Public Institutions: The Liberation of Black and Puerto Rican Students in the CUNY SystemThe City University of New York system is funded by taxpayer dollars, which means it is a public higher education establishment. Until the 1970s, tuition at CUNY schools was free for New York City residents. However, black and Puerto Rican students represented a disparate number of students enrolled at the CUNY system's top colleges. Two in particular are Brooklyn College and City College of New York (CCNY). In 1968, 96% of students enrolled at Brooklyn College were white. The WEB DuBois Club and Students for a Democratic Society occupied the Register building to protest the lack of diversity in enrollment and curriculum at Brooklyn College and in May 1968. Brooklyn College administrators admitted that more of minorities should be admitted to college, but claimed that the lack of professors willing to teach minority-themed courses is the cause of the limited number of courses for minorities. Student leaders at Brooklyn College included Leroy Davis and Orlando Pile. Davis was a Panther, an advocate of Marxism, and an admirer of Malcolm X. Pile was from inner-city Brooklyn. Together, the two leaders created the Black League of African American College Students (BLAC), which presented 18 demands to the Brooklyn College administration. Demand 1 called for the admission of all black and Puerto Rican students who applied to college. Request 2 calls for the creation of a free tutoring program for these students, which would provide underserved students with opportunities that would help them become more successful students. Demand 13 required the creation of a special academic credit that would encourage students to conduct community service projects in Brooklyn...... middle of paper ...... New York. The reforms to the CUNY system were not perfect. At City College, professors were laid off, class sizes increased, and tuition was imposed. More widespread was an increase in the number of minority students at CCNY, but a decrease in the preparation of these students. In Brooklyn, a large portion of open admissions classes dropped out of the CUNY system in 1974. The number of remedial faculty declined and entry requirements increased. By the 1990s, open admissions had been phased out of the CUNY system. Mayor Rudy Giuliani said the policy was a failure. However, critics of the system fail to understand that the problem with open admissions is not the policy itself. Open admissions failed because inner-city New York high schools are not equipped with the resources to prepare students for the rigors of academics..