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DAILY NEWS

Friday, March 24, 1995

_STORMING ciry HALL.

STUDENTS protest at City Hall yesterday over proposed budget cuts.

Pataki, Rudy

By DEAN CHANG
Daily News Staff Writer

Gov. Pataki put the blame
for yesterday’s explosive dem-
onstration at City Hall square-
lycon CUNY and SUNY offi-
cials for “waging a campaign
of fear mongering and distor-
tion.”

“Professors have canceled
classes so students could par-
ticipate in protest rallies,” Pa-
taki said. “‘Administrators
have used their taxpayer-

funded resources to engage in
partisan politics during work-
ing hours.

“It is an outrage to observe
such unprofessional and par-
tisan political behavior by
professors and administrators
who should know better,” he

“To me it is somewhat sur-
prising that I would see teach-
ers and professors leading the

POLICE hold off demonstrators with barricades, clubs and tear gas.

demonstration when these
students should have been in
class,” he said last night

CUNY officials vigorously
denied en raging the pro-
test, where 60 were arrested
and 48 were issued summons-
es

“We did not endorse or en-
courage this. The college pres-
idents did not endorse or en-
courage this,’’ said Jay
Hershenson, a CUNY spokes-
man. “This is not the method

of communication we like to
work with.”

Hershenson acknowledged
that C ficials knew of
the rally and learned through
the Internet that acts of civil
disobedience were being
planned as early as three

“We reached out to [Police
Commissioner William] Brat-
ton’s office,” said Hershen-
son. “That's why there were so
many police down there, be-

hit college officials

cause they knew.”

But he said it was not
CUNY’s role to forbid stu-
dents and professors from
parti ipating.

“This is an academic com-
munity,’’ Hershenson said.
“This is not Philip Morris.”

SUNY officials could not be
immediately reached for com-
ment.

During the budget-cut rally,
professors and students
walked side by side, chanting



anti-Pataki slogans.

“We have a democratic right
to higher education,” said Ste-
ven London, a political sci-
ence professor at Brooklyn
College who helped organize
the march. “Pataki is throwing
tantrums because people are
still resisting him.”

CUNY Chancellor W. Ann
Reynolds has made no secret
of her role in encouraging and
applauding students who have
conducted peaceful protests

against Pataki’s planned bud-
get cuts.

During a press conference
last week with CUNY student
media, Reynolds repeatedly
praised students for “keeping
the pressure up” on Albany.

“Everyone in Albany said
they were well-spoken, a de-
light, so assertive. Everyone
was very impressed by CUNY
students,” Reynolds told stu-
dent reporters. “I urge them to
keep it up. The letter cam-

SUSAN WATTS:
SMARTING student is helped away by teacher after she was maced by cops in CUNY protest at City Hall.

for demonstration

paign is working.

“This university is really at
a pivotal point in its future,”
she said. “We have to keep
this up for two more weeks, so
we all have to get our second
wind.”

Pataki said he hoped CUNY
and SUNY leaders would “‘for-
go the type of behavior that
poisons the climate for an
honest debate.”

With Doreen Bowens

ey iY | Ti

STORMING

16 injured

in cop clash

By PATRICIA MANGAN, CHRIS OLIVER

and PAUL SCHWARTZMAN

Daity News Staff Writers

Cops in riot gear clashed with pockets of the
more than 8,000 angry high school and college
students who descended on City Hall yesterday

to protest budget cuts.

The demonstration began
peacefully with chants and
speeches — but fast deterio-
rated when some in the crowd
tried to march to Wall St. Cops
sprayed protesters with mace
and clubbed them with night-
sticks after an officer was
knocked unconscious.

At least 45 were arrested.
Five more — and 11 officers —
were hospitalized with cuts
and bruises.

Mayor Giuliani said the po-
lice had exercised restraint.
“There were more police offi-
cers in the hospital than stu-
dents,”’ he said. ‘‘I'm very
proud of them.”

Earlier, he had accused stu-
dents of overreacting to bud-

et cuts that would raise

,450 tuition costs by $1,000
at four-year public colleges.

The cuts are “not an unrea-
sonable thing to suggest,” said
Giuliani, adding that — com-
pared with private college tu-
ition — CUNY students “still
be obtaining an education for

He and Gov. Pataki ex-
pressed outrage at professors
who canceled classes and en-
couraged students to protest.
The students, Giuliani said,
“are supposed to be in class
today, and they’re not — and
they're not paying for their
own education, someone else

He also chided students for
misspelled protest signs.
“Maybe they should study
harder,” he said.

Thousands of protesters
poured into lower Manhattan,
many coming by foot over the
Brooklyn Bridge.

They came from community
colleges and public schools —
students, teachers and par-
ents arguing that the city’s
education system cannot sur-
vive the 25% cuts proposed by
Giuliani and Pataki.

Fourteen thousand public
school students walked out of
classes at 62 high schools as
well, said Board of Education
officials — though not all of
them joined the march.

“Education is a right! Fight!
Fight! Fight!” the marchers
chanted, ‘“‘He’s mean! He’s
wacky! His name is Pataki!”

Things turned violent at 2:30
p.m.. when demonstrators hop-
ing to march to Wall St. tried to
break through a metal barrier
at Chambers St. and Broadway.
Cops pushed them back and

made several arrests.

Chief of Patrol Wilbur Chap-
man said the crowd, which
had not obtained a protest
permit, become a “headless
horseman.”

“An unauthorized march is
dangerous to the demonstra-
tors and the people on the
street,” Chapman said. “The
last thing we want to do is dis-
rupt all of downtown Manhat-
tan for a group that doesn’t
have leadership.”

Ejovi Barden, a student at
Graphic Arts High School in
Manhattan, said police at-
tacked him with tear gas and
that he got caught in a crowd of
pushing protesters as they were
herded between barricades.

“T had to put a scarf over my
face and cover my eyes,” he
said. “I felt trapped like a rat.
A lot of people were rushing
and bumping into the police.”

“They spend millions ... to
hire police for this and they
have no money for students,”
said student Hillel Cohen.

Students marched around
the park, followed by cops on
foot, motorcycle and horse-
back. They got to Barclay St.
and Broadway and tried to
break through the barriers
again, screaming, “We have a
right to cross the street!”

This time some of them
broke through, hurling bot-
tles, books, and even an Army
helmet at the officers.

Four cops fell down in the
melee — and when one was
knocked unconscious, other
officers pulled out nightsticks
and Mace cans and charged.

In the tumuit that followed,
cops also went after reporters,
despite visible press passes.

Daily News photographer
Misha Erwitt was Maced,
clubbed and then pushed over
a garbage can.

By 3:30 p.m. order was re-
stored. At New York Down-
town Hospital, Sharline Whit-
field, 14, a sophomore at
Martin Luther King High
School, sat in the emergency
room with a swollen knee.

“A cop pushed the barri-
cade into me and made me fall
and then he started to hit me
in my leg with his baton,” she
said. “Then he turned around
and started laughing at me.”

With’ Surabhi Avasthi, Do-
reen Bowens, Jose Lambiet,
David L. Lewis, Mark Mooney,
Rob Speyer, Raphael Sugar-
man and Ellen Tumposky.

SMA&N AlIva

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