CLASS STRUGGLE AT CCNY
SHUB, ANATOLE
Class Struggle at CCNY By Anatole Shub C.ITY COLLEGE of New York last week staged a three-day. knock-down, drag-out student strike, replete with chanting picket lines, mounted police,...
...The 1190 votes for "sustained walkout starting April 11" proved to be a plurality...
...Wright said, "Prof...
...The right-wing Campus, whose "pull" in the past had been 600-900 votes, had backed a walk' out on the basis of the old referendum and had insisted that students specify "without demonstration...
...THE REFERENDUM LIVED UP tl CP expectations...
...Said Tom Andrews, a. non-ComrnU' hist student: 'The Communists were the gre»> lit single factor in turning what was ' to be ¦ peaceful walkout into a noisy, riotous strike...
...THE BACKGROUND is best summarized in a letter written to students last week by Dr...
...Its 11 members voted 5 to 4. with two abstentions, to alter the referendum...
...Tot Campus, a newspaper that had balked scores of past CP schemes, decided "the air had to be ^cleared'' and suggested students stay name in protest on CCNY's Charter Day half-holiday...
...12, Apr...
...CCNY's mild-mannered Quaker president...
...By combining Knickerbocker and Davis and refusing to permit a vote on the "demonstration' question, the Communists were free to dictate the purposes and nature of the walkout...
...against William C. Davis, economics instructor and former dormitory administiator...
...Davis said he "assumed" that they would have more common interests...
...Into this breach the Commies moved quickly...
...None of the strike leaders at CCNY asked, before the strike, when Education Commissioner Spaulding would release a report...
...The Commie cadre at CCNY is taking its physical training on the picket line...
...Although the City Council released the sub-committee's report asking Knickerbocker's removal, it never gave out the testimony or minutes of the sub-committec's hearings...
...The tactics of the strike fall into the CP pattern...
...The findings were supported by & vote of the General Faculty of 46 to 9. "A committee of reriew of the Board of Higher Education considered the report and collected additional evidence...
...Then Student Council leaders drew up a referendum on courses of action...
...It is the story of a peaceful one-day walkout transformed behind the scenes into a violent three-day demonstration culminating in a march on City Hall...
...Of the 7000 student at CCNY's uptown branch, 2800 vote...
...no adequate basis for punitive action...
...Wright continued, "a faculty committee (of six respected CCNY professors) was appointed (in December, 1947) to . investigate the charge of segregation of whites from Negroes in the assignment of dormitory rooms...
...These hearings were audited by students, who ' unanimously agreed that the investigation was a model of . objectivity and fairplay,, and that the committee's conclusions, adopted by the President, constituted the only just course warranted by the facts' presented...
...At that time they were forced to surreptitiously endorse . left-wing ADA'ers in student elections, and still could not win with a highly organised ticket against independent „ non-political candidate...
...Class Struggle at CCNY By Anatole Shub C.ITY COLLEGE of New York last week staged a three-day...
...with 1100 "pages of testimony and exhibits under its belt, adopted the review committee's report...
...1, 1947...
...with the consent of . . . the chairman of the BHE...
...While some members of the City Council and the American Jewish Congress, after investigations of their own...
...to investigate these charges . . . held hearings, collected nine volumes of testimony and submitted a 120-page report . . ." Dr...
...Finally . . . "Two of the complainants .x...
...The stealthily redrafted text was in best Commie tradition...
...Anatole Shub, assistant editor oi...
...1946, the BHE...
...for a walkout and 1900 opposed it...
...The non-Communists who thought they could "compromise," who wanted .''the air cleared," who hearkened to the tttoall of "whitewash" but scorned the thousand-paged record, are an object lesson for every member of a group that includes a Communist...
...We are not going to persecute a man with a record of valuable service to the college just for one mistake...
...At hearings last spring] Davis admitted that a Negro student making no specific request for a room-mate would generally be given a room with another Negro...
...DAVIS...
...This 1190 - leading - 7000through a multiple choice device—is an old favorite of the Communists, who with it killed New York's experiment at proportional representation...
...The anti-Semitism charge was added by the complainants five months later...
...The liberals began to waver...
...The investigators found Davis's "assumption" unjustified and beyond his jurisdiction...
...From the start the CP had played the Knickerbocker and Davis cases with" all the stops out...
...13, sustained walkout starting Apr...
...The new referendum lumped Knickerbocker and Davis together, eliminated the "with or without demonstration" questions, and gave five choices for the walkout date: Apr...
...2. The resignation as chairman of an alumni investigating board of Judge Hubert T. Delany...
...The Student Council that evening changed the word "walkout" to "strike" with few protests...
...The charge of anti-Semitism was not sustained...
...lTh« intelligent, still strongly antiCommunist student body caught on early...
...Six of the nine are known Communists -or representatives of Commie-controlled groups...
...But that Knickerbocker was never proven ' guOty, and that Davis's Investigation *** completely fair, was acknowlPfW^by all at CCNY to whom I iVet many of the same people could hot, Or would not, understand President VrifjHtrwhen he said that to yield to the strike—in the face of the many inquiries that have been and are being conducted-—'.would be to recognize "lynch justice...
...They therefore asked, and Wright immediately requested and accepted, Davis's resignation as dormitory administrator...
...Wright last week again declared Davis had had tenure since Sept...
...The downtown branch participated in none of these maneuverings and its Student Council—21 of whose 22 members are picked directly — sharply condemned the walkout...
...At no time was malice charged or proven...
...Charges of discrimination," Dr Wright wrote, "were preferred by four members of Prof...
...Wright goes on...
...Neither investigation convinced the BHE, which on Sept...
...And all 18 accepted legal counsel from' the Civil Rights Congress,' listed by the Justice Department H "subversive...
...Not until last fall, when the Knickerbocker case was re-opened, did anv one dare challenge the Davis findings Even then Davis's name was dragged in only by the Communists as part of their double-barrelled slogan...
...Davis thereafter returned to his teaching post...
...No one disputed President Wright's assertion that Davis's "undue assumption" was "a mistake, not an ajgt of malice " Wright was cheeieo-When he declared...
...Knickerbocker's department" in April 1945, when discrimination was termed personal...
...ONCE UNDER WAY...
...Instead, on the strike's sixth day...
...But if anything grates CCNY students (85% Jewish, 5% Negro), it is bigotry...
...The A'cw Leader, was for four years an editor of The Campus, official undergraduate newspaper at City College's uptown branch...
...Two days later, CCNY students staged a sit-down strike...
...If no action resulted, students were asked, did they favor a sustained walkout two weeks later, again "with or without demonstration...
...cadre—stymied for a decade—exploiting thousands of righteous innocents and the good name of n famous institution to regain lost influence...
...Incidentally, only 28 of the uptown Student Council's more than 80 members are chosen at general elections...
...In December...
...It was also made clear that a Negro's request for a specific white room-mate was always granted...
...But as George Guzetas of the college's League for Industrial Democracy chapter put it: "The Delany resignation touched off the keg.- And sustained virulent - Communist propaganda had filled the keg with TNT...
...THE* STRIKE'S TOLL will be felt by'i^CNY students and alumni for y^uk After a decade of tireless, and to a great extent successful, effort on the- part of democratic students to cleanse City College of its unjustified *1to«|'reputation," a slick minority took advantage of a moment of liberal weakness to parlay a school's love for democracy into a violent outbreak that just about doubled that false reputation...
...It carefully separated Knickerbocker and Davis, asked if students favored a one-day protest in each case and, if go, "with or without demonstration...
...The police (in a scene described as "near-riot") picked up 18 strikers for disorderly conduct, the pickets yelling "Cossacks" and "Fascists" all the while...
...IN THE CASE OF MR...
...Until the Delany resignation, they were generally Ignored...
...Next day was the Easter recess...
...When a Communist leader at a student conference (called to announce the decision) hinted that Davis should also be prevented from teaching, he was howled cfown...
...By giving five choices of the date, they made it possible for theii well-disciplined minority to constitute a plurality and thus dictate the length of the walkout...
...By all the provisions of the laws and the by-laws governing the Board of Higher Education," Dr...
...knock-down, drag-out student strike, replete with chanting picket lines, mounted police, and arrests...
...27, 1948, announced that "all areas studied by the City Council Committee had been taken up in detail by the Board Committee and thoroughly studied," and refused to re-open the case...
...a delegation went to Albany and elicited a statement that a "formal hearing" (a bird of a different species from the Commie "open trial") would be held in three weeks...
...On the first day, picket tried to forcibly prevent non-strikers from entering the school...
...On the downgrade since the Hitler-Stalin pact, they probably hit their low last June...
...The two charges weie: 1 Anti-Semitism, levelled at Prof William E. Knickerbocker, chairman of CCNY's romance languages department 2. Segregation of Negroes, raises...
...who said the administration was not cooperating with the investigation and specifically contested the statement that Davis had tenure...
...It is the story of a Communis...
...It never got a chance to comment on the new referendum...
...They found...
...Harry N. Wright...
...A switch of 500 votes would haw defeated the walkout...
...offered contrary findings, both these investigations were without full facts in the case and both groups are admittedly without jurisdiction...
...Of the 18 arrested, five can positively be identified as leaders of Communist or Communist-controlled groups CCNY...
...Nine students then visited Judge Delany, and publicly demanded Knickerbocker's and Davis's "suspension until they are brought to trial...
...into conducting its investigation — even though that investigation has been going on since last October...
...The CCNY strike is the story of how Communists successfully revived two old accusations (each considered "dead" on various occasions) until non-Communists agreed to a peaceful one-dav student protest walkout...
...By the strike's third day, more than two-thirds were back in class...
...This referendum was ready for distribution when the Council's executive committee was "informally polled" in the College cafeteria...
...12, sustained walkout starting Apr...
...The gum of Knickerbocker and/or Davis is a question this writer doesa ttofc propose to decide...
...A General Faculty committee...
...He knows Intimately all the leading figures on both sides of the CCNY controversy...
...Oust the Bigots...
...That wasn't all...
...Knickerbocker' has been thoroughly investigated and no justification has been found for punitive action...
...As yet a report has not been made available...
...The AJC had previously presented its evidence to the BHE...
...TWO EVENTS LED to the present uproar: 1. A raise in pay tactlessly recommended for Davis, which only slightly made up for the extra salary, apartment and maintenance he lost with the dormitory post...
...made an appeal to the New York State Commissioner of Education to review the findings...
...the strike was a CP field-day...
...Three others, not even CCNV students, arc CP leaders at other schools...
...This move created the impression that the strikers bad "pressured" the Slate Education Dept...
Vol. 32 • April 1949 • No. 17
