College NEWSLETTER

Published by the New York College Teachers
Union, Local 537, American Fed. of Teachers

Vol. IV—No. 6

BB 11

9

NEW YORK, January 2, 1941

Public Resists Threat to

“Taxpayer's Suit” Is
Next Step in Growing
Attack on Education

Mr. B. Cohen, of Brook-
lyn, is suing to deprive YOU of
our protection under the State
Tenure Law—protection which
you won after a long and hard
campaign. Mr. Irving Cohen,
whose attorney, Joseph Goldstein,
was counsel in the suit to oust
Bertrand Russell, has ught suit
against the Board of Higher Edu-
ation to dismiss Brooklyn
teachers, Elton Gustafson, How-
ard Selsam, Frederic Ewen,
Maurice Ogur, Murray Young, and
Harry Slochower. Although these
are the only hers directly
named, the charges against the
Board of Higher Education, if sus-
tained by the. courts, are such as
to invalidate the tenure of every
staff member.

The charges are the following:

1—That the Board of Higher
Education has been operating il-
legally because it has not made
appointments through competitive
examinations, as required by law.
The appointments of the six named
were therefore “illegal and were
contrary to the provisions of the
Constitution of the State of New

(Continued on Page Three)

Ir

How Long Will Y

FRIDAY, JANUARY
Stuyvesant High School,

Defend Yo

HEAR HOW THE TAXPAYER'S SUIT AGAINST SIX
BROOKLYN TEACHERS AFFECTS YOU!

Come to a JOINT MEETING of Locals 5 and 537

HEAR: Dean Ned Dearborn, New York University
Professor Howard Selsam, Brooklyn College
Professor Robert K.

= and others.

OU Have Tenure?

10, 1941, at 8:30 P. M.
16th Street and 2nd Ave.

Speer, President, Local 537

ur Tenure!

Old Laws Revived as
Curbs at B’klyn Grow

The march of events on the
Brooklyn College campus has been
keeping members of the college
community a little breathless. At-
tempts of students and faculty to
defend their school have been met
with a swift series of counter-
attacks upon the defenders. The
appearance of an old regulation:
“that all cl: ‘ooms be kept locked
at all times when. not in use .. .”
and that “no student has the right
to addre sembled subject classes

(Continued on Page Three)

Brave New Year

—AN EDITORIAL—

Ten new members were inducted
into the Union at the last meeting
of the Executive Board; one resig-
nation was accepted. All hail to
the new recruits to unionism; a
bemused farewell to the rugged
one who decided that he can defend
and advance teachers’ interests all
alone!

Much is at stake this ¢ in
Local 537. Everything, literally
everything, the staffs in the public
colleges have won through years
of struggle— with reports, and
hearings, and committees, and bul-
letins, and delegations, and protest

telegrams, and more reports, and
so on=is now under the sharpest
attack the staffs have yet faced.
In the private colleges, the steps
that are at last being taken to
achieve similar gains are also en-
dangered by the same attack. Both
the Carnegie Foundation and the
Coudert Committee appear tovagree
on the dark proposition that there
are too many colleges!

Led militantly by the Union, the
municipal college staffs have won
tenure under the state law; now
the taxpayers’ suit against six of

(Continued on Page Two)

Mulligan Exposes
Coudert Technic

On December 26, Supreme Court
Justice Dineen heard Mr. William
Mulligan, union counsel, present a
scathing denunciation of “Coudert-
m” as the Legislative Committee
requested that five teachers at
Brooklyn College, Howard Selsam,
Murray Young, Maurice Ogur,
Frederic Ewen and Harry Sloch-
ower, be cited for contempt, be-
cause they declined to testify, on
advice of counsel, before an ille-
gal one-man committee.

“There is a device that is new
in Anglo-American law,” said Mr.
Mulligan, in describing one of the

characteristics of Coudertism, “the
device of taking clear-cut legal
issues and presenting them in

court in a setting of a Communist
smear. When these things occur
in the United States, the time has
come for some judge to stand up
and say No.”

Mr. Mulligan called the court’s
attention to the unfair and im-

proper procedure of the Coudert
Committee in asking that the
teachers be cited for contempt

while the question at issue is in
the process of adjudication in two
other law suits: the Hendley case
before the Court of Appeals and
(Continued on Page Three)

Schools

6,000 at Meeting Hear
Star Chamber Methods,
Red-baiting Denounced

On Dee. 18, six thousand people
jammed into Manhattan Center to
hear all the evidence which the
Rapp-Coudert Committee refused
to admit into its so-called open
hearings. Delegates from various
trade Union groups marched to
the platform under union banners
to join the Executive Boards of
Locals 5 and 537, the supoenaed
teachers, and the jury. Dr. Dodd
conducted the colorful and dra-
matic meeting, at which the au-
dience cheered speaker after
speaker and during which greet-
ings and pledges of active support
were given by delegates from
sixteen different trade union and
civic groups.

Although such prominent per-
sons as Harry F, Ward, author of
the recent book, “Democracy and
Social Change,” Osmond K. Fraen-
kel, Clifford McAvoy, Robert Speer,
Michael Quill, Helen Lynd and
others spoke at this meeting, not
one word of the proceedings found
its way into the New York
Times, and the Herald - Tribune
buried the story in a few inches
on a back page. This is in
striking contrast to the three-
day blast of newspaper publicity
which featured the three days of
“open” hearings—the “three-ring
cireus,” as Dr. Dodd described it,
held by the Rapp-Coudert Commit-
tee. .
As the Unions’ campaign pro-
gresses, heartening signs of labor,
civic and community support con-
tinue to grow. The CDPE has re-
ceived, to date, 60 requests from

(Continued on Page Four)

The Unions on the Air

CDPE is arranging for 13 weekly
broadcasts throughout New York
State beginning January 10, carry-
ing the message SAVE OUR
SCHOOLS to the people. Station
and time will be announced. AR-
RANGE YOUR RADIO PARTIES
NOW!

Next Membership Meeting ---- January 11— See Page 4