CUNY Officials Interview Morgan

Officials from the City University of New York (CUNY) conducted a three-hour interview with Jonathan Eliot Morgan '92 yesterday in response to Morgan's allegations that CUNY professor Leonard Jeffries threatened his life two weeks ago.

Morgan said he presented the officials with several new details pertaining to his October 18 meting with Jeffries, who was reappointed Monday as chair of CUNY African-American Studies Department. He also provided them with an answering machine tape and handwritten notes he said supported his allegations against the controversial academic.

Morgan, a Crimson editor, has claimed that after Jeffries made disparaging remarks about several noted professors in an October 18 interview, he confiscated Morgan's tapes of the interview and threatened his life. Yesterday's meeting was part of CUNY's investigation into Morgan's charges.

Jeffries has denied that his meeting with Morgan was an interview, that taping occurred, or that a death threat was made.

Yesterday, in an interview at The Crimson conducted by Roy Moskowitz, CUNY deputy general counsel, and Brenda Carpenter, special assistant to the chancellor, Morgan played a tape of an answer ing machine message he phoned in on October 18 from a CUNY office.

Morgan said that after his meeting with Jeffries, he was asked to wait in the outer office at the CUNY Afro-American Studies Department while staff retrieved a press packet for him.

Morgan said that while waiting, he picked up a nearby phone, unobserved, and left messages at The Crimson office for Liam T.A. Ford '91-'92 and Stephen J. Newman '92, two of Morgan's friends and fellow Crimson editors. He said he then called Ford and Newman's room and left a message on their answering machine.

The recorded message consists of Morgan's voice, speaking in a low tone, with other male voices audible in the distant background. The opening seconds of the message are missing form the tape. The complete transcript of the remaining message is:

"I had to relinquish the last hour and a half--the tapes of the last hour and ha half of our interview to Dr. Jeffrie's bodyguards because he said a lot of things that he did not want me walk away with, although I know them pretty damn well.

"I'm still in Harlem not feeling excessively comfortable or safe. Fuck. I will call later and let you know what's going on. This is a fucking weird story; I sort of wish I hadn't decided to do it. Anyway, um, I'll talk to you later. Bye."

In a brief interview with The Crimson Thursday, Jeffries had acknowledged that Morgan had come to the department office after their meeting to receive materials.

Morgan also showed the CUNY officials interview notes which he claims to have made from memory on his train ride from New York to Cambridge after his meeting with Jeffries.

Those notes, Morgan said, include a reference Jeffries made identifying whit Europeans as the originators of homosexuality.

Morgan said he intentionally has not gone public with Jeffries's exact statements on that and other issues.

"He said a lot of things that, to me, are offensive to the point that I do not want to be responsible for giving them excessive press," Morgan said.

Morgan said a tape of yesterday's interview was made and would be transcribed and sent to him. He also said the investigators made a copy of the answering machine tape "for their records." Crimson president Rebecca L. Walkowitz '92 and managing editor Brian R. Hecht '92 were also present at yesterday's meeting.

Moskowitz and Carpenter did not return to their offices yesterday