Monday, July 10, 2006

Fun summer reading

Mathur's Sept. 1999 deposition

While writing the blog below ("Let there be wooage," earlier this morning), I added something to the archive. It is a transcript of RAGHU MATHUR's famous deposition in connection with my First Amendment lawsuit.

The deposition, which features my attorney (Carol Sobel), the district's attorney (Dave Larsen), and, of course, Mathur, is very long, but I've added section headings, so you can skip around (see below).

Those who know or know of Chancellor Raghu P. Mathur will, I believe, be amused by his remarks.

Some highlights:

• Raghu explains that he keeps what amount to secret files on IVC faculty. According to the Ed Code, the district must maintain a single file per employee, the contents of which are to made clear to the employee. Mathur acknowledges that he keeps yet another file--the contents of which, evidently, are not disclosed.

• Raghu claims to have received about a dozen threats--letters, emails, voicemail--(as per usual, he plays the "race" card) stretching back to about 1990.

Under aggressive questioning, he acknowledges that he has no documentation of these alleged "threats." Evidently, he has chosen to keep nothing.

But Mathur is a notorious liar. More likely, he just made this all up.

• Raghu names four faculty who, he charges, have been hostile to him and to whom he attributes the "threats." Included among them: Kate Clark (who subsequently served as the State Academic Senate President), Bob Deegan, and Pam Deegan (both respected executive administrators now working in other community college districts).

Raghu's efforts to explain why he views these persons as threatening or how he knows that they are source of threats are often hilarious. He appears to be fond of wild non sequiturs.

• In the course of the deposition, it becomes clear that Mathur is in the habit of making groundless assumptions about his critics.

• At one point, Mathur describes a "threat" he received over the phone; it had, he says, a mysterious "altered" voice!

Mathur's Sept. 1999 deposition

Sections:

1. It begins
2. Renew my subscription to this offensive newsletter
3. Shoe fittage
4. The testimony was MAIM
5. Mathurian logic
6. He meant to do harm to my body
7. “Objective independent” thinking
8. Enemies list: a love story
9. The literary insights of the Three Stooges
10. The curious case of professor R
11. Evidence, please
12. Properly dealing with student complaints
13. The “whore” rumor
14. Mathur’s secret files
15. Raghu’s ever-changing “threats” story
16. Again with the non sequiturs
17. The “case” against Bob Deegan
18. The “case” against Kate Clark
19. Pam’s “hostility”
20. It’s racist if I say it is
21. The mysterious “altered” voice
22. Alleged anti-Asian email
23. My life is in danger
24. “Evidence,” Raghu style
25. Mathur’s inexplicable failure to document the alleged “threats”
26. Seven out of a thousands
27. Mathur violates the contract again
28. Tempers flare; Carol kicks butt

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