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Defender of CUNY Students Ron McGuire Scores Victory in Court

By John Olafson

As reported in the previous issue of the Messenger, Ron McGuire, a long-standing legal defender of CUNY student activists, is himself being targeted by the authorities, just like hundreds of CUNY students he has defended.

A federal magistrate judge named Chery Pollack recently decided that Mr. McGuire and his associate Nick Penkovsky may have engaged in professional misconduct two and a half years ago in a case involving an attempt by College of Staten Island students in the spring of 1998 to have McGuire and Leonard Jeffries speak on campus.

Many CUNY students observing this case see it as nothing more than attempted retaliation by Pollack and the CUNY power structure. CSI students brought a First Amendment lawsuit against CUNY for blocking Mr. McGuire and Dr. Jeffries from speaking and for refusing to pay them the speaker's fee the students had decided on.

On Friday, November 17 Pollack held a hearing that she herself presided over, even though she is the one bringing the complaints and is a witness to one of them. CUNY students from City, Hunter, CSI, the Graduate Center, and other campuses mobilized and turned out upwards of 50 people to pack the courtroom and show the judge many eyes are on her.

As a result, Judge Pollack backed off and dropped her most serious claim that Mr. McGuire had lied to her off the record (contradicting everything he had said on the record). If she had stuck with this claim, it could possibly have resulted in the loss of McGuire's right to practice law.

Her other complaint alleges that McGuire and Penkovsky had failed to properly follow a certain minor procedural directive she had given, asking them to respond to a motion by the defendants in the original case, but instead proceeded to amend their own complaint against CUNY. This complaint of hers remains in effect even though there appear to be no actual rules disallowing the action McGuire and Penkovsky took.

This could result in a fine assessed against them based on the "extra work" they supposedly caused the attorney for CUNY, even though he would have had to respond to this amended complaint under any circumstances, and thus there was no extra work involved.

(Ironically, the lawyer for CUNY, Brian Sokoloff, is paid out of CSI student activity fees. Students are directly paying CUNY to suppress their own freedom of speech!)

Students at City College and other CUNY schools will continue to follow this case and keep pressure on Judge Pollack and CUNY at future hearings.

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