Trustee Lorch exceeds legal limit (of classes)

     Teddi Lorch was a long-time part-time instructor at Saddleback College and friendly with the Faculty Association (union) when, in June of 1993, Trustee Iris Swanson died and the district needed a quick replacement. The union recommended Lorch, and (after the board interviewed several candidates) she was appointed. She ran for the office in 1994 and, with the union's support, she naturally prevailed. She was very much the union's person on the board of trustees—along with Williams and Frogue. With the addition of Fortune in 1996, the notorious "Board Majority" came into being: Lorch, Williams, Frogue, and Fortune.

Trustee’s Teaching Load Questioned: 

Education: Teddi Lorch might exceed legal limit. Some see potential conflict, others credit her action.
By RENE LYNCH

DEC. 21, 1995

     The president of the Saddleback Community College District Board of Trustees, who also happens to be one of the district’s longtime instructors, is apparently teaching a heavier load of courses than state law allows.
     Besides the legal issue the situation raises, some critics point to the potential conflict of interest that Teddi Lorch faces, being the boss of the district chancellor, Robert A. Lombardi, as well as his paid employee.
     Lombardi said Saddleback College erred in asking Lorch to fill in as a substitute teacher when a fellow instructor suffered a medical emergency.
     “That was not right, it shouldn’t have happened,” Lombardi said. “But the way it was explained to me was, it was an emergency situation.”
     Lombardi said he would prefer that trustees be prohibited from teaching at all, but he noted that the California Education Code allows a trustee to teach one class at a time, in an area relating to his or her occupation.
     “My preference would be that trustees make themselves fully available to the board,” said Lombardi, who said Lorch’s teaching requires her to abstain from votes relating to teacher salary, benefits and the like. “You hate to have a trustee abstain.”
     But some trustees dismissed the issue as nit-picking and said Lorch is owed the district’s gratitude for helping an ailing colleague.
     “She is very careful to avoid any conflict,” said Thomas Carroll, president of the Saddleback Community College District Faculty Assn.

     “I really don’t think this is much of an issue at all,” Trustee John S. Williams said.
     Earlier this month, Lorch was unanimously elected president by her board colleagues, some of whom now say they are uncomfortable that Lorch appears to have exceeded the Education Code’s teaching limit of one class for trustees.
     This semester, Lorch, whose subjects are psychology and sociology, took on two additional classes when a colleague suffered a medical emergency and missed several sessions. Lorch filled in for 15 hours during the current semester, college district spokeswoman Diane Riopka said.
     “It’s my impression trustees are able to teach just one class, and [substituting] would be more than one class,” Trustee Joan J. Hueter said. “If she’s teaching more than one class, she’s breaking the law.”
     Lorch, 48, of San Clemente did not return phone calls seeking comment. An attorney for the district also did not respond to requests for comment.
     Trustees are expected to walk a fine line between the competing interests of the district’s 30,000 students, its administrators and faculty—for whom the trustees regulate salary and benefits. As a result, full-time district instructors are not allowed on the board.
     Retired Chancellor Richard Sneed, who refused to allow Lorch to teach while he held office, said trustees should generally be barred from teaching.
     “A trustee teaching poses an inherent conflict of interest,” Sneed said.
     While Lorch has abstained from voting on issues that influence her salary and benefits, Sneed said the public deserves a full-time board member.
     “Abstaining on these important issues really cripples her as a board member,” he said.
     However, Alannah Orrison, chairwoman of the social science department, said Lorch deserves praise for filling in for her ailing colleague.
     “We were desperate,” Orrison said. “She stepped up. We didn’t think it would be a problem.”

     Lorch was appointed in August 1993 to fill a vacancy on the board and earlier this year was elected to a four-year term. She has been a popular part-time instructor in the social science department at Saddleback since 1975, district officials said.
     Currently, she is paid more than $40 per hour in the classroom and is paid $400 a month for attending board meetings, Riopka said.
     Sneed said he barred Lorch from teaching at the district shortly after she joined the board in part because he believes the code limits trustees to teaching subjects relating to their occupations.
     Sneed said he questioned whether Lorch’s professional background at the time—as a civilian analyst for the Navy—permitted her to teach psychology.
     “It was something I obviously was concerned with,” Sneed said.
     School officials report that Lorch is an organizational psychology consultant, although it is unclear how that applies to child and adult developmental psychology, the course she teaches.
     When Lombardi took office in early 1994, he reversed Sneed’s decision based on a legal opinion. Lorch began teaching again in the summer 1994 session.
     The code is somewhat unclear on trustees who teach, said Tom Nussbaum, vice chancellor for legal affairs for the chancellor’s office of the California Community Colleges.
     “The code limits teaching to one class, but it’s a very technical law,” said Nussbaum, who said he personally advised Lorch she could teach one class. “I’m not sure she’s violating the spirit of it by substituting, but that has to be challenged at the local level. There are a lot of gray areas here.”

Trustee denies holocaust, according to former students (Francis; The Voice)

Trustee denies holocaust, according to former students 

(the Voice, 4/20/95) 

By Ked Francis Staff Writer 

Despite repeated denials by Trustee Steven Frogue, former students of the trustee claim in an April 4 Orange County Register report that he teaches a revisionist version of the Holocaust and claims the killing of 6 million Jews did not occur. 

According to Foothill High School student Emily Hoffman, Frogue "decided the Holocaust was made up." Frogue told his World Cultures class "the Jews made it up to make people feel sorry for them," according to Hoffman, who was quoted in the Register. "He said it was more like sixty people that got killed, rather than 6 million." 

Other high school students of Frogue's say he used racially derogatory terms in class, referring to Asians as "yellow people," Latinos as "brown people" and African Americans as "negras." 

Frogue denies the students' claims. "I don't even know most of the kids quoted in the article," Frogue said. "The Register reporter was inaccurate in everything he wrote, from my hometown to the spelling of students' names." 

Frogue admitted using racially sensitive terms, but claims they were to show the racist attitudes of others. "I use the term 'negra' to explain southern racist views during the civil rights movement. I quoted a World War II sermon that used the phrase 'yellow belly japs'' to show racist attitudes in wartime," Frogue said. 

Questions regarding Frogue's views on the Holocaust first arose when he harshly criticized the Anti-Defamation League and questioned its role in an IVC course on the Holocaust. At a January 23 Saddleback Community College District Board of Trustee meeting Frogue alleged that the ADL has conducted a "massive espionage apparatus against thousands of law abiding American citizens." 

Frogue continued his assault on the ADL at the Feb. 27 board meeting, but was challenged by Trustee Harriet Walther, who all but called Frogue a Holocaust denier. 

In a March 23 follow-up interview with The Voice, Frogue suggested that a notorious Holocaust denial group, the Institute for Historical Review, should be allowed to "enter the debate" regarding the Holocaust, while labeling claims he denied the Holocaust as "an obscenity." 

Finally, in the Register article Frogue questions whether 6 million Jews were killed in the Holocaust, drawing distinctions between "people who were actually killed, . . . people who actually died, . . . [and] people who were actually put in the gas chambers." 

Frogue's views echo those of the Institute for Historical Review (IHR), which claims in its publications that "there was no German program to exterminate Europe's Jews, that numerous claims of mass killings in 'gas chambers' are false, and that the estimate of six million Jewish wartime dead is an irresponsible exaggeration." 

Richard Prystowsky, the IVC professor whose course on the Holocaust drew Frogue's attention in January, said he is concerned about Frogue's comments that the IHR should enter "the debate" regarding the Holocaust. 

"What debate? There is no legitimate debate on the phenomenological reality of the final solution," [said] Prystowsky. "There simply is not." 

As for Frogue, he still expects to resume teaching at Foothill High School next fall, and continues to deny making the statements his students say he did. "But there are too many questions about the Holocaust for it to be judged a certainty in all aspects," Frogue said. 

Frogue called the controversy over the Register article "a bit of a nightmare, and all for telling the truth." 

Mel Mermelstein, a Holocaust survivor from Huntington Beach, suggested a simple solution to the Frogue controversy: "Let the people who elected him take care of the problem."

LETTER to the VOICE, 4/20/95 

ADL asserts Frogue made 'false and malicious statements' 

Dear Editor, 

     Steven Frogue, a trustee of the Saddleback Community College District, has made false and malicious statements about the Anti-Defamation League and others. While we will not respond specifically to his outrageous charges, we want to present an accurate picture of the ADL. 

     The Anti-Defamation League was founded over 80 years ago to "secure justice and fair treatment for all citizens alike and to put an end forever to unjust and unfair discrimination and ridicule against any sect or body of citizens." Throughout its history, the ADL has been in the forefront of efforts to protect minority groups and secure constitutional guarantees of free speech, equality and freedom of religion. 

     The ADL's model hate crimes legislation has been enacted at the state and federal levels. These laws, and the ADL's training program is combating hate crimes, helping law enforcement officials respond to violence against minority individuals. The ADL's support for the federal Religious Freedom Restoration ACT was instrumental in guaranteeing free exercise rights for all individuals. 

     The ADL also monitors anti-Semitic, racist and extremist groups and exposes their bigotry to the light of public scrutiny. Publications on such issues as neo-Nazi Skinheads, terrorism and private militias, have served to educate the Jewish community, law enforcement officials, educators, public officials and the larger American public. The ADL's report, "Embattled Bigots: A Split in the Ranks of the Holocaust Denial Movement," serves as an analysis update on developments regarding the leading Holocaust deniers in this country, including the Institute for Historical Review. 

     These reports are not published to silence those whose views differ from the ADL, as some critics have asserted. The ADL believes that the extremist ideology of bigots is best countered by an educated society. Therefore, our reports detail the racism, the anti-Semitism, the terrorist goals, and the denial of the Holocaust. In addition, the reports are an exercise of the ADL's own First Amendment rights to present information to the public and to voice the ADL's views and opinions. The ADL publications are recognized by public officials, the media, law enforcement and others as credible and informative. 

     Steven Frogue has voiced fabricated allegations about the ADL, irresponsibly implicated individuals in criminal activities without a shred of evidence and attempted to silence his adversaries by intimidation and smear tactics. The ADL's view of the First Amendment is that it protects Mr. Frogue's right to speak; apparently he would not extend the same protection to the ADL. 

     Sincerely, 

     Joyce Greenspan, 

     ADL Regional Director Orange County/Long Beach Office 

Trustee Steven Frogue and the Institute for Historical Review (5/11/95) 

by Roy Bauer 

Steven Frogue, a member of the Saddleback Community College Board of Trustees and a Foothill High School history instructor, recently expressed interest in the publications of the foremost Holocaust denial organization in the U.S.: the Institute for Historical Review. In an interview with The Voice, Frogue says: 

"There is a group, right here in Orange County, called the Institute for Historical Review...[T]hey have raised questions about [the Holocaust]. I've looked at some of their publications, kind of strange and definitely new, I've never seen anything like it before. There's somebody that wants to engage in the debate about the Holocaust." 

Frogue goes on to suggest that the IHR's headquarters were bombed and its research burned by enemies of the organization. This alleged fact leads Frogue to wonder if the IHR is onto something: 

"Then I say, 'wait a minute,' is it maybe they have uncovered some stuff that the public should know?" 

Oddly it does not occur to Frogue that the IHR bombing can be explained in ways that do not assume that the bombers sought to suppress truths. (Mightn't they have sought to suppress lies?) Contrary to Mr. Frogue, the fact (if it is a fact) that the IHR was bombed by some of its enemies does not provide a reason to respect IHR "evidence." 

 Do we have any reason to believe that the IHR has good evidence for its revisionist themes? Do we have any reason to take the IHR seriously? The organization's central idea is the denial of what is now understood as the Holocaust. Though the IHR asserts that it does not deny the Holocaust, in truth, it promulgates works that in essence do exactly that. Further, it has adopted Austin J. App's "incontrovertible assertions," including the thesis that the Third Reich's plan for solving the "Jewish problem" was emigration, not annihilation. 

 The first thing to note, then, is that the IHR denies what common sense affirms. Insofar as it does so, it is in about the same intellectual league as the Flat Earth Society. That the Holocaust revisionists promoted by the IHR suffer from serious lapses in thinking is indicated in other ways as well. For instance, revisionists are oblivious to the difficulties that attend grand conspiracy theories of the sort they embrace. No one doubts that, in the course of human history, secret plots have occasionally been carried out; but it is implausible to assert, as Holocaust revisionists do, that thousands of unerring and loyal conspirators have managed perfectly to execute a series of massive scams on the world. Such assertions defy reason. 

The common sense deficit in revisionist "research" is often matched by an honesty deficit. For instance, the editor of the IHR's Journal of Historical Review, Mark Weber, has written a leaflet for the IHR called "Auschwitz: Myths and Facts." In it, he writes that "America's leading gas chamber expert, Boston engineer Fred A. Leuchter, carefully examined [Auschwitz'] supposed 'gas chambers' in Poland and concluded that the Auschwitz gassing story is absurd and technically impossible." 

Sounds impressive. But, as Deborah Lipstadt reveals in her book Denying the Holocaust, Fred Leuchter, Weber's "expert," is not an engineer and has no education in engineering; indeed, he has been compelled by his home state of Massachusetts to refrain from presenting himself as an engineer. Further, Lipstadt can find no evidence that Leuchter has ever build a gas chamber. How, then, can it be that Leuchter is "the foremost specialist on the design and installation of gas chambers used in the United States to execute convicted criminals," as Weber claims? That the editor of the IHR's journal is willing in this way to play with the facts (or, alternatively, is capable of overlooking such important facts) rightly causes us to doubt the reliability of the IHR. 

So, too, do the efforts of the IHR's founder—Willis Carto—to disguise the organization's relationship with other organizations. The IHR insists that it is an independent entity dedicated only to uncovering the truth about history. Yet, in 1988, the United States Court of Appeals rejected an attempt by the IHR and various plainly racist and anti-Semitic entities to present themselves as unrelated. What many of these organizations have in common is the involvement of Willis Carto, who has a long history of anti-Semitic and racist activities, including the promotion of a scheme in the mid-fifties to return all blacks to Africa. Such backgrounds are typical among the central characters of the IHR saga. 

Can we rely on the likes of Willis Carto and Mark Weber to support honest and objective historical research? Surely we cannot. We reasonably suspect that at least some of the historical "investigations" that they sponsor or author are liable to be committed more to a hidden political agenda than to objectivity and truth. That suspicion combined with the evident dishonesty or incompetence of much revisionist "research" and the patent implausibility of revisionist conspiracy theories force this conclusion upon us: that we err when we fail to discriminate between the IHR and reliable research organizations. 

This, of course, is precisely the error that Mr. Frogue commits. That Frogue, a member of a college board of trustees, does not perceive his error is disturbing. 

Bauer is a philosophy instructor and the Humanities Department Chair

His view of Holocaust stirs furor (Dan Froomkin)

Dan Froomkin

Orange County Register
April 4, 1995

Teacher's view of Holocaust stirs furor

EDUCATION: Steven Frogue is embroiled in controversy at school-and at the community college district where he is a trustee.


By DAN FROOMKIN

TUSTIN-Some students at Foothill High School say history teacher Steven Frogue told them the Holocaust never happened.

Others say Frogue called his Asian students "yellow people," made derogatory remarks about other minorities and frequently quoted historical figures who used racist terms .

Last summer, after complaints from parents, Tustin Unified School District Officials pulled the 27-year teacher out of his classroom He's spending this year in charge of detention.

But Frogue denies the allegations.

And after he filed a grievance, the Tustin school board voted to send him back to his classroom next fall. The district's teacher contract doesn't allow administrators to reassign teachers for disciplinary reasons.

Officials said they can't discuss the case because it is a confidential personnel matter.

Frogue, an ex-Marine and a Presbyterian deacon, said he has no racist feelings and would never deny that the Holocaust took place. "It would be insane to say something like that," he said.

Yet for the past two months, Frogue has been using another pulpit-his position on the board of Saddleback Community College District-to make controversial comments about the Anti- Defamation League, a Jewish organization that fights anti-Semitism and chronicles the Holocaust.

And the furor exploded last week when Frogue told the Irvine Valley College student newspaper that he believes the Institute for Historical Review has "raised questions" about the Holocaust that should perhaps "enter the debate."

The institute, based in Costa Mesa, is the nation's foremost center of holocaust denial.

Even as the world prepares to mark the 50th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi concentration camps, the institute's members say the Nazis never had a policy of systematically exterminating Jews and call the widely accepted figure of about 6 million Jewish victims a wild exaggeration.

Frogue said he has raised questions, both in class and out, about the number of Jews killed.

"Was it 6 million who died?" Frogue asked, saying he wonders "whether it's the number of people who were actually killed, or the number of people who actually died, or the number of people who were actually put in the gas chambers."

But he called it "absolutely undeniable that a calamity of the first magnitude occurred."

Frogue ran unsuccessfully against Rep. Chris Cox in the Republican Congressional primaries in 1992 and 1994, and he describes himself as a conspiracy theorist who believes the assassination of President Kennedy was not the work of a lone gunman. He has been married to a fellow teacher for 28 years and lives in Mission Viejo.

At Foothill, an 1,800-student high school in affluent, unincorporated North Tustin, several colleagues have come to Frogue's defense.

"He certainly has been accused of various things, but having taught for many years I realize that students don't always understand or hear what is being said," fellow teacher Marilyn Reardon said. "I think he's a very fine, upstanding citizen."

Some students interviewed were supportive as well.

"He's opinionated," said senior Michele Churnack, 17. "But I learned more in his class than I did in any other class."

But several students recalled comments that they found shocking and offensive.

Junior Emily Hoffman, 16, took Frogue's World Cultures class as a freshman.

"He decided that the Holocaust was made up," Hoffman recalled.

"He basically said that the Jews made it up to make people feel sorry for them, because he decided that it was impossible for so many people to have been killed in such a short amount of time," she said.

"He said that it was more like 60 people that got killed, rather than 6 million.

"I would raise my hand and tell him, 'That's wrong,' and he would just really get mad at me and send me out of the class."

Classmate Leah Killen, 17, also recalled Frogue's comments about the Holocaust.

"He said it never happened." She said.

Frogue said he doesn't recall any such comment. "I can't think of anything even close to that that I would have said," he said.

Hoffman's friend Stacey Marcus, taking the same course during a different class period, started taking careful notes after Hoffman told her what she had heard.

Marcus' notebook contains several statements she found anti-Semitic. From her notes on a lecture about the Ottoman Empire: "Five percent of all Jewish people are bad, but 95 percent are just as good as the rest of us."

Frogue said he might have said that, but in a general context. "It would have been in a general statement about how you take any group, and there's probably 5 percent bad."

Senior Wendy Hayashi, 18, had Frogue last year for advanced-placement U.S. history.

"He said some really racist things that really really hurt a lot of his Asian students," Hayashi said. "There was this one time, I forget what he was talking about, but he called us 'yellow people.'"

Hayashi said he also referred to Mexicans as "brown people."

"He always characterized ethnicity by color, and it really bothered me. Maybe he was trying to be funny, but it didn't work."

Senior Jeanette Anderson, 18, said Frogue "would pick specific quotes using derogatory terms" and repeat them "over and over."

One time, one of those quotes included a derogatory word for blacks.

"It was shocking. My eyes almost came out of my head," Anderson said.

Two years ago, after Hoffman told her mother what Frogue had said about the Holocaust, Diane Hoffman went to see Foothill's then-principal, Janis Jones. Diane Hoffman said Jones gave her the impression that hers wasn't the first complaint.

"She explained to me that it was the students' word against his, that he had been counseled and he had been monitored and they hadn't seen anything, and unless somebody had it on tape recorder or had absolute proof, there was nothing she could do."

Jones, now an assistant superintendent, said she can't comment on personnel matters.

Students said Frogue avoided the topic of the Holocaust last year.

"He'd say, 'I know I'm going to get in trouble if I talk about it,'" said Allison Haines, 18.

But at the end of the year, Frogue was reassigned to run "on-campus suspension"--a sort of all-day detention program.

At the community college district, Frogue raised eyebrows in January by expressing concern about links between Professor Richard Prystowsky's Understanding the Holocaust class and the Anti-Defamation League, which he called a threat to academic freedom.

Prystowsky, in turn, expressed concern over Frogue's suggestion that the Institute for Historical Review should be taken seriously in academic circles.

"What are we possibly gaining there in listening to such an absurd point of view?" he asked.

Frogue, meanwhile, said he is happy to be heading back to the classroom.

"I'm a very good history teacher," he said. "I know my subject. I love my subject. All I want to do is teach it."


April 16, 1995
Letters to the editor

History and the Holocaust

Education: Foothill teacher demeans the profession

As a retired history teacher, I have had the experience of running across several biased and even prejudiced teachers, such as Foothill High School's Steven Frogue seems to be ["Teacher's view of holocaust stirs furor," Metro news, April 4].

The very fact that Frogue's classroom remarks stir up so much racial and religious controversy makes a sham of his claim, "I'm a very good history teacher. I know my subject. I love my subject. All I want to do is teach it." If he were such a "good" teacher, his remarks would not result in so much misunderstanding and disagreement among students and parents.

A "good" history teacher does not seriously rely on or even consider the views of an organization such as the "Institute for Historical Review." This organization is apparently primarily interested in promoting its hatred of Jews and the irrational twisting of history to suit this agenda. This organization's denial of the holocaust--a historical even witnessed and testified to by thousands living today--makes a mockery of its claim to be "historical."

Teachers and students face many difficulties and hazards in the public schools today. To continue to employ a teacher who, if not prejudiced, is certainly biased to the point of creating such attacks upon the racial and religious sensitivities of his students is not in keeping with the best our teachers have to offer.

Irving E. Friedman
Laguna Niguel


THE IHR: We are not 'Holocaust deniers.' 

Once again, the Register has inaccurately portrayed the Institute for Historical Review. The IHR cannot be "the nation's foremost center of holocaust denial" because we do not deny the Holocaust. We acknowledge that a great many Jews were killed and otherwise perished during World War II. What we dispute, among other things, is the familiar "6 million" estimate of Jewish victims, claims that the Nazis had a plan or policy to exterminate Europe's Jews, and allegations that the Nazis used gas chambers for mass murder.

Also, the IHR has no "members." What we do have is subscribers to our periodical, The Journal of Historical Review.

Greg Raven
Newport Beach
(Mr. Raven is associate editor of "The Journal of Historical Review”)

Excerpt from "A conversation with Steven Frogue" (Ked Francis)

Excerpt from "A conversation with Steven Frogue" (Ked Francis)
The VOICE, 3/23/95

THE VOICE: Are there lines you shouldn't cross in open debate? For example, should there be open debate with groups who claim the holocaust didn't occur?

FROGUE: There is a group, right here in Orange County, called the Institute for Historical Review...they have raised questions about some of this stuff. I've looked at some of their publications, kind of strange and definitely new, I've never seen anything like it before. There's somebody that wants to engage in the debate about the Holocaust. In 1984 their headquarters in Torrance was burned to the ground. Maybe that guy was back from his CIA stint. The guy who killed Alex Odeh, I don't know. It was not terribly long after that the FBI reported most of the terrorist actions in the United States in that previous year had been by pro-Israeli groups...Whatever their opinion about the Holocaust, if it's garbage, expose it to the light of day, why bomb their headquarters and burn all their information and research? Then I say, "Wait a minute," is it maybe they have uncovered some stuff that the public should know? Should they be able to enter the debate?

THE VOICE: Why are you no longer teaching?

FROGUE: I don't know. They reassigned me without consulting me or my department chairman. It makes no sense for me to spend all day supervising students...while my fellow teachers in my department are teaching 48 student classes.

THE VOICE: Are you being disciplined?

FROGUE: If it was anything like that, it was not brought to my attention. The only reason I was given was that I would do a good job here. I think it's a waste of taxpayer money. It could be run by campus supervisors...and here you have detention run by the best historian, the best history teacher in the school, maybe in the district, who knows, maybe even in the country. I think I'm good, judge for yourself. It just doesn't make sense.Irvine Valley College once had a student newspaper. It died an ignominious death, but that’s a story for another day.

* * *

Early in 1995, the IVC Voice interviewed Trustee Frogue. In it, reference is made to his being pulled from the classroom at Foothill High, where he taught history. Frogue praises the institute For Historical Review, a notorious Holocaust denial organization.

Not long after, the Orange County Register reported that some of Frogue’s students at Foothill High were accusing him of Holocaust denial. See “Teacher's view of Holocaust stirs furor,” 4/4/95 by Dan Froomkin.

The IVC Voice did some fine reporting about Frogue. 

[LATER, FROGUE EXACERBATED THE SITUATION CONSIDERABLY BY MAKING SOME CURIOUS REMARKS TO AN L.A. TIMES REPORTER. SEE:

Studying the Lessons of Steven J. Frogue : Profile: The teacher and Saddleback trustee does not retreat from controversy that his views generate 

(LA Times, Nov. 25, 1996)

By Michael Granberry

* * *

Trustee denies holocaust, according to former students (the Voice, 4/20/95)

By Ked Francis
Staff Writer

Despite repeated denials by Trustee Steven Frogue, former students of the trustee claim in an April 4 Orange County Register report that he teaches a revisionist version of the Holocaust and claims the killing of 6 million Jews did not occur.

According to Foothill High School student Emily Hoffman, Frogue "decided the Holocaust was made up." Frogue told his World Cultures class "the Jews made it up to make people feel sorry for them," according to Hoffman, who was quoted in the Register. "He said it was more like sixty people that got killed, rather than 6 million."

Other high school students of Frogue's say he used racially derogatory terms in class, referring to Asians as "yellow people," Latinos as "brown people" and African Americans as "negras."

Frogue denies the students' claims. "I don't even know most of the kids quoted in the article," Frogue said. "The Register reporter was inaccurate in everything he wrote, from my hometown to the spelling of students' names."

Frogue admitted using racially sensitive terms, but claims they were to show the racist attitudes of others. "I use the term 'negra' to explain southern racist views during the civil rights movement. I quoted a World War II sermon that used the phrase 'yellow belly japs'' to show racist attitudes in wartime," Frogue said.

Questions regarding Frogue's views on the Holocaust first arose when he harshly criticized the Anti-Defamation League and questioned its role in an IVC course on the Holocaust. At a January 23 Saddleback Community College District Board of Trustee meeting Frogue alleged that the ADL has conducted a "massive espionage apparatus against thousands of law abiding American citizens."

Frogue continued his assault on the ADL at the Feb. 27 board meeting, but was challenged by Trustee Harriet Walther, who all but called Frogue a Holocaust denier.

In a March 23 follow-up interview with The Voice, Frogue suggested that a notorious Holocaust denial group, the Institute for Historical Review, should be allowed to "enter the debate" regarding the Holocaust, while labeling claims he denied the Holocaust as "an obscenity."

Finally, in the Register article Frogue questions whether 6 million Jews were killed in the Holocaust, drawing distinctions between "people who were actually killed, . . . people who actually died, . . . [and] people who were actually put in the gas chambers."

Frogue's views echo those of the Institute for Historical Review (IHR), which claims in its publications that "there was no German program to exterminate Europe's Jews, that numerous claims of mass killings in 'gas chambers' are false, and that the estimate of six million Jewish wartime dead is an irresponsible exaggeration."

Richard Prystowsky, the IVC professor whose course on the Holocaust drew Frogue's attention in January, said he is concerned about Frogue's comments that the IHR should enter "the debate" regarding the Holocaust.

"What debate? There is no legitimate debate on the phenomenological reality of the final solution," [said] Prystowsky. "There simply is not."

As for Frogue, he still expects to resume teaching at Foothill High School next fall, and continues to deny making the statements his students say he did. "But there are too many questions about the Holocaust for it to be judged a certainty in all aspects," Frogue said.

Frogue called the controversy over the Register article "a bit of a nightmare, and all for telling the truth."

Mel Mermelstein, a Holocaust survivor from Huntington Beach, suggested a simple solution to the Frogue controversy: "Let the people who elected him take care of the problem."


LETTER to the VOICE, 4/20/95

ADL asserts Frogue made 'false and malicious statements'

Dear Editor,

Steven Frogue, a trustee of the Saddleback Community College District, has made false and malicious statements about the Anti-Defamation League and others. While we will not respond specifically to his outrageous charges, we want to present an accurate picture of the ADL.

The Anti-Defamation League was founded over 80 years ago to "secure justice and fair treatment for all citizens alike and to put an end forever to unjust and unfair discrimination and ridicule against any sect or body of citizens." Throughout its history, the ADL has been in the forefront of efforts to protect minority groups and secure constitutional guarantees of free speech, equality and freedom of religion.

The ADL's model hate crimes legislation has been enacted at the state and federal levels. These laws, and the ADL's training program is combating hate crimes, helping law enforcement officials respond to violence against minority individuals. The ADL's support for the federal Religious Freedom Restoration ACT was instrumental in guaranteeing free exercise rights for all individuals.

The ADL also monitors anti-Semitic, racist and extremist groups and exposes their bigotry to the light of public scrutiny. Publications on such issues as neo-Nazi Skinheads, terrorism and private militias, have served to educate the Jewish community, law enforcement officials, educators, public officials and the larger American public. The ADL's report, "Embattled Bigots: A Split in the Ranks of the Holocaust Denial Movement," serves as an analysis update on developments regarding the leading Holocaust deniers in this country, including the Institute for Historical Review.

These reports are not published to silence those whose views differ from the ADL, as some critics have asserted. The ADL believes that the extremist ideology of bigots is best countered by an educated society. Therefore, our reports detail the racism, the anti-Semitism, the terrorist goals, and the denial of the Holocaust. In addition, the reports are an exercise of the ADL's own First Amendment rights to present information to the public and to voice the ADL's views and opinions. The ADL publications are recognized by public officials, the media, law enforcement and others as credible and informative.

Steven Frogue has voiced fabricated allegations about the ADL, irresponsibly implicated individuals in criminal activities without a shred of evidence and attempted to silence his adversaries by intimidation and smear tactics. The ADL's view of the First Amendment is that it protects Mr. Frogue's right to speak; apparently he would not extend the same protection to the ADL.

Sincerely,,
Joyce Greenspan, ADL Regional Director
Orange County/Long Beach Office

Trustee Steven Frogue and the Institute for Historical Review (5/11/95)

by Roy Bauer

Steven Frogue, a member of the Saddleback Community College Board of Trustees and a Foothill High School history instructor, recently expressed interest in the publications of the foremost Holocaust denial organization in the U.S.: the Institute for Historical Review. In an interview with The Voice, Frogue says:

"There is a group, right here in Orange County, called the Institute for Historical Review...[T]hey have raised questions about [the Holocaust]. I've looked at some of their publications, kind of strange and definitely new, I've never seen anything like it before. There's somebody that wants to engage in the debate about the Holocaust."

Frogue goes on to suggest that the IHR's headquarters were bombed and its research burned by enemies of the organization. This alleged fact leads Frogue to wonder if the IHR is onto something:

"Then I say, 'wait a minute,' is it maybe they have uncovered some stuff that the public should know?"

Oddly it does not occur to Frogue that the IHR bombing can be explained in ways that do not assume that the bombers sought to suppress truths. (Mightn't they have sought to suppress lies?) Contrary to Mr. Frogue, the fact (if it is a fact) that the IHR was bombed by some of its enemies does not provide a reason to respect IHR "evidence."

Do we have any reason to believe that the IHR has good evidence for its revisionist themes? Do we have any reason to take the IHR seriously? The organization's central idea is the denial of what is now understood as the Holocaust. Though the IHR asserts that it does not deny the Holocaust, in truth, it promulgates works that in essence do exactly that. Further, it has adopted Austin J. App's "incontrovertible assertions," including the thesis that the Third Reich's plan for solving the "Jewish problem" was emigration, not annihilation.

The first thing to note, then, is that the IHR denies what common sense affirms. Insofar as it does so, it is in about the same intellectual league as the Flat Earth Society. That the Holocaust revisionists promoted by the IHR suffer from serious lapses in thinking is indicated in other ways as well. For instance, revisionists are oblivious to the difficulties that attend grand conspiracy theories of the sort they embrace. No one doubts that, in the course of human history, secret plots have occasionally been carried out; but it is implausible to assert, as Holocaust revisionists do, that thousands of unerring and loyal conspirators have managed perfectly to execute a series of massive scams on the world. Such assertions defy reason.

The common sense deficit in revisionist "research" is often matched by an honesty deficit. For instance, the editor of the IHR's Journal of Historical Review, Mark Weber, has written a leaflet for the IHR called "Auschwitz: Myths and Facts." In it, he writes that "America's leading gas chamber expert, Boston engineer Fred A. Leuchter, carefully examined [Auschwitz'] supposed 'gas chambers' in Poland and concluded that the Auschwitz gassing story is absurd and technically impossible."

Sounds impressive. But, as Deborah Lipstadt reveals in her book Denying the Holocaust, Fred Leuchter, Weber's "expert," is not an engineer and has no education in engineering; indeed, he has been compelled by his home state of Massachusetts to refrain from presenting himself as an engineer. Further, Lipstadt can find no evidence that Leuchter has ever build a gas chamber. How, then, can it be that Leuchter is "the foremost specialist on the design and installation of gas chambers used in the United States to execute convicted criminals," as Weber claims? That the editor of the IHR's journal is willing in this way to play with the facts (or, alternatively, is capable of overlooking such important facts) rightly causes us to doubt the reliability of the IHR.

So, too, do the efforts of the IHR's founder—Willis Carto—to disguise the organization's relationship with other organizations. The IHR insists that it is an independent entity dedicated only to uncovering the truth about history. Yet, in 1988, the United States Court of Appeals rejected an attempt by the IHR and various plainly racist and anti-Semitic entities to present themselves as unrelated. What many of these organizations have in common is the involvement of Willis Carto, who has a long history of anti-Semitic and racist activities, including the promotion of a scheme in the mid-fifties to return all blacks to Africa. Such backgrounds are typical among the central characters of the IHR saga.

Can we rely on the likes of Willis Carto and Mark Weber to support honest and objective historical research? Surely we cannot. We reasonably suspect that at least some of the historical "investigations" that they sponsor or author are liable to be committed more to a hidden political agenda than to objectivity and truth. That suspicion combined with the evident dishonesty or incompetence of much revisionist "research" and the patent implausibility of revisionist conspiracy theories force this conclusion upon us: that we err when we fail to discriminate between the IHR and reliable research organizations.

This, of course, is precisely the error that Mr. Frogue commits. That Frogue, a member of a college board of trustees, does not perceive his error is disturbing.

Bauer is a philosophy instructor and the Humanities Department Chair