Administrators cancelled the CCNY faculty-student disciplinary hearing for Tafadar Sourov and Khalil Vasquez Friday, sending one witness home and rescheduling it for next Friday. Fifteen students, including representatives from The Campus, were informed of the news after having waited outside for limited entry for over an hour.
Exiting the NAC following their meeting with lawyers, Sourov attributed the rescheduling to a motion they wanted passed to ensure fair trial, angering the faculty.
He also claimed it was because of his and Vasquez’s refusal to accept a secret plea deal that would’ve lifted their suspensions, provided they agree to security monitoring on campus and ending their political actions.
“They were so fed up that we were demanding our basic rights,” Sourov told The Campus, which recorded comments from the two here.
Their lawyer also noted the faculty rescheduled because they want a larger room “to accommodate the number of people who come.” Apparently, there is also some evidence the group requested.
“They have certain videotapes that they wanna introduce as evidence,” the lawyer told protestors rallying for Sourov and Vasquez.
“We made a motion where we said we wanted the memo book entries of all the peace officers that were involved in any way in the demonstrations, including the officers who were gathering intelligence.”
It turns out the administration was willing to appease that request. “That motion was granted, so hopefully, CUNY is gonna be giving us the memo book entries and all the other video tapes and audio tapes that might exist” (catch some of the lawyer’s words here).
Before the hearing, students and faculty gathered outside the NAC to show solidarity with the two. The Campus recorded some of the speeches at this link.
CCNY alum and military veteran David Suker also took the pulpit, sharing that he received a letter permanently banning him from the campus. “Please take notice that you are hereby barred from this campus of the City College Of New York until further notice,” Suker read from the letter.
Suker, who has been arrested by CUNY security on numerous occasions recently, also revealed that the school’s security team notified Administrative Child Services about his son (Suker brought his 1-year-old boy to one of the recent demonstrations; he has been charged with endangering the welfare of a child).
“They called ACS on me and his mother,” he emotionally added. “They actively are trying to take my son away from us! They called his mother Wednesday evening and said, ‘If we see him with your son at another meeting or protest, we will take him away from you.’”
Turning to the NAC’s entrance, he yelled, “F**k You! I do what the f**k I want with my son!” You can see David’s full speech, and his later words with a CCNY sergeant, here and here, respectively.
Upon finding out the hearing was cancelled, students made their way to outside the NAC’s main entrance. There, they continued chanting while waiting for Sourov and Vasquez to reemerge.
Though the hearing will instead go on next week, the suspensions will remain in effect until then. And according to Sourov, officers are keeping a closer eye on the RSCC than thought.
“We have witnesses who went to the Public Safety office earlier who told us that they saw pictures of members of the Revolutionary Student Coordinating Committee-Facebook profile pictures-hanging up on the public safety wall,” he said. “When we asked to be able to go in there and photograph the wall to get that evidence, we were denied.”
Correction: The hearing will take place at an unknown date, and not Friday, November 14th, as previously reported. The Campus apologizes for the error.
See more pictures below:
