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WW interview with member of ‘City College Four’

Published Apr 6, 2005 5:20 PM

On March 9 three students—Hadas Thier, Nicholas Bergreen and Justino Rodriguez— were arrested and beaten by police for demonstrating against military recruiters at City College of New York. The following day, Carol Lang, a CCNY staff member, was also arrested for participating in the protest. The arrests come at a time when students across the U.S. are involved in campaigns to kick recruiters off their campuses. Workers World and FIST organizer Julie Fry spoke with Hadas Thier about her arrest and about the campaign for justice for the City College 4.

WW: Can you tell us about your involvement with counter-recruiting work prior to your arrest and about the campaign against military recruiters at CCNY?

Hadas Thier: Recruiters showed up on campus last semester and we didn’t really have an anti-war group. A few of us responded and tried to pull something together, it was fairly spontaneous. We started out with a handful of people. A bunch more joined in and we were able to kick [the recruiters] off campus. A different set of recruiters showed up a few weeks later, and we pulled people together and shut them down a second time. They were surrounded by us chanting and they weren’t able to talk to anyone, so they left. Basically, that’s what happened last semester and it helped build more sustained activism. It helped build CAN [Campus Antiwar Network] on campus and a more sustained anti-war movement. This semester, the recruiters came back for career day on March 9, but there was more of a plan for organizing against them.

Part of what built up momentum for the counter-recruitment is that this is an issue that all of us deal with. Our tuition is being raised and financial aid is being cut. So, working class people, primarily people of color at CCNY, are targeted by recruiters. So there is very wide anti-war sentiment and very wide anti-recruitment sentiment as well. Even people who didn’t actually participate in our protest were giving us thumbs up or raising their fists.

WW: What happened during the demonstration where you and the other students were arrested?

HT: About 20 of us got together to protest at the career fair. Four different branches of the military showed up. We wanted to put out a specific message that they were recruiting for people to fight and die in Iraq, that this wasn’t a job opportunity. We started chanting “U.S. out of Iraq” and “Recruiters off campus.” Very quickly, we were surrounded by CCNY security guards. They shoved us out of the career fair and closed the doors. The police came and we were beaten and arrested.

WW: What were you charged with by the police and what sorts of penalties are you facing from City College?

HT: We were charged with a whole series of things, from resisting arrest up to grade A misdemeanor assault charges. This is also true of the staff member, Carol Lang. In theory, because of the grade A misdemeanor assault charge, we could each face up to a year in jail.

The really outrageous thing is that the school administration very quickly sided with campus security without talking to anyone that was arrested, or any witnesses. They didn’t do any investigation. They sent out an email to the entire student body the next day stating as a fact that we were guilty. The next day we were all suspended. Lang has also been suspended from her job for 30 days.

They suspended all of us before even giving us a hearing. There is such a lack of democracy or any kind of due process. We’ve already missed a month of school and will have to withdraw from our classes —classes we’ve already paid for. So we’ve already been significantly punished without so much as a hearing. And the pretense for our suspension is that we pose a continuing danger to the campus.

WW: Why do you think the school administration and the police responded in this way to your activities?

HT: I think the counter-recruitment movement has been picking up steam nationally and there is more of a concerted effort to crack down on it. We were made examples, but they might not succeed in that. We may not become the proper examples.

WW: What kind of support have you received from the community and from other students following the arrests?

HT: There’s been an immense amount of support. There was a picket the following week that drew 150 people. Our emails have been swamped with letters of support—we’ve received over a thousand. There’s been significant local news coverage. The professors’ union voted not only for a resolution in support, but to donate $500 to our defense campaign. The staff union voted for a resolution in support of us as well. Students are really angry about what’s happening. There’s a certain degree of fear, but despite that there’s been a strong outpouring of support.

WW: What are the next steps in
this campaign? What can people do to support you and the others who were targeted?

HT: We have a court date on April 21, but the most important thing is that we have a disciplinary hearing scheduled before the CCNY administration on Fri day, April 7. The hearing will be held at 10 a.m. in Room 1215 of the North Academic Center of City College, which is at 138th & Convent. We want to be both legally prepared and we want to pack the hearing. We want the administration to know that the community and the campus are watching this closely. Right after the hearing we’re going to have a meeting to talk about next steps.

People can visit www.citydefensecampaign.org to get information about sending letters or faxes or making phone calls to the CCNY administration to put pressure on them to end our suspensions.

WW: Is there anything else you want people to know about your campaign?

HT: There’s been a ton of outrage about what happened to us, specifically about the issue of free speech. But we see it as a broader issue about who’s being made to pay for this war, in our communities. More importantly, this is about Iraqi civilians—the death and destruction that’s been rained down on Falluja and the over 100,000 Iraqi civilians that have been killed so far. This isn’t an issue of whether recruiters have a right to be on campus. It’s about what they are recruiting for. We can’t allow students to be used as cannon fodder for this project.