Taxpayer-Funded CUNY Professor Trains DSA Members to Evade Law and Deceive Police

A CUNY professor is at the forefront of the Democratic Socialists of America's emerging paramilitary faction, conducting a workshop in New York City aimed at teaching members how to evade the law and mislead police.

Walter Lucken IV, an assistant professor of English at Queens College, raked in $105,000 from taxpayer funds last year. On Thursday night, he led a session for the Red Rabbits Security Commission, instructing attendees on tactics to deceive law enforcement.

“I moved here from Detroit, where police will beat you up if you don’t say anything if they ask you a question,” Lucken stated during the workshop at the NYC DSA's headquarters. “In New York, you’re allowed to just not say anything if the police talk to you…you can look right at them.”

He advised participants to “play to their love of hierarchy… act confident even when feeding misinformation…police will sometimes let you do things that are not technically legal.”

Lucken resides in a $3,000-a-month two-bedroom apartment in Kensington with his therapist wife. His academic focus includes “public rhetorics of state violence, incarceration and higher education,” as noted in his online bio.

The Red Rabbits Security Commission was established at last year’s national DSA convention and is preparing for a “national uprising against federal agents and police brutality,” according to its founding resolution.

In various cities such as Minneapolis, Oklahoma City, Philadelphia, Tucson, Austin, and Portland, Red Rabbits have conducted “self-defense” trainings that include blocking intersections and confronting “fascists” using umbrellas, pepper spray, and martial arts. Some chapters even promoted what they called “sick” firearm safety courses.

Lucken joined the DSA following Hamas’ attacks on October 7, 2023. He downplayed the risks of arrest, telling attendees that a disorderly conduct charge wouldn’t appear on job background checks.

“The state relies on the mystique surrounding the arrest process to keep us in a state of fearful inaction,” he claimed. “They want people to be like, ‘Oh if I get arrested at a protest that’s the worst thing that could ever happen in my life.'”

DSA members were instructed to avoid detection by utilizing Signal chat with disappearing messages, disabling fingerprint and facial recognition features on their phones, destroying documents, and were discouraged from applying for permits for demonstrations.

“The state is not invincible,” declared another leader of the Red Rabbits.

Since its inception, the Red Rabbits Security Commission has faced internal strife, including attempts to oust a Maoist organizer who praised violence. This individual has claimed that “burning a Waymo is not political violence” and has made threats to “execute” rivals.

Lucken serves as a delegate for Queens College in CUNY’s professors union, the Professional Staff Congress. He is scheduled to teach “Writing about Writing” in the English Department next fall.

On his faculty page, he states, “I instruct students to imagine the act of argumentation as a search for the balance between that which is true or just on the one hand and that which is persuasive on the other.”

Lucken is part of a controversial group of professors at the taxpayer-funded university, some with criminal records. This includes Corinna Mullin, who recently expressed admiration for the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps at a DSA meeting, and Shellyne Rodriguez, who infamously threatened a reporter with a machete.

CUNY and Lucken did not respond to requests for comment.