Westchester Community College Adjunct Wins in Court

A fired Westchester Community College instructor waging a free-speech battle against college officials is no danger to them or anyone else and may have a gun license, a judge has ruled in White Plains.

Patrick Munroe’s gun collection was seized after a pair of arrests on trespassing and harassment charges at the college in early 2004. The county moved to revoke Munroe’s pistol license, but Westchester County Judge Barbara Zambelli denied the motion in December and ordered the county to return his guns.

“Before this application was filed, he held a pistol license for more than 32 years without incident,” Zambelli wrote of Munroe, a former Sleepy Hollow village trustee. “His writings provided to the Court by the County are primarily satirical, and any attempt to characterize them as threats must be based on misinterpretation.”

Munroe and a former colleague have sued the college and the county in federal court, alleging they were fired from the school’s program in English as a second language because they challenged Assistant Dean David Bernstein’s decisions and campaigned for the reinstatement of another colleague.

Before and after they were fired, Munroe placed fliers on cars and sent dozens of e-mails to faculty members complaining that the school treated adjunct professors unfairly. Munroe went to Bernstein’s office in February 2004 and demanded his personnel file, prompting his arrest on the trespass charge. He was charged with harassment a month later after sending Bernstein an e-mail.

In November, Munroe was found guilty of trespass after a non-jury trial. He was sentenced to a conditional discharge. The harassment charge has been adjourned in contemplation of dismissal.