Hostos Community College

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Eugenio María de Hostos Community College of The City University of New York is a community college in the City University of New York system. Located in the Bronx, New York City, Hostos Community College was created by an act of the Board of Higher Education in 1968 in response to demands from the Hispanic/Puerto Rican community who were urging for the establishment of a college to serve the people of the South Bronx. In 1970 the College admitted its first class of 623 students at the site of a former tire factory. Several years later, the College moved to a larger site nearby.

Hostos was the first bilingual higher education institution in the United States^{[dubious — see talk page]}, and is the only institution of higher education on the mainland to be named after a Puerto Rican. Indeed, a large proportion (approximately 80%) of the student population is Hispanic, thus many of the courses at Hostos are offered in Spanish, and the College also provides extensive English and ESL instruction to students.

The College is named after Eugenio María de Hostos, a Puerto Rican educator, writer, and patriot.

[edit] The Hostos controversy

In 1997 the CUNY Board of Trustees discovered that a group of students was about to graduate from the College without having passed the CUNY Writing Assessment Test (WAT). The WAT is administered to all incoming CUNY students as a way of evaluating their need for remedial education in writing. Some colleges, including Hostos, had established policies (with the Board's approval) requiring passing the WAT in order to continue onto required English courses. However, some members of the Board came to believe that they had established a CUNY-wide policy requiring passage of the WAT for graduation. Without the knowledge of the Board or the Chancellor, Hostos had implemented other measures, which consisted of their own writing test to allow students to move out of remedial classes and into the general curriculum. Five days before commencement in 1997, the Board announced that students would not be permitted to graduate unless they passed the WAT. As a result, 129 students at Hostos did not graduate. A number of students at other CUNY colleges were also unable to graduate due to the imposition of this requirement.

Five of those students filed lawsuits against CUNY, Hostos, the Board of Trustees, the Chancellor, and other higher-level CUNY officers, to have the CUNY test rescinded as a requirement for graduation from community college. The judge ruled in the students' favor, allowing those students left "in limbo" to graduate. The judge condemned CUNY's hasty efforts to impose new graduation criteria retroactively as "arbitrary and capricious, and in the present case must be held to be undertaken in bad faith ... The obvious unfairness in changing the degree requirements immediately before graduation is manifest."

CUNY lawyers filed an appeal so that the students could not obtain their diplomas until the Appellate Division ruled on the case. However, during the appeals process, all the paperwork for the case was lost, resulting in further delays.

While some 400 students at other CUNY community colleges were also unable to graduate as a result of the WAT requirement, the media targeted Hostos, with editorials from the New York Daily News inaccurately claiming that Hostos students were graduating without knowing English and without meeting the standards of the CUNY system. The bilingual education system was being targeted as a failure.

In 1998 the state appeals court gave a unanimous ruling that CUNY students must pass the WAT before they can receive their diploma. Hostos students had lost their battle for their diplomas. The resultant effect has had some impact on enrollment and graduation rates at the school.