City College officials have taken back a controversial student center named for two infamous killer activists at their uptown campus, prompting hundreds of students to storm the building Monday afternoon.
Shouting, “We’re not leaving until they give it back!” the students amassed at the North Academic Center at 136th Street and Convent Avenue, where up until midnight Saturday, the Morales/Shakur Center had been on the third floor since 1990.
“The Morales/Shakur Center has been under siege by the CUNY administration for 25 years, and they unexpectedly seized it Saturday night without consulting with anyone who participates in the center,’’ said Taf Sourov, 18, a sophomore at CCNY who was one of the protest’s organizers.
“We said that we would mobilize to defend our community space, and we did, and we brought out hundreds and hundreds of people.
“We had to infiltrate our own school building and occupy the rotunda for a while and raise people’s morale, setting the atmosphere for further organizing,’’ Sourov said. “The real question is, what’s going to happen next?”
The protestors stayed for a little over an hour and vowed to return in the evening.
The students were given the space as part of a settlement after a protest over a tuition hike in 1989, according to media reports. They promptly named it after Puerto Rican-nationalist bomber Willie Morales and Black Liberation Army member Joanne Chesimard, aka Assata Shakur, who killed a New Jersey state trooper in 1973 — creating outcry from cops and other groups.
Chesimard recently garnered the notorious distinction of being the first woman on the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorists list.
She and Morales — who lost both hands and an eye in one bombing — are believed to be living in Cuba.
A CCNY rep told furious students locked out with the help of NYPD officers Sunday that the third-floor space was being taken over for “expansion.”
“All contents in the third-floor room prior to the expansion are in storage for safekeeping and documentation so they can be redistributed accordingly,” said City College Vice President for Communications and Marketing Deidra Hill, according to the Lehman College newspaper Meridian.
Students shouted, “Shame! Shame! Shame!’’ back at her.
One protester, David Sukar, 45, of Long Island, who was on the school’s student council in 1989, was arrested for refusing to leave the center.
Hill told The Post on Monday that she had only been with the college two months and was unaware of any agreement between CCNY and the students over the space.
But “no space was given to students,’’ Hill insisted. “Students cannot claim a space on campus.
“The fact is, this space is being reallocated for a much needed service.’’
Students said they were blind-sided by the move, but there was at least one recent clue that something was afoot.
The center’s sign was covered by a new one reading, “Career and Professional Development Institute’’ a few weeks ago, students said.
The door to the center, once painted red with a black fist, has since been repainted white, the students added.
Some students said the center takeover was in retaliation for a student demonstration against former Gen. David Petraeus at City University of New York’s Macauley Honors College in September.
Petraeus — who formerly commanded NATO forces in Afghanistan, then headed the CIA before quitting over a sex scandal — is a visiting CUNY lecturer.
Hill dismissed the students’ claim as rubbish.
Asked whether the college would give the students replacement space, she only said, “What we’re asking students to do is follow the college’s existing procedures for scheduling meetings [and] planning events. … We do have an established procedure that’s always been in place.’’
Additional reporting by Kirstan Conley