Selwyn Raab in 1974, the year he joined The New York Times.Selwyn Raab, a former reporter for The New York Times, on Wednesday received a Townsend Harris Medal, given annually to graduates of City College of New York in memory of the school’s founder. Here is the text of his remarks to the college’s Alumni Association.
It seems like only yesterday: a mere half-century ago, when I graduated from C.C.N.Y. At that time, my prospects for getting an award from the Alumni Association were probably nonexistent.
No scholar, I eked out a gentleman’s “C” average. Moreover, as an editor on the student newspaper, Observation Post, better known as O.P., I was suspended and censured twice. Each time, the charges were practicing unprofessional, scurrilous journalism.
Both guilty verdicts were rendered by a strange body, a disciplinary court: the Student-Faculty Committee on Student Affairs.
The first occasion arose in 1952 out of an attempt to kill O.P. A group of student government leaders and administration officials devised a plan to force O.P. to be absorbed by the rival student newspaper, the venerable Campus. The reason given was that a single student newspaper would be more efficient and less costly.
At O.P., we saw a more sinister motive. It looked like an attempt to throttle diversity and to throttle us because we were too independent and too often critical of the college’s administration.
Naturally, we composed an editorial attacking the merger plan. We described it as a plot hatched in semisecrecy. And we had harsh words for its proponents, calling them hacks and cheats.
The end result was that O.P. was saved for many years to come. But eight of us were condemned for writing that editorial, and briefly suspended.
The second encounter with the student-faculty court occurred in the mid-1950s. It was the era when a certain senator from Wisconsin, Joe McCarthy, and his bloodhounds roamed the land. One of their missions was to remove from college campuses any faculty member they labeled as un-American or subversive. At C.C.N.Y., several professors were fired.
Their crime was refusing to testify before legislative committees about their political affiliations and beliefs. The then-president of City College [Buell G. Gallagher], and several aides, issued a report endorsing the dismissals.
I wrote an editorial entitled “Jumping on the Bandwagon.” It assailed the administration for failing to protect academic freedom and the civil rights of their own faculty.
The upshot in 1955 was a second trial, a second conviction and a second suspension. This time, I alone was called on the carpet. Again the charge was unprofessional journalism.
Except for those two brawls with the student-faculty court, my days at City were mainly marvelous.
My gratitude is boundless for visionaries like Townsend Harris. They made it possible for tens of thousands of New Yorkers, including many of us here tonight, to get a crack at a free, first-rate college education.
Even those stomach-churning trials as a kid editor over editorials proved to be invaluable legacies. They provided key lessons later for working on newspapers and in television.
No. 1: Never seek safe harbors to avoid contentious but important issues.
No. 2: Never sacrifice integrity or fundamental principles — especially if there is a clear distinction between right and wrong on vital questions.
Now, I’m not overly suspicious, but here I am tonight on this dais. And that notorious Star Chamber court, the Student-Faculty Committee on Student Affairs, is long-gone. Do you need any further evidence of the magical powers of the press?
My gratitude to Townsend Harris extends, of course, to our indispensable alumni association. And my thanks go out to you brave souls here tonight. So good luck to all of us, and especially good fortune to that wonderful, storied institution, the City College of New York. Long may it endure, and Alagaroo, forever.
Selwyn Raab, who graduated from City College in 1956, was a reporter for The Times from 1974 to 1999. He is the author, most recently, of “Five Families: The Rise, Decline and Resurgence of America’s Most Powerful Mafia Empires” (Thomas Dunne Books, 2005).
Mr. Raab began his career as the campus correspondent for The Times. As a reporter at The New York World-Telegram in the early 1960s, he wrote stories that contributed to the exoneration of George Whitmore Jr., who had been indicted in the killing of two young women. The case inspired the television series “Kojak.” After working at NBC and at WNET, Mr. Raab joined The Times, where he wrote extensively on organized crime and criminal justice. He covered the trial of the boxer Rubin (Hurricane) Carter, who was accused of three murders, and uncovered evidence that helped reverse the murder convictions of Mr. Carter and his co-defendant, John Artis.
Mr. Raab has received numerous awards for his work.
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