Suit: Pol got me banned
Revenge on student as critic
Brooklyn Councilwoman Laurie Cumbo and Medgar Evers College colluded to punish a student for publicly criticizing the lawmaker, a federal lawsuit claims.
The day after a contentious community board meeting on April 30, 2019, when student Sakia Fletcher took issue with Cumbo’s stance on a local development project, the college suspended Fletcher without warning, the suit claims.
And when Medgar Evers held a disciplinary hearing, a Cumbo staffer asked that it be behind closed doors — part of the evidence, Fletcher claims, that she was punished at the urging of the Democratic pol who serves as City Council majority leader.
“You should not be afraid to speak up,” Fletcher told the Daily News. “You should not be afraid to disagree and to challenge the status quo, to challenge our leaders, to feel like your voice matters in these rooms where they say you should not be.”
“That’s what the lawsuit is really about,” she added.
Cumbo referred a request for comment to the city Law Department.
“The legal claims against the Council Member have no merit,” Law Department spokesman Nicholas Paolucci said in a statement.
In its own statement, Medgar Evers College said: “The allegations in the complaint are factually inaccurate and offensive. We are confident the frivolous lawsuit will be favorably resolved.”
The confrontation came at a Brooklyn Community Board 9 meeting on the campus of Medgar Evers, a predominantly Black institution.
Fletcher says she signed up to speak at the meeting focused on the controversial redevelopment of the Bedford Union Armory, but alleged the board didn’t let her talk. Fletcher — who had previously criticized Cumbo’s support of the project, saying it should include amenities for Medgar Evers students — then got into a heated exchange with the councilwoman.
“This is why we fail as a people,” Cumbo told Fletcher, a video of the encounter shows.
“You say one thing, but another time when you’re passing these proposals ... it’s against the community,” replied Fletcher, who was president-elect of the student body at the time.
Security escorted Fletcher out of the room “seemingly at ... Cumbo’s request,” the suit states — and the college gave her a 10-day suspension the following day.
“The First Amendment gives people the right to express their opinion even when they are misguided and wrong,” Paolucci noted about Fletcher’s comments at the meeting.
The timing of the suspension, around finals, made life especially difficult for Fletcher since she says she was barred from attending class and getting review materials.
As part of “continued attempts to force Ms. Fletcher to simply roll over and be quiet,” according to the suit, a Cumbo staffer urged Medgar Evers to make Fletcher’s disciplinary hearing closed to the public, a request the college heeded.
“The corruption here is so wild and so naked,” Fletcher’s lawyer, J. Remy Green, told The News. “What’s really disappointing about it is ... that Medgar Evers College, of all colleges, decided it was okay to enact that.”
Medgar Evers rejected the criticism, stating, “Green’s hyperbolic statements have no basis in truth.”
A Southern District of New
York judge set an October date for Cumbo and Medgar Evers officials to respond to the suit alleging violations of Fletcher’s First, Fourth and 14th Amendment rights.
Fletcher, 37, graduated with a degree in public administration earlier this year.
She is seeking unspecified damages and hopes the suit will prompt her alma mater to reform its disciplinary policies.