The Professional Staff Congress (PSC) Delegate Assembly unanimously passed a resolution in support of students after watching a video showing several NYPD cops holding a man down on the ground while another repeatedly kidney punched him. Two City University (CUNY) students then addressed delegates and seven hundred dollars was collected toward the legal expenses of the six people arrested.
PSC Resolution Against KKKop Brutality of CUNY Students
On September 17, 2013, the New York Police Department arrested six people, including four CUNY students, in an unprovoked police attack against a peaceful protest by students and faculty against CUNY’s appointment of former CIA chief ex-General David Petraeus. CUNY students were punched, slammed against vehicles and against the pavement by NYPD officers…
As the union representing faculty and professional staff at CUNY—and as people who have dedicated our professional lives to the well-being of CUNY students—the Professional Staff Congress/CUNY expresses outrage at the violent and unprovoked actions by the NYPD against students peacefully protesting the appointment of David Petraeus as a Visiting Professor…
We call on the City of New York to drop all charges against the students. Further, we call on the CUNY Administration and Board of Trustees to join us in condemning the use of police violence against CUNY students engaged in peaceful protest and to take all necessary steps to ensure that [such] protest will not be met with police violence.
While the resolution pushed by these workers is commendable, the PSC leadership failed to make a head-on attack against the presence of war criminal Petraeus at CUNY.
The president told us that a resolution calling for his ouster would be ruled out of order. Legal counsel had advised that according to state labor law, the union was obligated to represent all of the members of the bargaining unit. Therefore, the union could not call on the employer to fire an employee. And so the union cannot take a stance to fire Petraeus. At the next Delegate Assembly we will fight to overturn this ruling.