November 2003    

For two years, the administration of the City University of New York (CUNY) and the Bronx D.A. have pursued a vendetta against Miguel Malo, president of the Student Senate at Hostos Community College. Because he was holding up a sign protesting cuts in bilingual and Spanish programs, Miguel was thrown to the ground and arrested by several CUNY campus cops in August 2001. He was hit with a barrage of phony charges, including assault and disorderly conduct, and faces up to a year in jail if convicted.

The Internationalist Group along with the Hunter Internationalist Club and the Revolutionary Reconstruction Club at Bronx Community College have played a leading role mobilizing in Malo’s defense. This fall a united-front campaign demanding the charges be dropped won the support of dozens of campus groups, including student government presidents at ten CUNY campus, the faculty union, other NYC unions and several leftist groups. The IG has emphasized that the repression against Miguel Malo threatens all CUNY students, and is part of the war on the home front. As U.S. imperialism lays waste to Iraq, it targets immigrants, minorities and working-class students here. An injury to one is an injury to all! Defend Miguel Malo!

Contingent of union workers from UFCW Local 1500 at demonstration to
defend Miguel Malo, outside Bronx Criminal Court, 25 September 2003.
(Photo: Sue Kellogg)

Hostos Student Leader
On Trial ... for Holding Up a Sign!
Drop the Charges Against Miguel Malo!

This is a crucial moment in the fight against the repressive vendetta that the administration of the City University of New York (CUNY) and District Attorney’s office have been waging against Miguel Malo, Student Senate president at Hostos Community College.

For almost two years now, they have been trying to railroad Miguel for the “crime” of holding up a sign at an August 2001 protest against cuts in Spanish and bilingual programs. They have pressed the false, dangerous and downright ridiculous charge that Miguel supposedly “assaulted” two CUNY “peace officers” – when numerous faculty and student witnesses saw that it was Miguel who was assaulted, by several campus cops who threw him to the ground. They have “amended” their story and charges over and over (for the sixth time now on April 14), refused to turn over their videotapes of the protest where Miguel was arrested, failed to bring key witnesses to court, and even tried to throw Miguel’s lawyer off the case.

On March 17, the DA’s office made a verbal motion to disqualify Miguel’s attorney, Ron McGuire, who has been defending CUNY students for many years. The DA’s “argument” was that McGuire should be disqualified because he is also representing Miguel and others in a civil rights lawsuit against CUNY and the campus police. McGuire filed the civil suit last November on behalf of students at various CUNY campuses, charging that CUNY “peace officers” are systematically violating students’ free speech rights.

The DA’s blatant and punitive attempt to prevent a defendant from having the legal counsel of his choice visibly shocked just about everyone present that day, including jaded court personnel and lawyers present for other cases. The judge denied the verbal motion.

The DA’s highly unusual attempt showed how determined the authorities are to make an example of Miguel Malo. Clearly, their interest goes beyond this one case. They are using the prosecution of Miguel to clear the way for even greater repression throughout the CUNY system. This is part of the broader onslaught against oppressed minorities, labor and basic civil rights. Racist profiling, mass round-ups of immigrants, the sinister “Patriot Acts” I and II, and the overall escalation of police-state measures – these are the “home front” of the ever-expanding imperialist war waged by the U.S. ruling class abroad. 

Hostos, a miniature police state: Hostos Community College is run like a small police state. Located in the heart of the Bronx barrio, it is a campus of immigrant, black and Hispanic students from poor and working-class families. “Controlling” minority and working-class youth is a central concern of the ruling class as it escalates its attacks on democratic rights and social programs. At Hostos, many crucial policy decisions are openly made by the campus police chief himself. Hostos cops have gone so far as to tell supporters of my organization that they are forbidden to distribute leaflets on the same city block as the main campus entrance.

When students protested racist cuts in bilingual and Spanish programs in August 2001, the brittle Hostos regime freaked out and unleashed the campus cops to run wild. Their response to the protest has been aptly described as a “lock-down” of the campus. They decreed that no protest of any kind would be permitted in the building where registration was taking place, and arrested Miguel when he held up a sign in a public atrium that is the traditional “free speech area” in that building. They prohibited professors from other campuses, and even the president of the faculty union, from entering Hostos at all. The campus police openly proclaimed that Hostos had been closed to “outsiders.” They arrested four students and the next day arrested CCNY professor Bill Crain when he tried to go on campus.
Charges against everyone but Miguel Malo were eventually dropped. Hit with phony charges of assault, resisting arrest, harassment and disorderly conduct, Miguel faces up to a year in jail if convicted.

The crime of holding up a sign: The fact that Miguel was arrested for holding up a sign was proclaimed at the very beginning of the complaint CUNY filed in court against him. It states: “Deponent is informed by (CUNY Peace Officer) Sgt. Sean White, that at the above time and place, the defendant began to hold up a sign and protest against the college administration inside the above location after being told by the informant that such protest would only be permitted outside the building, away from where school registration was taking place. Deponent is further informed by informant that defendant was asked to leave the registration area and refused at which time the informant attempted to lawfully place the deponent under arrest.” 

Test case for repression at CUNY: The prosecution of Miguel Malo is a test case for repression at CUNY. The DA’s office and CUNY administration obviously see it that way – and activists throughout CUNY and beyond need to see it just as clearly, in order to fight this repression.

In pushing the frame-up charge that Miguel supposedly assaulted two CUNY “peace officers,” the CUNY administration and DA’s office seek to push through a major change: to have “assault on campus cops” made legally equivalent to “assault on NYPD officers.” The purpose is to greatly strengthen their apparatus for repression of student protests against the war and against tuition hikes, budget cuts, and all the attacks on the minority and working-class students at the largest urban university in the United States. 

Repression on CUNY campuses has been growing rapidly over the past period, with repeated incidents at Hostos, the College of Staten Island, CCNY, Hunter and elsewhere. What many activists do not know is that CUNY’s campus police force, “SAFE,” purchased 100,000 rounds of live ammunition, including hollow-point bullets and birdshot. (Even the NYPD is legally prohibited from having some of the items the SAFE cops bought.)

A recent posting to the CUNY Senate discussion forum noted that CUNY’s “public safety director,” William Barry, is a former FBI agent. It cited an article from the Washington Post (25 January) reporting that as part of the repressive onslaught packaged as the “war on terror,” the “FBI has strengthened or established working relationships with hundreds of campus police departments.” As we have previously noted, “the ‘SAFE’ unit was formed as a little red squad, compiling lists of student activists, videotaping student activities.” It even disguised a surveillance camera as a smoke detector outside the main office for political activists at City College. When the CCNY Graduate Student Council and its newspaper exposed this, they were suspended. (See “Smash Racist Purge of CUNY–Fight for Open Admissions, Free Tuition!” reprinted in the December 2001 Internationalist Group pamphlet Defend Immigrant Students – Stop CUNY’s “War Purge”!)

The way that phony charges of “assaulting a police officer” are used against demonstrators after police attack them was shown again when three Hunter students were hit with this charge, as well as resisting arrest and “inciting to riot,” after cops brutalized them near Times Square during an antiwar protest on March 20. Their case is coming up in early June; we must demand all charges against them be dropped now!

Defending Miguel Malo is crucial to the fight against repression at CUNY; it is crucial to defending the rights of us all.  It is necessary to publicize this case much more widely than has been done so far, so that students at all CUNY campuses become thoroughly familiar with it; and to mobilize powerfully to demand DROP THE CHARGES NOW! n 

Day One of Miguel Malo Trial  (1 December 2003)
Click here to download flyer for December 5 demonstration (requires Acrobat Reader)