The demonstration was the culmination of more than a week of protests against the city's proposed $6.6 million cut in the SEEK (Search for Education, Elevation, and Knowledge) program of the City University of New York. Since the city funds are matched by the state, the cutbacks would really amount to $13.2 million.

The SEEK program provides tutoring, remedial study, and financial aid for 11,000 Black, Puerto Rican, and Asian students on twenty-two campuses in the CUNY system. SEEK is an essential part of CUNY's open admissions policy.

The planned cuts would have the effect of cutting off thousands of students who can only attend school because of the SEEK program. This rollback is aimed directly at minority students, who comprised less than 4 percent of the students at CUNY before the establishment of SEEK in 1969.

The cuts in SEEK following on the heels of earlier cutbacks in the CUNY system, are a part of a continuing effort by Democratic Mayor Abraham Beame to balance the city's budget at the expense of city services and education.

At Hunter College, 700 students rallied the week before, demanding that the cuts not be implemented

Students from more than a dozen campuses came to the demonstration in chartered buses or former feeder marches from their campuses.  
 
May 22, 1950
Several months ago the Secretariat of the Stalinist-dominated World Federation of Trade Unions expelled from the WFTU Executive Committee Djuro Salaj, Chairman of the Yugoslav Trade Union Federation. Salaj had been elected to the Executive Committee at the last world congress of the WFTU, that is, prior to Stalin's unleashing of his "cold war" against Yugoslavia.

The tactics employed be the Kremlin against Yugoslavia bear a striking resemblance to those followed by the American imperialists against the Stalinists themselves.

The expulsion of Djuro Salaj--or the "severance of relations," as it was diplomatically worded--came as a component part of Stalin's campaign to isolate the Yugoslavs by driving them out of all international bodies or their affiliates under the Kremlin's thumb.

Time and again the Yugoslav unions have vainly protested against Salaj's expulsion, requesting a reversal of the decision. Finally, at a conference of the Yugoslav unions in Belgrade last month, the delegates unanimously adopted a memorandum.

It points out that the expulsion of Salaj, which actually means the expulsion of the Yugoslav federation itself, was an act of usurpation by the WFTU Secretariat.

"Only the workers of Yugoslavia and not the secretariat of the WFTU are qualified to elect their leadership and to decide on who shall represent the Yugoslav Trade Union Federation," it states.  
 
 
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