nemies List:
CUNY kept files on students
charged in budget protests

CUNY students launch hunger strike in April, 1995, to protest budget cuts.

Student on List
Later Suspended

By Graham Rayman
STAFF WRITER

Anelected graduate student leader at City College, David
Suker appeared in the CUNY arrest lists several times, and
was later suspended from the college for one year.

Though a CUNY spokeswoman denies it, Suker be-
lieves that there’s a connection. .

Suker, who was born in Jamaica, Queens, and grew up
in Uniondale, was arrested on misdemeanor charges four
times in 1995 during protests. None of the charges result-
ed in a conviction.

But he had no clue about the lists until April 25, 1995,
when a security guard used a list to try to bar him from an
all-night vigil at Hunter College.

“T was just like, this is ridiculous that they are collect-
ing names from the police and circulating this list,” said-
Suker, 28, who wants to be a high school teacher.

No shrinking violet — his own lawyer has described
him as a “‘pain in the ,” Suker protested the ban on
the spot, and eventually was allowed to go inside.

“Tt just goes to show that the administration is afraid of
the political climate that is on campuses right now,”
Suker said.

But Rita Rodin, a CUNY spokeswoman, said that on
that day, the Hunter campus was closed to students with-
out Hunter ID cards. Suker was barred because he was
not a Hunter College student, she said.

Suker continued to speak out against the budget cuts,
and clash with the administration.

On June 27, in a letter to Suker, Frederick Kogut, a
City College official, charged that he defaced a banner on
May 30, and that he disrupted the City College president’s
office on April 14.

The letter also referred to a May 23 incident in which
Suker was arrested for blocking a bus on its way to Alba-
ny to protest CUNY cuts.

Kogut closed by asking Suker to meet with him and
“explain why disciplinary charges should not be brought
against you.”

In January, just after he was elected president of the
City College Graduate Students Council, Suker was
charged with violations of school regulations. A fourth
charge — that Suker disrupted a budget presentation by
state Comptroller H. Carl McCall on Dec. 14 — was added
to the complaint.

Suker said that accounts of his behavior were exagger-
ated and that nothing he did should have resulted in disci-
plinary charges. "

After a disciplinary hearing was held, on March 22,

By Graham Rayman
STAFF WRITER

During the highly charged budget
protests of 1995, City University of New

student protesters who had been arrest-
ed, internal documents show.

Copies of the lists obtained by News-
day contain racial and ethnic informa-
tion, birth dates, home addresses, Social
Security numbers and enrollment sta-
tuses of dozens of men and women
charged during the often contentious
protests in March, April and May, 1995.

Memos show that CUNY officials also
made efforts to determine the academic
statuses of students on the lists, which

Newsday File Photo

Newsday / Ari Mintz
David Suker, in front of the West 138th Street gate at City College.

CUNY suspended Suker for one year. He is not allowed to
set foot on campus unless he first makes a written re-
quest.

“In five years, I’ve represented about 200 CUNY stu-
dents in disciplinary proceedings, many involved in activi-
ties that shut down class for up to three weeks, and Suker
has not disrupted a single class,’ said Ron McGuire,
Suker’s attorney. “‘The punishment is totally dispropor-
tionate.””

CUNY spokeswoman Rodin said, “‘There was a commit-
tee made up of students, faculty and administrators, and
that was the decision that they came to.”

Charles DeCicco, a City College spokesman, said he
could not comment because of privacy requirements.

“He's a real fighter for CUNY and against the budget
cuts,” said psychology Professor Bill Crain, a member of
the CUNY Coalition of Concerned Faculty and Staff who
has protested the budget cuts. “He should be an inspira-
tion. They really should give him an award.”

York officials compiled detailed lists of

CUNY critics called ‘‘enemies lists.”
Last spring, CUNY campuses were

roiling with concern over proposed cut-

backs in teachers, classes and education-

al programs. Morethan 150arrests were -

made in connection with the protests,
mostly for acts of civil disobedience.
Most were misdemeanor charges such
as disorderly conduct, and most did not
result in conviction. °

This year, another round of protests is
expected in reaction to proposed reduc-
tions in state financial aid and ethnic
studies departments.

In at least one instance last year,
CUNY security officers tried to use the
lists to ban a student ieader from a cam-
pus function. That student, David Suker
of Long Island, is now appealing a one-
year suspension from CUNY campuses.

“Under the First Amendment stu-
dents have the right to organize and the
right to free speech, and for a university
to come back with a tactic like this is
questionable,” said Jeannette Jalanis,
president of the United States Student
Association, a 50-year-old Washington,
D.C.-based organization that focuses on
access to education and financial-aid is-
sues.

CUNY spokeswoman Rita Rodin de-
nies there is a sinister motive to the lists.
“It was an informational list’ to tell
concerned parents in case their children
were arrested.

“We were getting calls from parents
and spouses and other family members
over whether their family member was
arrested,” she said.

But Jalanis said, ‘““The administration
had no right to have these lists. A uni-
versity is there as an educational entity,
not as a parent.”

CUNY officials tracked student ar-
rests for on-campus and off-campus pro-
tests on March 15, March 23, April 11
and 12, and April 25. The lists also con-
tained information on students enrolled
at Columbia and Barnard. At least one
youth was still in high school.

CUNY memos show that officials
learned the names of the arrested stu-
dents through the Police Department
and the Manhattan district attorney’s
office.

Files show that other names were
found by reading newspaper articles,
and identifying students who appeared
in published photos, even if they were
not named in the captions. The officials
examined students’ personal files for
other information.

A list dated April 13 has 44 names,
and shows whether a student is black,
Asian, white, Hispanic or American In-
dian. Another 13-page list separates the
names of 91 arrested students by each of
13 CUNY colleges, and indicates the
date a student was arrested, and wheth-
er that student was arrested at more
than one protest.

“You’re not supposed to discriminate
based on race, and here they’re listing
each student’s ethnic and racial back-
ground. For what purpose?’ said Mit-
chel Grotch, an attorney who has repre-

Please see CUNY on Page A45

9661 ‘92 Wd “AVOINS ‘AVOSM3N

——



Kennedy Airport Project OKd

By Otto Strong
STAFF WRITER

The Port Authority yesterday approved an agree-
ment with a private-sector consortium to develop and
manage a new $1.1 billion International Arrivals
Building at Kennedy Airport.

“Tt was generally viewed as not being user-friend-
ly,” said Dan Andrews, a spokesman for Queens Bor-
ough President Claire Shulman, of the current build-
ing. The arrivals building, which has stood since
1958, has received low ratings from air travelers in
passenger surveys. Last year, Kennedy Airport han-
dled 17 million international passengers, more than
any other airport in the U.S.

Construction on the 1.4 million-square-foot termi-
nal is expected to begin early next year and go beyond
2000, said Port Authority Aviation Director Jerry

Fitzgerald. “This design calls for the total demolition
of the [current] structure,” he said.

The new facility will have enhanced security areas,
more gates, shorter walks to customs and immigra-
tion areas and a new baggage system.

“This project will be the cornerstone of a $3.4 bil-
lion program that will rebuild much of Kennedy Air-
port over the next five years,” said Gov. George Pa-
taki. “It’s time to restore this gateway to America to
its past glory.”

The terminal will have a spacious design that can
accommodate a proposed light-rail link that would
run through the facility, Fitzgerald said. And, like
other newer international airports in the U.S., the
facility will offer extensive retail opportunities, in-
cluding top-name clothing stores, food courts and
duty-free shops.

CUNY Kept Lists of ’95 Protesters

CUNY from Page A3

sented protesters. The lists were compiled by CUNY’s
security force, head of security Jose Elique, and top
administrators Elsa Nunez-Wormack, vice chancellor
for student affairs, and Sheila Thomas, an assistant
dean of student affairs, the memos show.

In several cases, memos show, Wormack forwarded
the information to CUNY Chancellor Ann Reynolds,
and asked CUNY presidents to check the students’
grades.

In a memo dated April 27, Wormack asked Kings-
borough Community College President Leon Gold-
stein to ‘“‘determine if these students are in good aca-
demic standing and advise me of your findings.”

Another memo on the same day to Reynolds reads,
“‘We expect to complete the university-wide match of

names with campuses this morning and will notify
the other presidents forthwith.”

“We needed to get the list from police to see if
they were arrested,”’ Rodin said. ““We needed to see
check the colleges to see whether they were stu-
dents in good academic standing, to see if they were
still enrolled.”

Grotch and other critics say the memos prove that
CUNY was maintaining an “enemies list” of student
troublemakers.

But Rodin says that no action was taken against
students on the list. “If that were the case, then some-
thing would’ve happened in the last year against
these students, and nothing did.”

It’s unclear whether CUNY will continue to keep
the lists for protests that occur this year, Rodin said.
“There has not been any directive one way or the
other,” she said.

QUEENS MOM CHARGED WITH BASHING BABY GIRL

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

A Queens mother was arrested yesterday after
allegedly smashing her baby girl in the head with a
5-pound dumbbell, police said.

The 9-month-old victim, whose name was with-
held, was in critical but stable condition at Mary
Immaculate Hospital with a skull fracture, said
Officer Robert Samuel, a police spokesman.

The attack occurred at about noon while the in-

fant’s uncle was changing her diapers in a Queens
Village home, Samuel said. The suspect, Nadege
Armand, 27, who was exercising with dumbbells,
used one to hit the child, Samuel said. She tried to hit
the child asecond time but was stopped by the uncle,
police said. Police were uncertain of the motive.

Armand was arrested on charges of attempted
murder, assault and endangering the welfare of a
child.

AVI “AWASMAN

9661 "92 TkdY