STEVE FROGUE, SEEKER OF “TRUTH”:
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--From the Register, 4/4/95
“...there are too many questions about the Holocaust for it to be judged a certainty in all aspects.”
--Frogue quoted in the IVC student newspaper the Voice, 4/20/95
“There’s a group, right here in Orange County, called the Institute for Historical Review...they have raised questions about [the occurrence of the Holcaust]. 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?”
--Frogue, quoted in the IVC Voice, 3/23/95 (The Institute for Historical Review, founded in the early ‘80s by notorious anti-Semite and racist Willis Carto, is the foremost Holocaust denial organization in the U.S.)
--Frogue describing the toll he had taken over the controversy over the April, 1995, OC Register article. (Voice, 4/20/95)
PUBLIC ENEMY #1: THE ANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE
An Irvine Valley College class on the Holocaust has been called into question by a college district trustee due to the professor’s involvement in a Holocaust project...Trustee Steven Frogue has publicly questioned the role of the ADL in Professor Richard Prystowsky’s class and the Holocaust Oral History Project, saying he is “distressed” that Prystowsky “is a Holocaust scholar and heavily involved in the Anti-Defamation League of Orange County’s Holocaust Project”....
Frogue spoke out against the ADL at the Jan. 23, 1995 meeting of the Board of Trustees, alleging that the ADL has conducted a “massive espionage apparatus against thousands of law abiding American citizens.”
According to Frogue, the conspiracy is widespread. The ADL has been “violating the rights of Americans, working in conjunction illegally with various police departments and police agencies, federal, state, and local.”
--From an article in IVC’s Voice, February 23, 1995. In fact, Prystowsky has never been a member of the ADL, and the ADL had no role in his course. Frogue’s charges against the ADL have not been substantiated.
“[The ADL is a] group of spies that actively keeps files on people...people like me.”
--Frogue, quoted in the LA Times, 11/25/96
“I believe Lee Harvey Oswald worked for the ADL...That’s right...I believe the ADL was behind [the JFK assassination].”
--Frogue, quoted in the LA Times, 11/25/96.
STEVE FROGUE, PROTECTOR OF FREEDOM:
“[The ADL] keep[s] files on over 10,000 individuals in this state, 950 organizations...I consider the group a threat to academic freedom and a danger to civil liberties in this country.”
--Frogue, quoted in the IVC Voice, 3/23/95
“Freedom of speech does not entail license.”
--Frogue, responding to a concern, expressed by Tamara Carnine, that those who criticize or question IVC president Raghu Mathur seem to risk disciplinary action from him; at a board meeting, 5/19/97
--Frogue, from a letter, dated 10/6/96, distributed by the faculty union (which supports him).
“We have the same type of problem here that we've had over the last three years...And we've seen it in this last week here, where lies get printed in the newspapers...It's called ‘blow back.’ It's the oldest game in the book. You plant something in the newspaper that's false--I've suffered this type of stuff personally from people in this very room: repeating lies. The lies, just by getting printed get--’Well, it was printed; it therefore must be the truth’...They spin this stuff--people (can be) inventive, conscientious, and creative liars and the truth seems to be whatever lies they think they can get away with. And it's time that maybe a little bit of this stuff stops.”
--Frogue, remarking on the district’s Academic Senates during the May 19, 1997, board meeting.
“The Register reporter was inaccurate in everything he wrote, from my hometown to the spelling of students’ names.”
--Frogue, quoted in the IVC Voice, 4/20/95
During the August 18 board meeting, Joyce Greenspan of the ADL revealed the unsavory nature of the guest speakers--especially Mr. Michael Collins Piper, who is on the staff of an anti-Semitic newspaper--whom Mr. Frogue was about to propose for his forum on the JFK assassination. She also repeated a quote from a November ‘96 Times piece in which Frogue said that the ADL was behind the Kennedy assassination.
Frogue then responded as follows:
FROGUE: Michael Collins Piper--I met him in Washington, D.C., a year ago. He has written a book, Final Judgment, which blames certain elements of the CIA associated through James...Engleton, head of counter-intelligence, and certain elements of organized crime for the assasssination.
Regarding the quote in the Los Angeles Times, November 25th: like about everything else in that article, it’s untrue. I never said it, it’s ridiculous and--how they can quote me as saying something like that--I never said it. It’s ridiculous, and I never said it. So much for that.
ROY BAUER, interrupting: (So) all the papers are liars. All the papers. The Register, the LA Times, the Irvine World News--they’re all liars. Is there a conspiracy against you? Is that what’s going on?
FROGUE: No...we’re getting away from this. What we have...
BAUER: Are you still a fan of the Institute for Historical Review?
FROGUE: Mr...? You’re out of order, please.
“Any person that has any concern about the April 4, ‘Register’ article...need only realize that the vile statements attributed to me are entirely false, and are the offshoot of questions I have raised about the validity of faculty senate elections (or non-elections as is the case this year), and questions about any possible role of the Anti-Defamation League in a Holocaust course at Irvine Valley College. In both cases I found a group of most industrious and inventive liars involved in a propaganda campaign that even a child could figure out. Not much different than certain quarters of our own school district. Chasing the lies is a bit time consuming, but - hey - someone’s got to do it.”
--From a memo from Frogue to some of his High School colleagues, May 2, 1995
“...certain people know that they’re not going to be able to get away with telling lies and falsehoods and some of those people, I honestly think, if they could get by with telling the truth, they’d tell a lie just to keep in practice.”
--Frogue remarking on members of the IVC Academic Senate, March, 1995. (The IVC Voice, 3/23/95)
FROGUE: Well again that’s the general idea of the smear--don’t answer the question, smear people and raise this business of--I never in my life said anything that could remotely be considered denying the holocaust. This is obscene, this is an obscenity to say that--and what can I say? It’s a part of the big lie campaign--tell a lie that’s so stunning that it leaves people speechless. I never said that...It’s just appalling.
--From the IVC Voice, 3/23/95
TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA “LIARS”:
“He decided that the Holocaust was made up...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...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.”
--Emily Hoffman, one of Frogue’s students, quoted in the 1995 Register piece
--Leah Killen, one of Frogue’s students, quoted in the Register piece
“He said some really racist things that really really hurt a lot of his Asian students...There was this one time, I forget what he was talking about, but he called us ‘yellow people’...He always characterized ethnicity by color, and it really bothered me. Maybe he was trying to be funny, but it didn’t work.”
--Wendy Hayashi, one of Frogue’s students, quoted in the Register piece)
“Five percent of all Jewish people are bad, but 95 percent are just as good as the rest of us.”
--From student Stacey Marcus’ notes of one of Frogue’s lectures. (From the 1995 Register piece).
--From the OC Register, 9/16/97
"He also said the Holocaust did not exist," [Danielle] Brown told the board...Brown, who attends the Mormon church, also told the board that Frogue made derogatory comments about Mormons as well.
--From the LA Times, 9/16/97
Pam Bustamante, 24, who works as a World Wide Web designer, told The Times on Tuesday that she was a student of Frogue's in 1989, before graduating from Foothill High in 1990. Bustamante, who is Jewish, said she complained to school authorities when Frogue refused to mention the Holocaust during a lengthy discussion of World War II.
"I remember him going into great detail about Japanese internment camps, but when I asked him to discuss the Holocaust, he refused, which upset me a great deal,” Bustamante said. "I lost 48 relatives in the Holocaust, so I found his attitude extremely disturbing."
--From the LA Times, 9/17/97
[Former student Danielle] Brown also said that statements by Frogue about the Mormon religion had gotten so derogatory, she walked out of his class. She said Frogue described the Jewish and Mormon religions as “cults inspired by the devil."
--From the Irvine World News, 9/18/97
STEVEN FROGUE, IRONIST:
“The classrooms of the community college district and all public schools are not to be used as pulpits for pushing one particular idea or another.”
--Frogue, quoted in the IVC Voice, 3/23/95. In early 1995, Frogue used up much board time, over several meetings, to attack the ADL, prompting the Irvine World News to ask, What does all this “have to do with running the Saddleback Community College District?”
--From Frogue’s written report to the Board of Trustees on June 6, 1994. (Orange County Superior Court Judge William McDonald recently ruled that Frogue and other members of the board majority (Williams, Fortune, and Lorch) violated five sections of the California Open Meeting Law. Indeed, it seems clear that the board majority has often violated that law. Further, recently, as the search for the IVC president approached, these same four Trustees pressured Chancellor Lombardi to impose a
process that clearly violated the district’s hiring procedures, a fact later acknowledged by Lombardi.
(Frogue’s disciple, Raghu Mathur, has displayed a similarly strong propensity to violate rules.)
“An intellectual drive-by shooting.”
--Frogue’s description of two IVC Academic Senate resolutions that condemned his conduct; Februrary, 1995.
“An intellectual spur posse.”
--Frogue’s description of the IVC Academic Senate, February, 1995. He was referring, of course, to the gang of high school boys who kept a tally of their sexual conquests.
“Thought police.”
--Frogue’s characterization of the ADL and its supporters, February, 1995.
“The Spanish Inquisition carried out by fifth graders.”
--Frogue, characterizing the work of an IVC Academic Senate Fact Finding Committee that was investigating Frogue’s reprimand of the IVC Senate President; 4/94.
“I used 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, explaining his use of racial terms in his high school classroom. (The IVC Voice, 4/20/95)
THE “RIGGED ELECTIONS” EPISODE, May 19:
The following exchange occurred at the May 19, 1997 board of trustees meeting. A few minutes earlier, the president of the IVC Academic Senate had informed the board of the results of a faculty-wide vote of “no confidence” in the trustees concerning their appointment of Raghu Mathur as Interim President one month earlier. 73% of the voting faculty, she said, voted “no confidence.” Not long after, Trustee Frogue spoke of “liars” in the press--and in the room. Then, when faculty union president Miller-White, a supporter of Mr. Frogue, suggested that the Academic Senates, which had been critical of the board, fall “under the auspices” of the board and should be investigated by them, Frogue offered this remark:
FROGUE: I've seen rigged elections. (Indecipherable) votes of no confidence--I've seen rigged elections in one of the colleges. I've seen it twice, personally, personally--with rigged elections. And so when...people talk about...votes of this or votes of that, I just think you have to take it with a grain of salt. Moving along...(Philosophy instructor Roy Bauer begins to speak over Trustee Frogue: "Are you saying that...")
BAUER: Excuse me. Are you saying that the [IVC faculty] referendum was rigged?
FROGUE: No.
(?): Then what are you saying?
FROGUE: I'm saying that there've been rigged elections in the past.
(?:) By whom?
FROGUE: The Academic Senate of Irvine Valley College [mixed voices. Frogue responds to something:] I just said it. There have been rigged elections...
BAUER: Was it [i.e., the vote of no confidence] rigged or not?
.....
JAN WYMA: We've been called liars here tonight; we may as well get it out in the open.
BAUER: (Addressing Frogue:) Who is the liar and what's the lie?
WYMA: (We're having) a public meeting and you [Frogue] call our faculty liars!
FROGUE: I said there have been rigged elections at Irvine Valley College. I've seen them. Twice. You want me to name names?...The evidence is in the record.
.....
(?): The record exonerated the Senate.
FROGUE: The record did not exonerate the Senate.
(?): I'd like (you) to name names.
FROGUE: The record...We can, if you'd like [mixed voices, indecipherable; reference is made by someone to Frogue's speaking of liars.] No, I didn't call anybody "liars." I said there were rigged elections.
BAUER: You, sir, are a coward.
FROGUE: No, I'm not.
DAMN, I’M GOOD!
THE VOICE: Why are you no longer teaching?
FROGUE: I don’t know. They reassigned me [to detention duty] without consulting me or my department chairman. It makes no sense for me to spend all day supervising students...
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...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.
--From an interview in the IVC Voice, 3/23/95
STEVE FROGUE: INSPIRATIONAL SPEAKER
“I turned, however, and there's an inscription on the wall that left me transfixed. And it said that every time a person stands up, and stands up to, that which is wrong, they start a small ripple, and if enough people stand up against what is wrong, they can truly cause a wave to form that will change the world. It was the most beautiful thing that I've ever seen. Very inspiring and something that we can all learn from and profit from.”
--Frogue, at the May 19, 1997, board meeting, describing his trip to Arlington national cemetary.
“In that there be no taint of sex discrimmination [sic] or reverse sex discrimmination [sic] in the process of choosing our next department chair, I would like to point out that for over ten years...our department chair has always been a woman, either by election or administrative selection. In that we will have only one full-time and one part-time female teacher in our department next year..., it is perhaps time to consider an alternative to a female department chairperson.”
--From a memo from Frogue to members of his department (at Foothill High School) in which he solicits their “support for the position of Social Science Department Chair”; May 2, 1995
ANGRY STEVE SOILS HIS TROUSERS:
“I’ve had my name dragged through the mud. You want to look for a hate crime, you look in this room where people here have soiled my name.”
--Frogue, speaking to the Orange County Human Relations Commission concerning comments made about him and his JFK conspiracy course, 9/11/97. (Taken from the OC Register, 9/12/97.)
STEVE ON “BLACK HEROES”--AND AIDS:
“O.J. Simpson, Michael Jackson, Mike Tyson, Magic Johnson, Arthur Ashe. Five black heroes who have fallen into disgrace.”
--A Froguian observation made during a board meeting. When asked about Arthur Ashe’s inclusion on the list, Frogue is said to have replied: “He died of AIDS.” Oh.
