Defying Ban, Students March to Brooklyn in Protest of Eric Garner Decision
By COLIN MOYNIHAN
New York Times
DEC. 9, 2014
The grand jury decision last week not to indict a police officer in the death of Eric Garner did not go unnoticed at East Side Community High School.
The principal of the school, in the East Village, distributed a letter to students lamenting the decision. A “teach-in” was planned with activities like writing to the families of Mr. Garner and Michael Brown, whose shooting death by a police officer in Ferguson, Mo., also passed without indictment, and writing to police precinct stations inviting officers to come talk with students about their jobs.
The highlight was to be the “teach-out”— a march on Tuesday with school parents and administrators over the Brooklyn Bridge to the United States attorney’s office in Brooklyn, where they would deliver a petition asking for federal charges against the officer at the center of the Garner case.
But on Monday, the principal, Mark Federman, sent a follow-up note reluctantly withdrawing his official support for the march. He told parents the Education Department had canceled it, telling him, according to his email, that it was “unsafe, did not have enough educational value and showed bias toward one side.”
The decision by a Staten Island grand jury not to indict Officer Daniel Pantaleo, whose chokehold maneuver contributed to Mr. Garner’s death, has led to several days and nights of protests, highway blocking and scores of arrests. The city’s schools and colleges have not been immune to the ripple effects, and have sometimes found it tricky to balance students’ desires to react with administrators’ desires not to disrupt what the students are there for.
On Saturday, Columbia University’s law school said that students who were traumatized by the grand jury decisions in the Brown and Garner cases could ask to have their final exams postponed. On Tuesday, the same offer was extended to Columbia’s undergraduates.
Shortly before the grand jury’s decision was announced, the public schools chancellor, Carmen Fariña, sent a carefully worded memo to administrators saying “current events often make their way into our classrooms,” and suggesting that school staff members hold lunchtime assemblies to discuss issues or provide quiet rooms with counselors for students.
Asked about the East Side protest Tuesday, a spokeswoman for the Education Department, Devora Kaye, said that the department supported schools that helped students express themselves safely, but added: “Insofar as the school day itself is concerned, it is our responsibility to ensure students are in class and are learning.”
Still, students at some schools have staged walkouts and “die-ins,” with tacit if not explicit approval from their teachers, and that is essentially what happened at East Side on Tuesday.
Though no school employees took part in the march, about 70 students with thick coats, backpacks and “Justice for Eric Garner” stickers poured out of the school, on East 12th Street, at 1:30 p.m., popped open multicolored umbrellas and tramped through deep puddles to the subway. A few parents joined, including Catherine Albisa, who said she was shocked that the Education Department had banned the protest.
“It felt like a politically motivated decision,” said Ms. Albisa, who also recently demonstrated in Ferguson. “They said it was unsafe, but this school has taken students on field trips all the way to China.”
Emerging from the Brooklyn Bridge station, the marchers moved across the bridge through a haze of gray, with wind and water lashing their bodies, singing: “Black lives matter! All lives matter! No justice, no peace! No racist police!”
Outside the United States attorney’s office, the police allowed two representatives from the march to step into the building and present their petition.
The office, led by Loretta E. Lynch, President Obama’s nominee to be attorney general, is reviewing whether Officer Pantaleo should be charged with violating Mr. Garner’s civil rights. According to his lawyer, Officer Pantaleo told the Staten Island grand jury that he did not mean to harm Mr. Garner, and that he was trying only to subdue him with a wrestling move during an arrest. An official with his union, the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, declined to comment Tuesday on the school’s activities.
None of the students missed class — the school had shortened the day to allow the march and “teach-in” to take place, and kept the abbreviated schedule even though the march was officially not sanctioned. The indoor activities went on as planned.
“My school is a very open school that listens to all voices — they taught me to have a voice,” said Joselyn Pena, 16, one of the marchers. “The D.O.E. was wrong — we are the future, and they’re supposed to protect our future.”
In a letter to students last week, the principal, Mr. Federman, wrote that he and others were “despondent” over the decision on Staten Island. “As your principal it is not my job to tell you what to do or what to think,” he wrote, adding, “This is not about being anti-police, it is about being ‘pro-justice.’ ”
During a phone interview Tuesday, Mr. Federman said that he did not regret the passionate tone of his initial letter because many of his students, particularly those who are African-American or Latino, were agonized and “it’s important for kids to see adults taking a stand for their community.”
He was clearly disappointed in the Education Department’s decision. In his email Monday, he wrote: “Our students have now received the message that peaceful actions to make our world safer were deemed unsafe and having no educational value.”
Meredith Hoffman contributed reporting.
 |
| New York students demonstrate against police killing of Eric Garner. |
New York Times
DEC. 9, 2014
The grand jury decision last week not to indict a police officer in the death of Eric Garner did not go unnoticed at East Side Community High School.
The principal of the school, in the East Village, distributed a letter to students lamenting the decision. A “teach-in” was planned with activities like writing to the families of Mr. Garner and Michael Brown, whose shooting death by a police officer in Ferguson, Mo., also passed without indictment, and writing to police precinct stations inviting officers to come talk with students about their jobs.
The highlight was to be the “teach-out”— a march on Tuesday with school parents and administrators over the Brooklyn Bridge to the United States attorney’s office in Brooklyn, where they would deliver a petition asking for federal charges against the officer at the center of the Garner case.
But on Monday, the principal, Mark Federman, sent a follow-up note reluctantly withdrawing his official support for the march. He told parents the Education Department had canceled it, telling him, according to his email, that it was “unsafe, did not have enough educational value and showed bias toward one side.”
The decision by a Staten Island grand jury not to indict Officer Daniel Pantaleo, whose chokehold maneuver contributed to Mr. Garner’s death, has led to several days and nights of protests, highway blocking and scores of arrests. The city’s schools and colleges have not been immune to the ripple effects, and have sometimes found it tricky to balance students’ desires to react with administrators’ desires not to disrupt what the students are there for.
On Saturday, Columbia University’s law school said that students who were traumatized by the grand jury decisions in the Brown and Garner cases could ask to have their final exams postponed. On Tuesday, the same offer was extended to Columbia’s undergraduates.
Shortly before the grand jury’s decision was announced, the public schools chancellor, Carmen Fariña, sent a carefully worded memo to administrators saying “current events often make their way into our classrooms,” and suggesting that school staff members hold lunchtime assemblies to discuss issues or provide quiet rooms with counselors for students.
Asked about the East Side protest Tuesday, a spokeswoman for the Education Department, Devora Kaye, said that the department supported schools that helped students express themselves safely, but added: “Insofar as the school day itself is concerned, it is our responsibility to ensure students are in class and are learning.”
Still, students at some schools have staged walkouts and “die-ins,” with tacit if not explicit approval from their teachers, and that is essentially what happened at East Side on Tuesday.
Though no school employees took part in the march, about 70 students with thick coats, backpacks and “Justice for Eric Garner” stickers poured out of the school, on East 12th Street, at 1:30 p.m., popped open multicolored umbrellas and tramped through deep puddles to the subway. A few parents joined, including Catherine Albisa, who said she was shocked that the Education Department had banned the protest.
“It felt like a politically motivated decision,” said Ms. Albisa, who also recently demonstrated in Ferguson. “They said it was unsafe, but this school has taken students on field trips all the way to China.”
Emerging from the Brooklyn Bridge station, the marchers moved across the bridge through a haze of gray, with wind and water lashing their bodies, singing: “Black lives matter! All lives matter! No justice, no peace! No racist police!”
Outside the United States attorney’s office, the police allowed two representatives from the march to step into the building and present their petition.
The office, led by Loretta E. Lynch, President Obama’s nominee to be attorney general, is reviewing whether Officer Pantaleo should be charged with violating Mr. Garner’s civil rights. According to his lawyer, Officer Pantaleo told the Staten Island grand jury that he did not mean to harm Mr. Garner, and that he was trying only to subdue him with a wrestling move during an arrest. An official with his union, the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, declined to comment Tuesday on the school’s activities.
None of the students missed class — the school had shortened the day to allow the march and “teach-in” to take place, and kept the abbreviated schedule even though the march was officially not sanctioned. The indoor activities went on as planned.
“My school is a very open school that listens to all voices — they taught me to have a voice,” said Joselyn Pena, 16, one of the marchers. “The D.O.E. was wrong — we are the future, and they’re supposed to protect our future.”
In a letter to students last week, the principal, Mr. Federman, wrote that he and others were “despondent” over the decision on Staten Island. “As your principal it is not my job to tell you what to do or what to think,” he wrote, adding, “This is not about being anti-police, it is about being ‘pro-justice.’ ”
During a phone interview Tuesday, Mr. Federman said that he did not regret the passionate tone of his initial letter because many of his students, particularly those who are African-American or Latino, were agonized and “it’s important for kids to see adults taking a stand for their community.”
He was clearly disappointed in the Education Department’s decision. In his email Monday, he wrote: “Our students have now received the message that peaceful actions to make our world safer were deemed unsafe and having no educational value.”
Meredith Hoffman contributed reporting.
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