College Will Remove Fugitive’s Name From Student Center
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The City College of New York will remove from one of its community centers the name of a woman who is on a federal terrorist watch list, administrators said yesterday.
In a letter to the school’s president, the chancellor of the City University of New York, Matthew Goldstein, pushed for its dismantling. City College is the flagship campus of CUNY.
The hand-painted sign welcomes visitors to the Guillermo Morales/Assata Shakur Community Center. Shakur, then known as Joanne Chesimard, was sentenced to life in prison for the 1973 murder of a New Jersey state trooper. Since her escape in 1979, Shakur has lived as a fugitive in Cuba.
The issue of the sign was raised by a student who wrote a letter to the New York Daily News, complaining about Shakur’s background.
According to a spokesman at City College, students named the center after obtaining it in 1989.
“They acted on their own, as far as we can tell, to name this room,” the spokesman, Ellis Simon, said. “The sign is handmade. That probably would not happen if we were to have a room officially designated.”
Mr. Simon added that the school’s president, Gregory Williams, would act in “full accordance” with Mr. Goldstein’s letter, and that City College was taking the appropriate steps to remove the sign.
Student groups that use the space, however, said they would fight to keep Shakur’s name.
