightly more literate, you’re still let with shit.” The remarks refered to the current CUNY admissions process.
Sessoms denied using the s-word, maintaining that his statements were taken out of context. A letter issued by Queens College Assistant VP Jane Deckenshon did not specifically deny the statements but said that Sessoms used a “salty” term to refer to the “academically unprepared.” That is to say, those who, unlike Sessoms, cannot afford to go to Yale. The only sure thing is that Sessoms is now the one who’s out.
Censorship at CSI Challenged in Court
Ten College of Staten Island students sued CUNY and CSI officials for First Amendment violations in 1997 after CSI President Marlene Springer canceled the Spring 1997 CSI student government election because President Springer concluded that a special election issue of a CSI student newspaper was a "thinly veiled . . . piece of campaign literature" that "compromised" the fairness of the electoral process. The students claimed that President Springer’s decision violated a 1995 U.S. Supreme Court decision that prohibits censorship of viewpoints in student publications at public colleges.
The students are asking for $1 plus $1 in punitive damages.
At a hearing on March 29, a three-judge panel of the federal Second Circuit
Court of Appeals denied a request for a preliminary injunction against CSI. The
student plaintiffs had asked the court to issue the injunction to prevent the
possibility of CSI officials canceling the spring 2000 student elections or
taking any other reprisals in response to endorsements and opinions they planned
to publish in the spring 2000 election issue of the CSI College Voice.
The judges stated that they were denying the injunction because the New York
State Attorney General stated in court that CSI President Springer promised that
she will never again cancel a student election because of material published in
a student newspaper as long as she serves as president of the College of Staten
Island. [But did she have her fingers crossed?]
Presiding Judge Leval said that by denying the injunction the Court was
taking no position on the merits of the students' main claim that their
constitutional rights were violated by the action of President Springer in 1997.
This case potentially has a direct bearing on City College, as the CCNY
administration took very similar reprisals in 1998 as a result of the election
coverage The Messenger ran that spring. The administration voided the elections
and defunded the paper, forcing it to seek funding elsewhere. A separate lawsuit
around this incident is proceeding against the CCNY administration, and a
favorable decision in the CSI suit could have a positive impact on this suit as
well.
A motion for summary judgment is presently pending before District Judge Nina Gershon based on the students' main claim that President Springer's cancellation of the 1997 student election was an unconstitutional viewpoint-based restriction on speech in a limited public forum. Stay tuned.