Friday, February 9, 2001

College district blocks student trips to Los Angeles--er, Cuba! (Red Emma)


     Red Emma sure does know how to piss people off. Check out this piece he wrote for the Weekly (LA? No Way!).
     This piece was inspired by real events, which are described by the news articles that follow


OC WEEKLY
February 9 - 15, 2001

LA? No Way?
College district blocks student trips to Los Angeles

by Andrew Tonkovich

     Hot on the heels of its recent vote to disallow a student trip to Cuba, South Orange County Community College District (SOCCCD) trustees on Monday night voted to block all student outings to Los Angeles County. "The trustees have serious concerns about allowing district-sponsored travel to Los Angeles," said a district spokesperson. "It’s far away and dangerous. Plus, students might get lost."
     In discussion of the recent controversial Cuba vote, trustees cited a report that "Fidel Castro made derogatory remarks about President George W. Bush." Later, in announcing the ban on Los Angeles field trips, conservative members of the board of trustees raised concerns about student health and safety during visits to the nearby metropolis.
     "It’s all about protecting our kids," said one.
     Recently elected trustee Tom Fuentes voiced concerns that students might not understand compact cars, sidewalks, mass transit or rent control.
     "These concerns are not political," said Fuentes, who is Orange County’s longtime Republican Party chairman.
     Indeed, some students at the district’s South County community colleges—Saddleback and Irvine Valley—have never visited Los Angeles, which is 50 miles north of Mission Viejo, the district’s administrative headquarters.
     "I’ve heard of it," said one Saddleback College student. "Isn’t that, like, where they had the riots?"
     Fuentes expressed legal concerns, noting judges in LA County had ruled in several federal suits brought against the SOCCCD, finding that trustees had violated student, faculty and staff rights. "The judges up there are unbelievable," complained Fuentes. "I’m not sure if they even recognize our laws. There may be jurisdictional, even diplomatic issues here. You can bet I’m going to consult with Chris on this one."
     Fuentes’ reference to Congressman Christopher Cox (R-Newport Beach) reflects his close relationship to the author of a widely discredited report on China’s security threat to the U.S. Cox contributed $5,000 to Fuentes’ election campaign, in which he replaced the retiring Steven J. Frogue, the target of two recall attempts.
     In explaining the LA travel ban, Fuentes cited Los Angeles as a Democratic Party stronghold. "I understand," he said, "that members of the LA City Council made derogatory remarks about President Bush. Some even suggested that he didn’t win the election and lacked the intellectual capacity to govern!" As the local GOP chieftain, Fuentes introduced then-candidate George W. Bush to audiences across the state. Many speculate that Fuentes expects a position in the Bush administration.
     Current district policy allows student visits to maquiladoras in Mexico, sweatshops in Indonesia and public executions in China. Indeed, the board had approved a recent study-abroad trip to the last country, the largest Communist nation in the world. Also, current policies permit students to organize field trips to agricultural fields in Orange County or to any number of restaurants and fast-food retailers employing underpaid and undocumented workers from El Salvador, Mexico, Guatemala and even Los Angeles. Some students have inquired about visiting Europe.
     "Yes, they are certainly free to go there," said a district spokesperson. "But what for? George Dubya hasn’t been there."
     Controversial board member Dorothy Fortune, who in the past has been a beneficiary of homophobic campaign literature, raised the issue of district liability. "If a student acts in any way offensive to the county of Los Angeles, the district would be potentially liable," she said. Asked what behavior this might include, Fortune, a longtime Democrat-turned-Republican, said that sometimes people’s actions can be misinterpreted.
     "You know," she said.
     Fortune discounted Cuba’s reputation for providing among the highest quality of free public health-care services in the hemisphere. "Oh, sure," she said. "And bring up Canada, too, why don’tcha?"
     Meanwhile, a district spokesperson—a different district spokesperson than the one referenced in the first paragraph of this story—denied rumors of a plan to sponsor an Irvine Valley-Saddleback College student tour of Dachau, Bergen-Belsen and Auschwitz led by former board president and Holocaust revisionist Steven Frogue.
     "That would just be wrong," said the spokesperson (again, this is the second spokesperson, not the first one). "Wouldn’t it? Well, wouldn’t it?"
     Eager to move past the Cuba/LA controversy, trustees took the opportunity to announce their latest comprehensive initiatives, including:
•A program to coordinate critical thinking and reading programs with the Orange, Tustin and Newport-Mesa high school districts, where parents have recently lobbied to ban novels by Ken Kesey, Isabel Allende and David Guterson. 
•The launching of a "Straight-Straight Alliance" organization to encourage traditional heterosexual dating among students. 
•The Richard M. Nixon "Ethics in Government" certificate program.
--Andrew Tonkovich is an Irvine Valley College instructor.

* * *

College's Cuba trip bothers trustees (OC Reg)

EDUCATION: The study-abroad venture has been OKd by Saddleback College's president.
January 27, 2001

By MARLA JO FISHER

MISSION VIEJO - Trustees are balking at the idea of a Saddleback College-sponsored study trip to Cuba, saying it would not be appropriate to allow students to go to a communist country with a record of human-rights violations, according to a student trustee who favors the trip.
            Trustees who criticized the Cuba trip in November approved a study visit to the People's Republic of China during the same meeting, student trustee Jason Wamhoff said.
            "The students want this trip," Wamhoff said Friday. "It is already full. And China has more human-rights violations than Cuba does."
. . .
            Saddleback's program was approved by Saddleback President Dixie Bullock and the district's acting chancellor before it was sent to the trustees.
. . .
            "I still have mixed feelings about it, because I worked with Cuban refugees when I was in Texas," Bullock said. "But if a faculty member comes to me with a proposal that is done properly, approved up through the line and I don't have any specific objections, I'll approve it."
. . .
            Two trustees - Tom Fuentes and Dorothy Fortune – were questioning the appropriateness of the trip, Wamhoff said. Neither returned phone calls Friday….

* * *

College trustees reject Cuban trip (OC Reg)

January 30, 2001

By MARLA JO FISHER and JOAN HANSEN

MISSION VIEJO - Students at Saddleback College won't be going on a school-sponsored trip to Cuba after trustees voted 5-2 Monday to abort the first-ever study-abroad program to the island nation.
            "The liability to the district is enormous to send students to Cuba, whether we have insurance or the perfect tour operator or not," college trustee Dorothy Fortune said. "If there are any problems, they are going to sue us."
. . .
            Dozens of colleges, including Duke and Emory universities and other top-rated institutions have study programs in the communist country.
            But trustees rejected the plan, saying the United States has no embassy there, and criticizing the nation's attitudes toward Americans, politics and safety.
. . .
            Trustees David Lang and Marcia Milchiker voted to support the trip.
            As proposed, the trip would have been financed entirely through $2,250-per-student fees and included 10 days in Havana studying culture, history, politics and economics.
. . .
            Trustees previously approved trips to other communist countries, including the People's Republic of China.


* * *
IRVINE WORLD NEWS

Letters to the editor, Feb. 8

Community colleges should promote trips to Cuba

It is with disbelief that we read the reasons South Orange County Community College district trustee Tom Fuentes gave for voting against the students from Saddleback Community College going on a trip to Cuba.
. . .
The fact that one of the other reasons given by board members is that Fidel Castro made derogatory remarks about President George W. Bush is really ridiculous. Our government is always making such remarks about Fidel Castro….
--Angelo and Marilyn Vassos

Roy's obituary in LA Times and Register: "we were lucky to have you while we did"

  This ran in the Sunday December 24, 2023 edition of the Los Angeles Times and the Orange County Register : July 14, 1955 - November 20, 2...