The Mathur discrimination trial: according to witnesses, in 1997, Mathur rejected a candidate because of her ethnicity

•

Day 2 of the Raghu Mathur “discrimination” trial. (See previous post: DAY 1.)

HE SMILED:

IT IS IMPOSSIBLE to watch this trial unfold without noticing the trail of disrupted and damaged lives left in the wake of Raghu P. Mathur's pursuit of administrative advancement. You know all the names.

—But, no, you don't know all the names. During lunch today, I spoke with (plaintiff) Cely Mora's attorney, Carol, and with various other friends and colleagues. One colleague had a look of sadness on his face as he described the unhappiness of one of the unsung victims of Mathur's profoundly unfortunate 2001 hiring of Rodney Poindexter as Dean of PE, Health Sciences, and Athletics: a non-academic employee who had simply tried to do her job, a quiet job, she thought. But, then, suddenly, she found herself in something big and ugly and incomprehensible. I listened with horror and surprise.

"She just hasn't been able to get past it," explained the colleague.

As he spoke, I looked up and spotted Mathur at the other end of the cafeteria, next to a vending machine, speaking on the phone. He was only a few feet away from his table. There sat his very expensive lawyers—paid for, naturally, by the district. They're good.

Mathur seemed confident. He smiled.


WHAT'S YOUR NAME?

Proceedings started just after 9:00 a.m. Ted W of PE was on the witness stand. He detailed his experiences as a member of the “dean search” that yielded the hire of Rodney Poindexter as Dean of PE, Health Sciences, and Athletics—thanks to the decision by Mathur (then President of Irvine Valley College) to hire that inexperienced White Guy from Virginia instead of the celebrated and experienced and tried-and-true Latina (Aracely Mora) who is now suing his ass.

Well, when that went south and the school ended up with Dean Poindexter, the faculty made a real effort to work with the guy. (I've been impressed by the manifest magnanimity of some of these witnesses.) But, from Day 1, the new dean was a mega-disaster. Ted related several incidents. He described the infamous episode in which Poindexter ran after and screamed at secretary Suzi F. There were other episodes, all involving women, never men. Poindexter messed with their teaching schedules, adopted menacing postures, routinely became angry at them. He didn’t do that to the men.

Eventually, Judge Matz called for a break. (During the break, Mathur’s lawyer, Dennis W, walked up to me and asked if I minded telling him my name. “Yes, I do mind,” I said. Creep.)

TENNIS SHOES:

Later, we heard about one female instructor’s attempt to secure tennis shoes for her athletes. For that, she had to meet with her dean—Poindexter. That was the standing order: if you want anything, you must meet personally with the dean. But the meeting (according to one witness) yielded another Poindexterian eruption of frustration and anger and bizarre sudden exits. The instructor was reduced to cowering.

Knowing of these incidents, Ted, the chair of his department, complained to administrator Glenn R, who said: give Rod a chance. Plus: you people are exaggerating.

No we’re not, said Ted.

Under cross, Mathur’s lawyer pursued a favored defense motif: Here, again, someone is testifying for Cely—but isn’t he a close personal friend of hers, Hmmm?

J’accuse!

SCORING ISSUES, NAIVETE:

At about noon, Judge A. Howard Matz—a prickly and demanding fellow—sent the jury out to lunch, but he kept the two opposing attorneys back to spank ‘em for a while. The jury is “utterly befuddled,” he declared. You need a chronology! Charts!

After lunch, Mathur’s attorney was all over the fact that Ted had given Poindexter a pretty good score after the first-level interview. Plus Ted had joined with the rest of the committee in a decision to send Poindexter’s name along with Mora’s to the next level—to be interviewed by President Mathur.

If Poindexter was so damned unqualified, why were you people sending up his name?

Ted explained that this particular dean search was the second go-round, and if the committee didn’t send up three names, Mathur would shut the process down, and the whole damn thing would start from scratch again. He really thought that Mathur would hire the candidate who was plainly the most qualified.

“I was naïve,” said Ted.

Mathur's attorney unveiled another motif: you faculty didn't want to start the process over, cuz then you might not get on the committee next time! Isn't that it!

DO THE RIGHT THING:

Next up on the witness stand was Ted’s colleague Martin M, who also served on the Dean hiring committee. He told very similar tales. No, he definitely didn’t want to send Poindexter’s name up to the next level, but he hoped that Mathur would “do the right thing” by choosing the best candidate.

Mathur’s lawyer again pounced all over the “friendship” that existed between Martin and Mora at the time of the dean search. Wasn’t she a close friend of yours? —Sure, said Martin, but everyone in the School is a close personal friend. That just happens when your work together with people.

Martin described Poindexter’s meltdowns. It was pretty gruesome.

I’ve got to say: that Poindexter fella was SERIOUSLY MESSED UP. Worse than I ever knew.


BECAUSE OF HER ETHNICITY:

The next witness, Priscilla R, was the chair of a hiring committee for a biology instructor. This was back in 1997. She explained how the committee had judged that one candidate, Maala A (a female of Sri Lankan ethnicity), was stellar, but the remaining candidates were far less impressive. Once again, they faced the likelihood that Mathur, the spanking-new interim President of IVC, would shut down the whole process—forcing a time-consuming restart—were the committee to send up only one name, Maala’s. And so, especially since previous presidents generally went along with search committees' recommendations, this committee sent up the name of the next best candidate, too—a white male who was judged to be minimally qualified. (All others of those interviewed were judged to be unqualified.)

As per custom, Priscilla, as chair of the committee, informed the second level group (Mathur and two Vice Presidents) that, though the committee was sending forward two names, Maala was the unanimous and clear preference of the committee.

To their horror, the hiring committee soon discovered that Mathur had chosen the “minimally qualified” candidate.

The committee then instructed Priscilla to discuss the matter with Mathur. Mathur met with her and explained why he had not selected Maala. Ready?

He had not selected Maala owing to her ethnicity.

Turns out, he didn’t want to be accused of choosing someone of his own ethnicity (Mathur hails from India, which is a stone’s throw from Sri Lanka).

In Raghu's world, it's always about him.

THE STAFF DIVERSITY OFFICER:

The last witness of the day, history professor Frank M, was the “Staff Diversity” Officer at the time of the controversial biology hire. One of Mathur’s VPs (Bob L) had expressed concerns about the biology hire (to Frank?), and so Frank met with President Mathur. He asked Mathur to explain his choice, his failure to hire Maala.

According to Frank, Mathur then asserted that the white male was a “better fit for the job.”

Further, Mathur didn’t want to be accused of reverse discrimination.

RIPPLE EFFECTS:

As I write this, I think again about the damage that this ruthless man, Raghu Mathur, has done and continues to do. There are so many victims: some big, some small.

The instructor that Mathur hired in 1997, too, is a victim. He heard about a job, and so he applied for it. He interviewed. He got the job. He did nothing wrong. Plus he's a good guy.

But then there's all this.

More tomorrow. (It'll be an abbreviated session in court). --CW


(For background, see Mathur and women.)

The discrimination lawsuit: Mathur's "unauthorized baseball diamond" yarn

•

OK, I just got home, and it’s been a long day, so I can only give a very brief report on the first day of the “Mora v. Mathur” discrimination trial up in the Federal Court Building in LA.

Back in 2001, Aracely Mora, a Latina, was the Director of the Athletics Program at Irvine Valley College and had served for about a year as IVC's interim dean of PE & Athletics. She had received only excellent evaluations and had established a state- and even nationwide reputation in her field.

So she applied for the new Dean job that opened up at Irvine Valley College. In the end, she was among the three finalists sent up by the hiring committee for interview by IVC President, Raghu P. Mathur.

She didn’t get the job. The man who did get the job, a white male from Virginia named Rodney Poindexter (I kid you not), was completely unqualified, and he turned out to be both incompetent and unstable.

What's more, according to Cely’s lawyer, Carol Sobel, he created a hostile work environment for the female faculty and other female workers. The women were given terrible teaching assignments and endured various other problems. Somehow, for the male instructors, these difficulties did not arise.

At one point, Poindexter was observed screaming at a female secretary, pinning her to a wall.

When complaints were lodged about Poindexter's frightening behavior—at first informally, later formally—Mathur did nothing about it. Poindexter continued in his job for about a year.

Even before the hiring process, Cely had been told by friends, including administrators, that she had no chance of being selected as dean. She was, after all, a woman, and Mathur didn’t hire women.

Well, to make a long story short, the jury trial started today. The morning was devoted to selecting a jury. In the afternoon, Cely’s former dean, Greg Bishopp, testified. Tomorrow, members of the 2001 search committee will be called to the stand. The case will continue through Thursday and will resume next Tuesday. It should be over by the middle of next week.

Before the trial is over, we’ll hear some mighty juicy factoids. Even today, things got interesting. Mathur is now claiming that he decided against Cely because she had pursued the construction of a baseball diamond behind his back.

Yeah, but it certainly appears that Mora did no such thing. As Bishopp's testimony today made clear, Mathur was involved in the project from the very beginning.

Well, I’ve gotta go. I’ll report back ASAP.

See also Mathur and women

The turd in the punchbowl

•

TODAY (Monday), there were two board meetings:

BOARD MEETING #1, which went from 3-5 p.m., concerned our colleges' Accreditation issues. The board of trustees and the governance groups were supposed to discuss the matter together, but it didn't really turn out that way.

Trustee Williams spent a good deal of time criticizing (he called it "challenging") the Accreds re their "secrecy." But at least he was pretty pleasant about it. I'll give 'em that.

Then there was Chancellor Mathur. Evidently, he came to the meeting only to wag his finger at faculty. I'm not sure, but I think he was saying that faculty cause the board to micromanage, what with their phone calls and "badgering."

Yes, "badgering." He kept saying that.

He even singled out some faculty leadership for blame. It was pretty unpleasant.

Nobody else did that. I mean, most people only had good things to say about everybody else. Mathur was the proverbial turd in the punchbowl.


Board meeting #2, the regular monthly meeting, started at about 6:45. It attracted a fair number of faculty (see photo below) who were there mostly to encourage the district to be reasonable about the upcoming contract negotiations. The district's initial proposal is inauspicious.

Wagner sought to be reassuring. It's premature, he said, to worry that the negotiations process is already going badly. Well, OK Don.

Kathie and Howard gave a first-rate presentation on the curriculum process. It was plain, I think, that the trustees were very impressed, not only with the presentation, but with the amount of work that goes into curriculum.

It was a great moment.

I'll have lots more detail in a couple of days, but, right now, I've got to get some sleep. Tomorrow, of course, is trial day up in LA. You know, Mathur's getting sued again.

Rebel Girl's Poetry Corner: Do Something

~
It's Monday. Do something, somewhere.

by Dan Gerber:

Doing Nothing

When I passed him near the bus stop
on Union Square while the cops
cuffed his hands behind his back, while he
said, "I didn't do anything,"
I didn't, either,
do anything but look away,
a little afraid they might cuff me
if I paid too much attention,
and walked on still wondering
what he might've done
and still more what I
might've done.

A skosh, a dollop, and a plague!

•

WELL, it’s almost time for another meeting of the SOCCCD Board of Trustees. The show starts tomorrow night, at 6:30, I believe. (All board meetings are performed in the Health Sciences big top—at Saddleback College.)

ACCREDITATION:

The district is still wrestling with some pesky accrediting issues—a skosh of micromanagement, a plague of despair, a dollop of Goo, etc.—and so there’ll be an EXTRA-SPECIAL MEETING to discuss all that at 3:00 p.m. Allegedly, the governance groups will be allowed to participate in this discussion.

There’s a chance that Trustees Fuentes or Wagner will hint at conspiracy theories again, so you don’t want to miss that. Those two are zany, they're daffy!

THE REGULAR MEETING:

If you’d like a copy of the agenda for the regular meeting, just go to the District Website. Voila!

I perused the agenda, and nothing really jumps out at me. It’s always hard to predict what these people are going to do. Agendas don’t tell you much. Sometimes they freak out over flat nothing—like death-defying trips to the beaches of Spain. And sometimes they surprise you and get all magnanimous and sensitive.

They can even be nice.

Item 4.1 is “Approval of Exclusive Rights to Negotiate Agreement (ERNA) with Camelot Entertainment.” Maybe you know what this means. I don’t. Does it mean that the district is zeroing in on the Camelot deal?

Camelot, of course, is the investor group who proposed a super-duper studio complex to take up much of our ATEP acreage in Tustin. Some people worry that we’ll get fleeced by these guys. Could be.

Mathur seems to have taken over the ATEP project. He imagines, I think, that he can envision a success at ATEP so spectacular that his mug will eventually get blasted onto Mount Rushmore.

Item 5.3 is whether to “Approve the Saddleback College study abroad program: Spanish Language Studies in Guanajuato, Mexico in the summer of 2007 and the Educational Tour/Field Study Travel Contractor Agreement with the American Institute for Foreign Study for coordinating all travel agreements.”

Fuentes is the kind of guy who thinks that Mexico and Spain are basically the same place, since the natives speak the same language, more or less. So why not save a few pesos and head for Mexico? Usually, Don Wagner can be expected to warble a similar tune. So expect these guys to be all over this proposal. And why not?

Item 5.4 is an airing of the faculty union’s proposed contract.

Item 5.5 is whether to “Approve the district’s initial proposal for negotiations with the SOCCCD Faculty Association and set a public hearing on the proposal at the regularly scheduled May Board meeting.”

As I’m sure you’re aware, the district has lowballed the faculty bigtime with this proposal. I think the trustees want us to wear knickers and become Republicans. It’s pretty obnoxious. Plus they want us to teach more than two days a week and to swear off striking.

I’ve been teaching five days a week for years, so it’s no biggie to me if they make us show up now and again. I guess others feel differently.

5.7 is a contract with a private dick (Karen T. Meyers, Esq.). What’s that all about?

5.8 lists some Academic Personnel Actions, including a couple of “Additional Compensation”s—so maybe Raghu’s trying to pull another hidden raise scam. Hard to say.

There are two curious “discussion items”:

5.1: “A Board discussion item has been requested on the topics of the Cost of Employee Benefits and Staffing Levels.”

That doesn’t sound good.

5.2: “Faculty from both colleges will present information relative to the curriculum development process and procedures.”

Mathur’s been in a lather about this one for weeks. Don’t know why.

For some reason, he has insisted on introducing the presentation, which will be handled mostly by faculty, since it’s totally their gig. I think Raghu is trying to convince the board that he’s working well with faculty and, in fact, everything’s hunky-dory. Well, when it comes to curriculum development, things are hunky-dory—exactly because Raghu’s not around to mess ‘em up.

My prediction: he’ll stir up a hornets’ nest with this. You watch.

Yeah, but like the Reb says, my predictions aren’t worth spit. I mean, I was the guy who swore that Americans couldn’t possibly be stupid enough to reelect George W. Bush.

Li'l Sarah on the tire swing down by the oaks

5 minutes ago: Sunny Girl spots some deer

•

I took the snaps, though.

The transfer mission: we oughta be committed

•

SLEWAGE:

It's a community college "see me, feel me" extravaganza!

This morning’s New York Times offers a slew of articles (well, 3 of 'em) about community colleges under the title The Two-Year Attraction, where we learn that “Almost half of all college students go to a community college, making the two-year experience as much the norm as not.”

Like it or not, we (at the community colleges) are where it's at, and increasingly so!

WHY, WE'RE POLYPEDAGOGICAL!

In John Merrow’s “Dream Catchers,” we learn that

Community colleges today do far more than offer a ladder to the final years [of college]. They train the people who repair your furnace, install your plumbing, take your pulse. They prepare retiring baby boomers for second or third careers, and provide opportunities for a growing number of college-age students turning away from the high cost and competition at universities. And charged with doing the heavy remedial lifting, community colleges are now as much 10th and 11th grade as 13th and 14th.

Merrow reports that “Two-year colleges receive less than 30 percent of state and local financing for higher education," and yet they enroll “nearly half of all undergraduates.”

CHEAP, TOO!

In “For Achievers, a New Destination,” Beth Frerking explains that

…as four-year universities have become more expensive, good students who want to save money are turning to community colleges to earn their core undergraduate credits. …[A]ccording to a report in October by the College Board, community colleges charge an annual average tuition of $2,272, compared with $5,836 at state universities and $22,218 at private institutions.

Many two-year colleges are now recruiting students who fit the traditional profile of baccalaureate undergraduates: 18- to 24-year-olds who have strong high school records and are moving directly into higher education full time.

…No longer wed primarily to a work force-training mission, these colleges consider it a major, if not predominant, goal to prepare students to transfer to four-year institutions.

WE OUGHTA BE COMMITTED!

Frerking’s next observation might be of particular interest to denizens of the SOCCCD:

…The two-year colleges most committed to funneling students into four-year colleges tend to have some or all of the following: learning communities (in which students attend classes with the same small cohort of classmates), honors programs (noted for curriculum that crosses disciplines, teachers who hold advanced degrees and smaller classes taken with similarly talented peers) and articulation agreements with four-year institutions in the state (typically synchronizing basic courses with a university’s requirements and guaranteeing admittance to transfer students who have kept their grades up).

These colleges focus on liberal arts and the sciences, responding to increasing demand for math and science teachers, health professionals and high-tech experts. The best community colleges also have what experts call “a culture of evidence,” meaning they extensively assess students’ academic performance and adjust teaching practices accordingly, says Kay M. McClenney, director of the annual Community College Survey of Student Engagement….

HOW ARE WE DOING?

ASSUMING that Frerking knows what she’s talking about—no doubt some will carp about some of her generalizations re “commitment”—we might consider how the SOCCCD’s colleges do relative to the standards that she mentions.

I’ve offered some observations below, but PLEASE WRITE US to tell us how you think Saddleback College, Irvine Valley College, and ATEP (which will open in the Fall) rate on the Frerking "commitment" meter.

Learning communities: NOPE [None that I’m aware of, unless rabbits count.]

Honors programs: YES & NO [unlike some of the programs that Frerking describes, by law (I believe), IVC’s Honors Program cannot be selective among students. That is, less-than-“talented” students can and do enroll in our Honors courses.]

Articulation agreements: YES

Focussing on liberal arts and the sciences:

Responding to increasing demand for math and science teachers, health professionals and high-tech experts:

Embracing a culture of evidence: [I know that some of my colleagues in English will have something to say about this.]

—CW

See also Tennis in a parking lot