BOOBERY AND BASTARDRY: The board confronts Collins’ decision

From Dissent 63

March, 2002?
By Big Bill (Roy Bauer)

“Laura and I really don’t realize how bright our children is sometimes until we get an objective analysis.”

—George W. Bush

Meet the Press, April 15, 2000

Beijingpolitik:

     The other day, I happened to view that footage of student protesters staring down tanks in Tiannamen Square in 1989. Amazing! At the time, people hoped that the protesters’ getting away with such stunts heralded a new era in China. What else can Chinese leaders do now, people said, but start to give these brave students the freedoms they deserve!
     What else? Kill ‘em, that’s what. The students were massacred. After Tiannamen, Chinese leaders just hosed off the blood.
     Our trustees here in the SOCCCD are something like those Beijing bastards. Thanks to the union Old Guard’s “Board Majority,” the last five years have been marked by lawsuits, accrediting warnings, state fiscal alerts, adverse judicial rulings, recall attempts, lunatic seminar fiascos, poinsettia theft, and more. With each fiasco, dissidents celebrated, dreaming of change.
     But nothin’ changes.
     The Board Majority do pay a price, of course: everyone in education—and not just in California!—sees our Board for what it is: a crew of ruthless and self-seeking reactionaries.
     So what? In case you haven’t noticed, to the Board Majority, “people in education” are precisely the enemy!

Another fine mess:

     [We should] create a TQM paradigm where…systems thinking is a model, …quality and continuous improvement are guiding principles, and…benchmarking and best practices are norm…[We should] establish ongoing feedback program for both internal and external customers….

—Chancellor Mathur’s “needs” survey

Collins

     Well, here we go again. In March, surprising no one, U.S. District Judge Audrey Collins ruled the district’s speech and advocacy policy to be unconstitutional. That led to the usual bad press (Smack!) and harsh editorials (Thwack!). And so, as before, we dissidents now cheer and celebrate. The sound of spankage dinning in our ears, we espy the promised land.
     But no. Even now, Raghu Mathur spins his daffy “needs” survey, which, you’ll recall, included such desiderata as: increased “monitoring” of faculty “performance”; introducing a “dress code”; offering “public relations” classes, and—my personal fave—the colleges’ becoming “more customer focused.” (Apparently, this involves setting up “Customer Care Call Centers” at the colleges and distributing “comment cards.”)
     At IVC, the deans hired by Mathur are literally screaming at employees (this has yielded yet another lawsuit) or selectively enforcing absurd rules on faculty.
     Meanwhile, in an effort to weaken—or simply taunt—the Academic Senates, the Board Majority unilaterally changed the policy requiring “delegation of authority to Academic Senates.”
To top it all off, Larry Oldewurtel has been named IVC’s “Teacher of the Year.”
     Inevitably, Chancellor Mathur, his crew of administrative protégés, and the Board itself will generate further embarrassing media attention. There will be spankage. Nancy Padberg will complain about press bias. Once again, the trustees will take big PR hits, and dissidents will again cheer.
     But it won’t change a thing. It’s the election, stupid. None o’ this will matter come November.

Mathur and free speech:

“A new President of the United States, in 1988, gained in popularity when he was found halting in speech and loose in grammar.”

—Jacques Barzun

From Dawn to Decadence

     The latest court victory by students has a long history. It all started with Mathur’s imposition of arbitrary restrictions on peaceful student protesters back in the Spring of 1998:

     …In a rare show of Orange County activism, students Delilah Snell and Diep Burbridge gathered nearly 100 of their colleagues for a series of campus demonstrations, the first in the college’s near-twenty-year history. They denounced the hiring of [Raghu] Mathur, demanded the recall of [Trustee Steven] Frogue and called attention to the possible loss of the college’s accreditation. The rallies attracted major media coverage. In response, the board, Mathur, and their cronies claimed the students were “misled” by a handful of “disgruntled employees” and “leftist” faculty. Even freedom of speech took a nosedive. Snell and Burbridge were initially told to give twenty-four-hour notice before each demonstration and to submit to college officials for review everything they would be passing out. After meetings with the president in which they were accused of “misleading” others and hostile encounters with board supporters, the students were at first permitted one hour a week to hold their demonstrations. Soon it was reduced to thirty minutes.
     Now the students, represented by the ACLU, are suing Mathur and the board for violating their First Amendment rights. According to the lawsuit, filed this past summer, the demonstrations were relocated from the center of campus to an isolated area where students were told to keep their noise level down. When the limits were questioned, students were told it was not in the “best interest of the college” to hold a longer protest in a more visible part of campus, given the “political climate.” ([Former IVC student] Sanaz Mozafarian; The Nation, October 5, 1998)

(Former) student Pourya Khademi

     The suit ultimately resulted in the Board Majority’s adoption of Board Policy 5406 (the 5000 series concerns specifically students) in 1999. The policy was authored by clueless district lawyer Spencer Covert. Students (this time, Burbridge, Stephansky, and Caruso) sued again.
     Then, in August of ’99, new VP of Student Services, Armando “Beyondo” Ruiz, at the behest of Mathur and citing BP5406, ordered faculty to remove all signs and posters from their windows and doors, an apparent ploy to eliminate signage critical of the President, a notoriously thin-skinned fellow. This produced howls of protest and embarrassing TV coverage. Reluctantly, the board rescinded Ruiz’s order.
     In September of ’99, the court (U.S. Judge Audrey Collins) enjoined enforcement of substantial portions of the policy, citing their unconstitutionality.
     That judgment led to the adoption, in May of 2000, of yet another policy, the 32-page BP8000, which was even more restrictive than 5406! (The Board Majority’s Don Wagner, a lawyer, did not support it.)
     Consequently, in February of 2001, three students (this time, Burbridge, Irvine, and Khademi) sued again, charging that the policy violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution; Article 1, sections 2 and 3 of the California Constitution; and California Education Code S 66301.
     On February 11, 2002, the students filed a “Motion for Summary Adjudication” (i.e., a motion to secure a judgment without a full trial). The hearing was scheduled for March 11—later “continued” to March 18, 2002 (i.e., last month).

Collins’ ruling:

Carol Sobel

     On the 18th, Collins at long last issued her “Tentative” ruling, which, after brief arguments from the attorneys (Carol Sobel/Wendy Phillips and Allan Wilion), she declared to be her final ruling. In its “conclusion,” she wrote:

     …[T]he Court finds that a number of provisions of Board Policy 8000 violate Plaintiff’s First Amendment rights. Because many of the unconstitutional provisions are not…severable from the rest of the policy, all provisions in BP 8000 applicable to students must be struck down in their entirety. (42)

     She closed with this:

     With [some exceptions]…, the provisions applicable to [not students, but] the general public…remain in effect. (CTR—Collins’ Tentative Ruling)

     This last part concerned the “standing” of the plaintiffs—the three students. Some provisions of BP8000 applied, not to students, but to “members of the public.” The question was: did the students have standing as members of the public—who can, as such, rightly challenge the latter provisions?
     Collins judged that, since the students “have not alleged that they personally have been or could be affected by these provisions of BP 8000,” they “do not have standing to bring a facial challenge to those sections as being impermissible time, place, or manner restrictions” (CTR, p. 9).

Prior restraint:
     One issue raised by the suit concerned whether BP8000 involved impermissible “prior restraint,” i.e., “…‘when the enjoyment of protected expression is contingent upon the approval of government officials’” (CTR, p. 15). Put more simply, prior restraint is banning expression as opposed to punishing it, when offensive, after it has occurred.
     Concerning that question, Collins ruled as follows:

     …The Court…finds that four individual provisions [of BP8000] are unconstitutional. [One section] provides that “[u]se of any portion of the GROUNDS must be reserved. The decision whether to allow use of the GROUNDS lies solely within the discretion of the President.”…[Another section] provides that on the campus of IVC, “[n]o amplification of any type shall be permitted within Quad A or B or the Grounds without approval of the President.”…[Another section] provides that “[a]ny portion of interior SOCCCD property must be reserved. The decision to allow use of the interior of any SOCCCD property lies solely under the discretion of the President.”…Lastly, interior amplification must be authorized by the President.
     These sections are prior restraints because they condition expression in certain areas of the District’s campuses upon approval of the administration. Accordingly, they are subject to strict scrutiny…[and, as such,] they “may not delegate overly broad licensing discretion to a government official.”
     …The four sections identified here delegate completely unfettered discretion to the campus presidents to permit or prohibit expression. When a permit scheme is “completely discretionary, there is a danger that protected speech will be suppressed impermissibly because of the government official’s…distaste for the content of the speech.”…Because these provisions provide the presidents with absolutely no standards to guide their decisions, they are unconstitutional and must be stricken. (CTR, pp. 16-17; underscoring added.)

Content of speech:
     Another issue raised by the suit concerned the “content” of speech. The “state” can pursue “content-based” exclusion of speech, but only if it can show “…‘that its regulation is necessary to serve a compelling state interest and that it is narrowly drawn to achieve that end’” (CTR, p. 18).
     Collins here noted, peevishly, that “BP 8000 purports to be content-neutral, but, in the same sentence, acknowledges that it is not….” (CTR, p. 19).
     Further,

     Plaintiffs identify fourteen sections and subsections [of BP8000] as content-based…For the reasons noted above, Plaintiffs do not have standing to challenge…provisions in [some of those sections]….With regard to the remaining…sections, the Court agrees that all but one are content-based…
     [Several sections] require District administrators to examine the content of expression to determine if it violates section 76120 and then allow or require administrators to take punitive, disciplinary action based on that content…[The] District’s enforcement of that code section infringes on students’ First Amendment rights in that it requires District administrators to examine the content of the students’ expression. Defendant must proffer compelling reasons to justify each prohibition in section 76120…The Court can conceive of a number of legitimate state interests…But Defendant [i.e., the district] has not identified any such interests…More importantly, Defendant has not demonstrated that these interests are compelling…and has not demonstrated that the content-based restrictions are narrowly tailored to these ends…
     [T]he Court finds that the District has a compelling state interest in preventing “the commission of unlawful acts on community college premises” and “the substantial disruption of the orderly operation of the community college”…But the Court cannot find that the District has a compelling interest in preventing the other types of expression that are prohibited by section 76120
     …Given the interest of the faculty and student body in intellectual freedom, the Court cannot find that the District has a compelling interest in, for example, prohibiting obscenity that justifies these content-based provisions…Because the Court does not find a compelling interest justifying the examination of the content of student expression to root out all speech prohibited by section 76120, the blanket enforcement of section 76120 is not narrowly tailored to those interests that the Court finds compelling…Accordingly, the blanket imposition of the terms of section 76120 must be stricken. (CTR, pp. 19-24)

     Whew!

Written materials, reservations, banners:
     BP8000 also bans certain types of written material. Collins judged that “This provision, too, must be stricken from the policy. [This section]…singles out certain kinds of commercial advertising based on its content. Defendant has offered no state interest in defense of the advertising ban.”
     BP8000 provides for the denial of reservations for use of campus grounds—e.g., for concerts. Said Collins: “The provision as written gives the campus presidents unbridled discretion in choosing which music concerts to prohibit. Accordingly, this basis for denying reservations must be stricken…[The relevant section] also gives the campus presidents unlimited discretion to identify other types of expressive activities that create an unreasonable risk of harm. This unbridled discretion is impermissible and must be stricken.” (28; my emphasis.)

The district excepts itself!
     Wrote Judge Collins, BP8000 “excepts the District and ‘all persons or groups who enter into contracts with SOCCCD’ from ‘the provisions pertaining to banners, posters, and/or distribution of material….’…Defendant asserts that it ‘has the right to exempt itself from the scope of the Policy since it is the enforcing entity’…Defendant cites no legal authority in support of this proposition…” (29; my emphasis.)

Overbroad?
     An important part of Collins’ ruling concerned the question of whether BP8000 was “Unconstitutionally Overbroad.” A regulation is “overbroad” (relative to the Constitution) if it is drafted so broadly that it manages also to forbid constitutionally protected expression. Collins opined:

…Plaintiffs object to the sections of BP 8000 that prohibit students from distributing writings “inside all buildings including classrooms” and in “parking lots” as overbroad…[and] The Court agrees. These sections ban all writings…regardless of whether or not the school has any legitimate interest in banning their distribution. Like Plaintiffs, the Court conceives of a broad array of protected expression barred by these provisions, ranging from class notes to the campus newspaper to campaign materials. These sections are patently overbroad…[T]he provisions are so sweeping, Defendant will be unable to show that they are narrowly tailored to anything…. (CTR, pp. 37; emphasis in original.)

     Well, that’s about it. In court, Judge Collins recommended to the district that it get “a good Constitutional lawyer” for advice.
    Reportedly, steam could be seen streaming out of Allan Wilion’s ears.

The bad press bears:
     The next day (3/19), the Times reported that

     An Orange County community college district’s policy prohibiting students from engaging in certain free-speech activities without permission from administrators is unconstitutional, a federal judge ruled Monday. The judge found that South Orange County Community College District was exercising prior restraint in requiring approval for distributing leaflets in certain areas, posting information on a bulletin board, putting up a banner and using a loudspeaker at a rally.
     It was the second time U.S. District Judge Audrey Collins found the district’s free-speech policy wanting…Collins suggested Monday that district officials consult a constitutional law expert when redrafting the policy. Allan Wilion, the district’s attorney, said the college district’s governing board would probably appeal the ruling.
     “This case is not over,” he said. “We disagree with the court’s ruling vociferously.”
     But Carol Sobel, who represented the three student plaintiffs, said the district’s track record on its free-speech policy indicates that it “is either getting bad advice [from its lawyers] or else the advice they want.”
     ….Sobel said the 32-page policy, adopted in May 2000, required written permission for students to hand out the student paper or to pass class notes to each other. The policy also allows anyone who objects to a bulletin board posting to remove it.
     ….The board passed the policy, 4 to 3. Board President Donald Wagner, a lawyer, voted against it.
     “I thought it was trouble, so the [judge’s] decision makes a lot of sense,” Wagner said Monday.
     But Wilion said the judge used the wrong legal standard. “There are certain legal rulings that are made,” he said. “It doesn’t mean they are correct.”…..

     The OC Register offered a similar story, though, there, lawyer Wilion sounded relatively subdued.
     By the time of the Irvine World News’ story on the 21st, Wilion had seriously cooled his jets:

     Allan Wilion, the college district’s attorney, said the entire policy was struck down because the parts of the policy deemed unconstitutional could not be separated.
     “The dispute comes down to a couple of areas,” he said. “We think the policy is reasonable, very moderate and student friendly. But the court made its decision and we respect the decision and will act accordingly.”
     ….Lawsuits from students and faculty members began in 1997 when Raghu Mathur began his tenure as Irvine Valley College president and established the administrative requirements for campus speech.
     Mathur, who is now the district chancellor, did not return phone calls and referred questions to the district’s lawyer.
…..
     Donald Wagner, district board president…said that the board has yet to discuss the judge’s ruling and no decisions will likely be made until the end of April.
     “But the district should get some advice from a good first amendment lawyer before deciding what to do next,” he said….

     Ouch!
     In that same issue, the editors slammed the board with an editorial:

Free speech is everyone’s fight
     It’s about time administrators and trustees for the South Orange County Community College District take the lead in advocating and protecting free speech rights on campus.
Students and faculty members for more than four years have had to fight chancellors, a campus president and members of the board of trustees simply to exercise their basic right to free speech.
     Seeking to muffle dissent, policies have been passed down in those years attempting to clamp down on when and where students can gather on campus to protest and even how loud they can be.
     Students aren’t the only targets. Irvine Valley College administrators once threatened to remove posters and messages placed on walls expressing teachers’ disagreement with actions of the board and Mathur, and one professor was unlawfully disciplined when he refused to stop publishing newsletters that lampooned district and college officials.
     A federal judge…overturned portions of the policy that prohibit students from distributing written material inside buildings, classrooms and in parking lots. The onerous policy attempts to handle every campus speech situation, including when students can gather on the grass and how many inches a table can be away from a wall. The policy was criticized from many quarters, including the academic senates of both of the district’s colleges.
     And Monday wasn’t the first time a court has ruled the district acted unconstitutionally. It was the fourth time since 1998.
     Attempts to control free speech at Irvine Valley College began in 1997 when Raghu Mathur was appointed president of the college. Mathur recently was named chancellor of the district. A 1999 Superior Court ruling, incidentally, found that the board of trustees demonstrated a “persistent and defiant disregard” for the state’s open meeting law by staying behind closed doors to discuss Mathur’s appointment to president.
     Administrators and trustees in the South Orange County Community College District have a history of acting too quickly to chill free speech and conduct the public’s business behind closed doors.
     …In October 1999, 90 percent of 84 Irvine Valley faculty members responding to a survey said they could not “express their opinions about issues at the college without fear of retribution or retaliation.”
     Those charged with governing institutions of higher education ought to be the first to champion free speech and open government.

     Ten days later, the editors of the Times weighed in:

Meet the 1st Amendment
     Free speech is a constitutional right. But the South Orange County Community College District has an unfortunate history of trying to limit how, where and when students can speak.
     The district that operates Irvine Valley College and Saddleback College in effect wants students to raise their hands and ask to be recognized before speaking in settings outside the classroom on campus. A court this month struck down four provisions in the recently modified district policy governing when and where students can gather, the use of public address systems and access to buildings on campus.
     The district knows it is heading down the wrong path because it now has lost two court challenges. The most recent rejection came March 18 when U.S. District Judge Audrey B. Collins sided with students who went to court to challenge district restrictions. Collins in 1999 sank another version of the policy because it wrongly limited the “time, place and manner of speech.” The district also withdrew its policy on two other occasions before a judge could rule. The district also has had its knuckles rapped for trying to rein in free speech by faculty members. Irvine Valley College professor Roy Bauer in August won another round in a long-running court fight sparked by a faculty newsletter that takes district officials to task. The court ruled that district officials acted unconstitutionally by reprimanding Bauer for the content in his newsletters.
     Pourya Khademi, one of the students who filed the most recent lawsuit, knows firsthand the dangers of heavy-handed regulation. As a child in Iran, Khademi saw his parents jailed for reading a banned newspaper. Khademi’s attorney complains that the board keeps banging its head against the constitutional right to free speech because it is “either getting bad advice [from its lawyers] or else the advice they want.” But the board should understand instinctively the value of spirited debate in an academic community.
     The district maintains it simply wants to protect students from unnecessary noise, reduce litter and ensure that college lawns and parking lots are well-maintained. Those are logical goals for administrators, but universities have an obligation to balance important real-world concerns against the overriding right to free speech.
     At least, that’s what students are being taught during introductory political science classes at Irvine Valley College. “Politics in America,” the approved textbook sold at the college bookstore, underscores that “universities have a very special responsibility to protect freedom of expression.... A free and unfettered exchange of views is essential to the advancement of knowledge.”
     The district should go back to school and practice what it teaches. (Times editorial, 3/31/02)

WHAT’S NEXT?
     No word yet on whether the Board will appeal the decision.

—Big Bill

Demagoguery: the dark side (some DtB apologetics)

From Dissent 63

March, 2002?

[originally entitled THE DARK SIDE OF DEMAGOGIC MOONS
by Chunk Wheeler, aka Roy Bauer]

Everyone is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.

—Mark Twain

     I once read that, back in the 20s, Huey “the Kingfish” Long, that notorious demagogue, accused a political opponent of “living in open celibacy with his sister.” The clueless Louisiana voters were horrified. The Kingfish won the election.
     Think of what it takes to do something like that. Wow.
     Well, at the SOCCCD, we seem to have a veritable Kingfishery.

Graphic demagoguery:

     In the early days of the ‘Vine, I often fashioned caricatures by pasting headshots onto the bodies of cartoon figures, other people, and (rarely) onto beasts. My first such effort, back in ’97, involved the placement of Mr. Frogue’s head on the body of a Neanderthal (get it?). Later, I placed Teddi Lorch’s head upon the body of a pterodactyl, thereby producing the now-beloved Teddidactyl figure, available in fine stores everywhere.
     Now, it never occurred to me to exclude the then-IVC president or the then-union president from the “caricature” treatment. Why should those two be excluded? They were at least as evil as Frogue or Lorch. Probably more so.
     When the Mathur and Miller-White caricatures appeared, so did the demagoguery. For instance, on Pacifica Radio’s Lawyers’ Guild program, the Old Guard’s Ken Woodward, in full gaping sneerage, declared:

     I have right in front of me a publication that Mr. Bauer is responsible for called the ‘Vine, which is one of the most vitriolic, hateful publications, you know, [it’s] racist; [it] shows the African-American, uh, president of our union, you know, the, uh, president of his college—that’s a person of color—with their heads decapitated and put on animal bodies. It’s just absolutely outrageous [therefore] that he makes these charges of racism [against Trustee Frogue]! (2/19/98)

     For the record, none of my newsletters had ever depicted any sort of decapitation, though, in response to Woody’s absurd accusation, I later published a lovely depiction of a Frogueian beheading.
     Further, as a lover of animals, I have never attached Sherry’s head onto any beast.
     I did, however, place her head on the body of a woman dancing with a joker. (See.) For some reason, Mr. M’Goo and his gang of visually impaired buffoons have always insisted that this graphic depicts Sherry “dancing with the devil” or dancing with animals. Nope, but I do wish I’d have thought of that. (Pace animals.)
     In the early days of the ‘Vine (and Dissent), Raghu’s head appeared on all sorts of bodies. Recently, I examined the old issues and discovered that I had placed the Mathurian Noggin on the following bodies: Julius Caesar, Henry VIII, Eraserhead, the Grinch, teen wolf, Beaver Cleaver, Pinocchio, an action figure doll, Austin Powers, Abe Lincoln, Alfred E. Newman, Tweedledum, Henry Fonda, Ferdinand Marcos, Uma Thurman, Napoleon, Tweedledee—and, my personal favorite, Fat Elvis.
     True, I once placed his head on some sort of primate, as part of my ape/Neanderthal series, which started with Frogue.
     Did I mention that I once lived in open celibacy with my sister?

No animals,  no decapitation

The Dark Side:
     When I hear the phrase, “the Dark Side,” I do not think of race. Nope. I think of evil.
     A perusal of internet sites reveals that I am not alone in this: a search on YAHOO for “the dark side” yielded 60 hits; a similar search at the LA Times web page yielded 152 hits. None of these instances concerned race or skin-color; all of them seemed to refer to evil, though often ironically.
     One fairly typical use of “the Dark Side” (TDS) occurred in an April 19 review of the movie Murder By Numbers. According to the reviewer, the movie’s director has an “affinity for the dark side”—that is, he is attracted to the theme of evil, having once provided employment for Mickey Rourke.
     A search at the OC Weekly website yielded 29 hits, including the subtitle of a 1999 article, by Scott Moxley, that said that the LA Times has crossed “over to the dark side”—that is, it has ceased reporting local corruption and, instead, has joined the forces of evil, namely, developers.
     The most recent appearance of the phrase “the dark side” in the Weekly appeared on April 19. In a letter to the editor, a man named Stephen Smith, of Irvine, wrote that

[El Toro Airport foe] Larry Agran has gone over to the Dark Side by accepting tens of thousands of dollars in Newport Beach pro-airport developer money….

     Do you suppose that Smith, Moxley, and that Times reviewer are talkin’ about dark-skinned people?
Like me, when they talk about “the dark side,” they’re talkin’ evil, not race.

J’accuse:

     A few years ago, I began on occasion to refer to “the dark side” (TDS) in my newsletters. Like Moxley and Smith, I used the phrase to refer to a semi-organized group of evil bastards. More specifically, I used it to refer to the union Old Guard/Board Majority/Mathur AXIS. Accordingly, I sometimes called individual members of that AXIS—e.g., Ken Woodward, Lee Walker, et al.—“dark siders.”
     To my surprise, however, soon, various members of that odious confederacy started citing the usage as evidence that I am a racist. (See, for instance, John Williams’ remarks in his piece in the OC Register, 11/14/99.)
     “How’s that?” thought I.

Reasoning:
     I could think of two possible arguments for the “Bauer as racist” thesis—both unsound. The first goes something like this:

1. Roy uses the phrase “the Dark Side” to refer to the union Old Guard/Board Majority/Mathur AXIS.
2. Two members of the AXIS (viz., Miller-White and Mathur) happen to be people of color.
3. Thus, Roy uses the phrase “the Dark Side” specifically to refer to people of color. (Thus, Roy is a racist.)

     The problem here, of course, is that the conclusion does not follow from the premises. That I use the phrase TDS to refer to a group does not imply that I use the same phrase to refer specifically to a subset of that group. Duh.
     But the Dark Siders might have another argument in mind. Perhaps they think that it is quite evident that I use the phrase “the Dark Side” specifically to refer to people of color. The argument starts there:

1. Roy uses the phrase “the Dark Side” to refer specifically to people of color (namely, to Miller-White and Mathur and to no one else).
2. Anyone who uses the phrase “the Dark Side” to refer specifically to people of color is a racist.
3. Thus, Roy is a racist.

     The problem with this reasoning is the falsity of the first premise. I do not now, nor have I ever, used the phrase “the Dark Side” to refer specifically to people of color. And everyone knows it.

The crucial IF:
     Nevertheless, let’s pursue this matter. Now, as we all know, context can determine meaning. Though the term TDS does not refer to race per se, IF I had consistently used TDS to refer only to people of color, then one could justly suspect that I had something racial in mind by speaking of TDS.
     But, again, I (and other ‘Vine/Dissent contributors) always use the phrase to refer to the entire Old Guard/Board Majority/Mathur Axis. Just look at the newsletters themselves. I shall spare you the tedium of demonstrating this thesis. (But, please, look.)
     But wait! What about the early days of Rebel newsletterage? How did Dissenters use the phrase back then?
     I have examined many old issues of ‘Vine and Dissent—you are welcome to do the same—and the same was true then.
     Let’s consider a concrete instance. The earliest use of “the dark side” that I could find—I’m still lookin’—was in ‘Vine 12, November 30, 1998, in an article entitled “Truth, Lies, and Masking Tape,” which concerned the Brown Act lawsuits.
     Now, the Axis powers—a.k.a. the Dark Siders—love their ad hominems, which is to say, they are the sort who will try to defeat a point by trashin’ the guy makin’ it. Often, this ploy—popular even outside the state of Louisiana—takes the form of describing a person’s motives, as though that casts any light on the cogency of his views.
     By 1998, Mathur and his cronies had sought to discredit my rebellious clamor, not by identifying failings in my reasoning (never that), but by attempting to characterize my motives—by suggesting, specifically, that I was “disgruntled” over loss of my gig as School Chair.
     In response, in November of ’98, I wrote the following, in which I made use of the phrase “the dark side”:

     I started my involvement in the Brown Act lawsuits in mid-May of ‘97—i.e., before I became School Chair and before the July 16 reorganization that eliminated the chair model. Hence, logic fans, contrary to the denizens of the Dark Side, my involvement in the [law]suits cannot be explained in terms of my supposed anger at having lost the chairship and/or its reassigned time. (11/30/98)

     To whom was I referring when I wrote of “denizens of the Dark Side”?

Econo demagogue:
     By far, most prominent among the logically-challenged “denizens” who, at the time, had “charged” that I was “just disgruntled” was a certain Caucasian instructor, the Old Guard’s Ken “Econo Boy” Woodward, one of the chief architects of the current contract. As I reported at the time (‘Vine, 2/22/98), Woodward had publicly asserted that

Roy Bauer has never belonged to the union until, you know, suddenly, he became interested when he lost, you know, some of his administrative duties…But, you know, it’s a very small group of people who are disgruntled about having, you know, to teach again.

     He said this, you know, during the aforementioned Lawyers’ Guild program, you know, about eight months after the Reorganization, you know.
     How accurate (if that is the word) was Ken’s ad hominem? That is, did he at least correctly identify what motivated me to dissent so?
     Nope. I lost my “administrative duties” in July of 1997, when, to everyone’s surprise, the Board reorganized the district. But, as Ken well knows, I joined the union—and, more importantly, I attended many of its meetings—long before then. Ken knew that, for he too attended those meetings, sneering and bleating most indecorously, as I have occasionally reported.
     Further, as numerous newspaper articles and letters to the editor attest, I was a card-carrying member of the Rebel Alliance by the mid-90s, long before the 1997 Reorg. (See my quote in the Times, 11/25/96, and my piece in the IVC Voice, 5/11/95. See also the 1996 letter, signed by “concerned faculty,” to CCA/CTA.)
     And, finally, I helped initiate the Brown Act process (May 1997) months before I was canned from the Chair job.
     Q.E.D.

*  *  * 

     Very recently, Woody has resurfaced, this time as a spam-happy candidate for the Faculty Association president-elect. Please note that, at the time of the Lawyers’ Guild program, Ken was a negotiator for the union, then controlled by the Old Guard. When Jan Horn and I noted (on the Guild program) that, during negotiations, the union had sought to eliminate reassigned time for everyone except union officials, Ken responded by bleating: “What they said about reassigned time being eliminated is completely false!”
     In reality, dear reader, what we said about reassigned time being eliminated was completely true.
Think of what it takes to fib like that. Wow.
     It gets worse. Though, as union apologist, Ken repeatedly demonized teachers who held “administrative duties” and who, he said, were “disgruntled” about “having…to teach,” he later arranged to have himself appointed dean.

A Force is a Force, of course, of course:
     As noted earlier, when I first used the phrase TDS, I had in mind a semi-organized group of evil bastards, like OC developers. But I also intended an allusion to the Evil “Galactic” Empire of the Star Wars saga. In fact, that saga reads like an allegory of the SOCCCD. Check it out:
     Long ago, in a galaxy far, far away, a regime called the Old Republic went belly up:

From the bloated carcass of the Old Republic, an ambitious politician carved the Galactic Empire…Rather than offer the people of the galaxy newfound hope, the Empire instead became a TYRANNICAL REGIME, presided over by a shadowy and detached despot steeped in the DARK SIDE of the Force. PERSONAL LIBERTIES WERE CRUSHED, and the governance of everyday affairs was pulled away from the SENATE, and instead given to UNSCRUPULOUS regional governors. (From the official Star Wars website; caps added.)

     The Empire’s oppressiveness inspired rebellion; chief among the rebels were the “Jedi warriors,” people who, owing to a familiarity with The Force—evidently, a kind of cosmic oomph—were vulnerable to its “dark side.”
     Darth Vader, scourge of the Jedi, “abandoned the precepts of knowledge and defense and instead [sought] abandon and strength through the Force’s hateful energies,” i.e., its “dark side.”
     …But enough about that.

Epistles to the Times:
     Well, the district’s demagogic satellites are spinning again. In response to the Times’ coverage of the recent court victory against the district by students, the Old Guard’s Ray Chandos—evidently, chair “for life” of IVC Accreditation—wrote the editors to say:

     Your article about the South Orange County Community College District Speech and Advocacy Policy neglected certain basic facts … The policy was written in part to respond to some faculty-sponsored activities that were disruptive or life-threatening. One event called for students to smash a car with a sledgehammer as a “blow” against the administration. Students were hospitalized as a result…. (Times; 3/31/02)

Ray Chandos

     Chandos, like Woodward, can always be counted on to whitewash the Empire’s dirty linen and to invent lurid rebel atrocities. The car-smashing event (apparently, car-smashings are commonplace on campuses) was not, as he suggests, a political demonstration; rather, it was a non-political fund-raiser for the Honors Society. Faculty-sponsored? The event was concocted, as a fund-raiser, not by faculty, but by the Honor Society, and it was duly approved, as such, by the administration.
     True, at one point, a peripatetic wag named Jeff spontaneously sprayed “El Presidente” on the side of the car, causing Armando Beyondo to soil his trousers, but that hardly justifies Chandos’ description of the event as an anti-administration demonstration! Further, though, at some point, a student was mildly injured by flying glass (she was not, as far as I know, “hospitalized”), nothing about this event was remotely “life-threatening.”
     Think of what it takes to do fib like that. Wow.
     Ray went on to write:

Some faculty newsletters attack ethnic background, integrity, families, religion and the gender orientation of district employees….

     Do you suppose Ray is referring to ‘Vine/Dissent? D’ya think?

Integrity-attackage:
     It is true, of course, that I have impugned the integrity of some persons, including Mathur. Is that objectionable per se? When they are not busy castigating me, some Dark Siders condemn my castigations, implying that castigations are intrinsically illogical or unseemly. At such times, they seem to reason as follows:

1. Roy is “attacking” (e.g.) President Mathur.
2. Thus, Roy is being illogical and unjust.

     This, dear reader, is patent nonsense.
     Castigating a person can, of course, be illogical, as when one supposes (falsely) that facts about the person (e.g., his lack of integrity or his motives) have relevance to the cogency of his views. I have not supposed that. I have castigated Mathur, not in order to cast doubt upon his views, but, rather, in order to reveal that he is an inveterate liar and schemer—the sort of person who ought not to hold a position of authority.
     Castigating someone can be illogical—and rude and unjust—when the criticisms leveled against him are leveled unfairly, as when, for instance, he is accused of racism owing to his innocent pop cultural allusions.
     So now we come to the heart of the matter. Is it unfair to suggest that Mathur lacks integrity, that he is a liar and a schemer?

A Paradigm of Duplicity

Or: THE GOOFISH

     On July 7, 1997, nine days before the infamous Reorg, in a memo, Mr. Goo assured IVC faculty that no reorganization (from the chair model to a dean model) would be considered until after faculty returned in the fall. He wrote:

…[I]nstructional Council cautioned that more input is needed from the Academic Senate, which does not meet over the summer, and from faculty who may be gone over the summer months. Based on their recommendation, this matter [viz., adopting a “Dean model”] will not be considered at this time and it will be set aside until a permanent president is in place this fall.

     In fact, however, as several sworn legal declarations later established, nearly two months prior to the memo, Mathur had ordered the Vice President of Instruction to prepare a plan to reorganize the college from chairs to deans.
     According to then-VP Bob Loeffler:

In May of 1997, during an executive meeting of the three Vice Presidents and interim President Mathur, Mathur directed Vice President Burgess to develop a plan for the reorganization of the administrative structure of the college. Mathur stated that he wanted Vice President Burgess to develop a plan to institute a “Dean Model” for the college. (Legal declaration, signed, 9/8/98)

     Stunning, isn’t it?

     There’s more. On July 16, during a closed session, over howls of protest from the Board Minority, the Board Majority adopted Mathur’s plan. (That it was Mathur’s plan is also sworn to in legal declarations.) Accompanied now by the Chancellor and the two presidents, the Board Majority emerged from the session and announced the reorganization. When they started to leave, faculty clamored for an explanation, especially from Mathur, who, again, just nine days earlier, had assured the faculty that no reorganization would be “considered” without their input.
     Chancellor Lombardi and Saddleback’s Doffoney, neither of whom had a hand in the plan, stayed to take the heat; in the meantime, Mathur, the plan’s de facto architect, wedged his nose deep inside a passing trustee’s butt and deftly tracked said butt out the door.
     Kingfish? Behold the Goofish.

*  *  *

Religion-attackage, etc.: 
     I have no idea what Ray means by saying that the newsletters have attacked “families.” Maybe I said somethin’ negative about the Manson Family. Who knows.
What about religion? ‘Vine/Dissent has on occasion criticized Pat Robertson’s odious, right-wing political organization—the Christian Coalition—the local coven of which has been a minor player in district politics. (They defended Frogue.)
     And gender orientation? For what it’s worth, I was the faculty advisor of IVC’s short-lived Gay and Lesbian Associated Students, and, as far as I know, all ‘Vine/Dissent contributors are supporters of gay and lesbian rights.
     We have, of course, occasionally referred to the district PIO as Pam “Same-Sex” Zanelli, but that, dear reader, is a reference, not to her sexual orientation (who knows? who cares?), but to her role in Sherry’s decision to use the aforementioned homophobic flier—a document upon which was emblazoned, in large red letters, the phrase “Same-sex ‘marriage.’”

Put up or shut up:
     At a recent Academic Senate meeting in which Ray was in attendance, I stood up to read his Times letter; I remarked on the Rayster’s stunning disregard of the truth. I then turned to Ray and said that, if he is going to accuse people of racism, homophobia, and the like, at the very least, he is obliged to cite concrete instances. I sat down.
     More than three weeks have passed, and I have not heard a peep from the fellow.

     Ray’s letter to the Times was accompanied by a similar epistle by one Anthony Kuo, president of the IVC Associated Students, who, despite his role as student advocate, wrote to “commend Raghu Mathur for four years of superb service to the college as president.” According to Kuo, IVC has been beset, not by a tyrannical rights-violating college president, but by “rebel faculty…and a small number of students” who “have tried to make our campus a war zone by using hate literature….”
     About two weeks ago, I wrote Mr. Kuo. Referring to his accusations regarding the use by “rebel faculty” of “hate literature,” I said:

I hereby request that you show me exactly what it is that I have written or published that constitutes “hate literature.” If I…or some unnamed person or persons…[are] to be publicly charged with “using hate literature” by you, surely you are obliged to provide evidence…I await your response.

     There’s been no response.
     Student government officers tell me that, despite the care I took to fashion my letter as a “request,” Kuo is describing it as a threat.
     I’m told that Mr. Kuo has made the best of the situation, for he has distributed copies of my letter to members of the Board Majority.
     No doubt, soon, I will be visited by stormtroopers, determined to avenge the “violence” done to their hero, Darth Kuo.
     May the Force be with you!

—Chunk Wheeler

RED AND IRV (Red Emma)

[Editor’s note: perhaps you’ll be surprised to learn that there’s a Irv Rubin/SOCCCD connection. More than one! The following article appeared, I think, in a March 2002 edition of Dissent.] 

  Six Degrees of Alienation: And I am Right, and You are Right, and All is Right as Right can Be! 

 By Red Emma 

 I couldn’t help but overhear Rebel Girl in the next room last week, chatting telephonically with yet another puzzled LA Times reporter. The poor, confused fellow, apparently new to the SOCCCD “beat,” couldn’t quite wrap his mind around the unlikely story we call everyday life at IVC and Saddleback. His incredulity was due partly, I later learned, to his residence and normal beat assignment in Los Angeles County. Meanwhile, the Rebellious One kept repeating, a la “Chinatown,” one of my favorite films, “It’s Orange County, Jake, it’s Orange County.” Certainly Los Angeles County education politics has its own bizarre cast of characters, but people seem to deal with it up there. They know what’s going on. They are momentarily distracted by the sexy widow, but, eventually, they notice the broken eyeglasses in the fish pond. Which reminded me, as I read the most recent (and much awaited!) Dissent, of a funny story, and by that I don’t mean ha-ha funny, or isn’t it funny how Raghu is the chancellor, but I do mean completely true funny. Some background might help. As it happens, Red Emma spent his youth collecting signatures, signing petitions, yelling on street corners, raising money, protesting, and occasionally getting arrested as a result of politely objecting to the policies of exactly the asshole whose photograph hangs in the office of our new chancellor. I mean the other asshole, the one shaking hands with Raghu. And in those heady days of objecting to nuclear weapons, state murder in Central America, attacks on education and poor people’s programs, support for apartheid and Zionism and racism and militarism and all the rest of the Reagan Revolution, Red often found standing opposite himself and the other lefties on Wilshire Boulevard a small group of nuts, including (depending on the cause) pro-Shah Iranian nationals, right-wing Roman Catholics, Young Americans for Freedom, Born-again fascists and, indeed, the Jewish Defense League. Perhaps you see where I’m going with this. Maybe you do—and maybe, no, comrade, you do not. Yes, JDL head goof Irv Rubin was recently arrested for allegedly threatening to kill people. (See the 12/21/01 OC Weekly article.) Well, no, threatening was his previous arrest. Oops. This time Irv was arrested for planning to actually blow up a mosque or an institute or something with the word “Arab” in it—or even real, live Arabs-Americans or Muslims. He and his Brown Shirts hate Palestinians, Arabs and non-Zionist Jews almost as much as they hate Peace Now, peaceniks, and lefties. Friends, you have not seen or heard a louder, more obnoxious ambassador of twisted national chauvinism and cultural-religious imperialism than ol’ Irv when he’s hot. But what, you ask, does that have to do with us, here in the Land that Time Forgot? Here’s the funny part. After not seeing him for a couple of years, Red Emma helped set up a Saturday morning Signature Gathering Drive for the Frogue Recall. Remember that nifty campaign? I’m gonna review for those of you from LA County: A group of moderate Republicans and a few brave, conservative Democrats (plus a couple of weirdoes like me) tried to remove a certifiable loon from office who was using—and being used by—a cadre of perhaps conservative but mostly just plain opportunistic other Republicans. Consequently, many people here in South OC who had never in their entire adult lives done more than vote (and some even less) were learning to organize a campaign, set up phone banks, get out the vote, and mobilize for what, even in L.A., would be a pretty darn hard job in a district set up to prevent exactly this kind of recall. Imagine having to gather signatures representing a percentage of voters not from the targeted official’s area, but an entire “at-large” college district the size of two and a half congressional districts! Some trick by that darned Board Majority, huh? To further mess with W.S. Gilbert: “Merely corroborative detail, intended to give artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative.” It was a lot of fun that Saturday morning for this small minority of IVC & Saddleback friends, faculty, students and staff—about 60 of us, as I recall—who worked hard to try to get rid of Nazi Boy. There was a terrific spread of brunch treats, and a raffle. We played Twister, I think, and sang a few choruses from H.M.S. Pinafore. (I was Little Buttercup, though I never learned why.) At some point in the morning, when most of the clipboards, ironing boards, signs, and their new owners had gone out to libraries, Trader Joe’s, Costco, and all those other arenas of civic discourse to gather signatures, into the Irvine city park rec room walks, yes, Mr. JDL, Irv Rubin. Now, as far as I could tell, nobody except Red and Rebel Girl (stalwart sidewalk protester of the 1980’s, too) recognized the guy. I was confident he wouldn’t recognize us (too egotistical to care), despite the many unhappy hours we’d spent marching on opposite sides of Wilshire Boulevard (Red Emma’s sign: “Stop Apartheid.” Irv’s sign: “Hang Nelson Mandela”) and so I sidled up to watch, learn, and be amazed. Irv went around introducing himself to the other event organizers, taking advantage of unlearned peoples’ confusion of his organization with the Anti Defamation League or the League of Nations, La Leche League, The Red-Headed League, National Baseball League, and League of Superheros. (People get confused by that “league” deal. Remind me to name our next recall effort, the League to Recall Tom Fuentes.) Der Irver was shaking hands, giving out cards (I got one, which I still have in my rolodex!) and, at one point, pulling out $100 and contributing it to our Recall Frogue Campaign. I remembered then that, yes, one of Irv’s henchmen (hench-mensch?) had famously stood up a few months earlier and yelled at “Froguey” at an open-to-the-public SOCCCD Board Meeting. It was kind of fun. (His name was Barry. He was a bulldog. He barked.) Finally, in a cloud of dust and a mighty Hi-Ho Irv-o!, Mr. R. departed, leaving me and Rebel Girl shaking our heads and trying, pointlessly, to explain to a few colleagues just how weird was this right-wing nut’s appearance at our little gathering that morning, and the complete and beautiful logic of it. Irv goes anywhere to spread his message of nationalism and state religion—even Irvine! We soon gave up, feeling happy to have gotten the dough and not engaged Irv Rubin on the further dimensions (dementia) of his politics. But, no, that’s not why this is funny. Currently, Irv Rubin of the JDL and the brother of the loud, angry Zionist guy—Barry—who hollered at Frogue are in jail, suspects in a murder conspiracy. The FB of I is no doubt going through their stuff (at least that’s what they do on “The X-Files”). And, yes, friends, among all their dismal and greasy appointment books and personal calendars, Rolodex and computer files, I am confident that our fine federal agents will discover a listing for The Committee to Recall Steven Frogue. Mulder: “Look at this, Scully. Irv in Irvine.” Scully: “No. Are you saying...” Mulder: “It’s too obvious to be random.” Scully: “You’re right. I-r-v. In Irvine. Mulder: “The truth is out there.” Scully: “In Irvine?” And soon, I suspect (remember that word!), some guy in dark glasses and a bad suit is going to show up at the home or office of one of our fine Recall organizers wanting to know about their connections, if any, to a couple of “Zionist” murder guys. Nobody will know what the nice G-men are talking about. They will have forgotten about the weirdly enthusiastic contributor to our Recall donations coffee can that day and the confusing narrative offered by Red and Rebel Girl. When a tree like this falls in your neck of the woods and only a few people see or hear it, did it ever really fall? I wonder. And when the aliens do arrive, dontcha think they are gonna be smart enough not to look like aliens? Well? (I, Red Emma, will deny all of this if you fink to the feds.) No, the ironies of life in the world at large are only magnified, it seems, by the ironies of our strange lives in SOCCCDland. Yes, a murder suspect contributed money to the anti-Frogue campaign. No, nobody even knew who he was (except Red and Rebel). Yes, a group of well-meaning neophyte democratic activists tried, against considerable odds, to make a difference on behalf of shared governance in a community which does not believe in shared governance. They fought a good fight against elected public education officials who don’t even believe in public education. It doesn’t get any weirder than that, Jake. It’s Orange County. —RE

THAT AWFUL LITTLE MAN by Red Emma

    [Note: Dick Jones served as interim Chancellor of SOCCCD between Cedric Sampson and Raghu Mathur. I think that he was very glad to leave our district. No one has ever heard from him again.] 

February (?) 2002 

     Hi friends. Red Emma here. Or is she? With these wacky science guys going around cloning calico kittens and a guy as Chancellor who says he’s a doctor, I could be anybody. 

     Chancellor McGuffey: By the way, what is it about Doctor Dick Jones, former Chancellor, that makes me want to put on my gingham, churn butter, and get out the old buggy whip? Is the fellow a Quaker, a Mennonite, a Taliban, or only an extra on “Little House on the Prairie”? 

     Friends, it’s hard to know with whom you are dealing at SOCCCD. 

     Red of course admires Peace Religions, but wonders how Brother Dick could possibly get up each morning, saddle up the horses, not button his buttons and go to work with Minister of Pancakes Raghu Mathur, Ed.D. and the rest of the disciples. 

     Appearances can be almost as deceiving as public relations officers. Did you know, for instance, that Richard Nixon was raised a Quaker? Did you know Steve Frogue was a Boy Scout troop leader? Did you know that Red was once a Republican? (I made up that last one.) 

     Recently the good doctor asked Red, a writing instructor, if “you folks still teach the five paragraph essay?” 

     Well, yes, Brother Dick, we do. And then, sometimes for fun, we get out our McGuffey Reader or count up the number of stars on the flag. Yup, all twenty-eight of ‘em are still up on Old Glory. 

     Valentine’s Day: Not having visited campus recently, I was pleased that IVC’s typically state-of-the-art technology was, well, something typical, if less than art. Arriving for a fine Valentine’s Day reading sponsored by three English Department stalwarts (whose names, if mentioned here, will only climb higher on the dean’s shit list), I encountered an hourly parking-pass dispenser machine, which refused to accept my coins, bills, or gentle head hammering. 

     Judging it unlikely that I’d find valet parking, I tooled around in my new BMW (well, actually, an old VW, but it does sport a W, like the president), looking for the parking lot near the old orange grove, and found parking aplenty—but no damned orange trees. I fully expect that, upon arriving for a visit in, say, a month or so, I’ll find no school at all, only a small commemorative plaque, naming the site the “Raghu P. Mathur, Ed.D., Distance Learning Campus Mini-Mall.” 

     That night, the Humanities Building seemed to be my destination, but, providing a metaphor this rednik could not dream up, it was of course under renovation/construction, with windows boarded up and frightening Police ribbon strung decoratively. 

     The folks in the School of Humanities and Languages have been under a lot of stress lately. I watched my step, half expecting to find a chalk silhouette drawn on the pavement. 

     That awful little man: People who clone cats are not the people I want to have at my college event but, like so many things last week, this infelicitous feline science development caused me to consider the new chancellor, or, as I like to call him, “Chance.” 

     Did anybody else hear the eight-minute news update on KPCC’s “Airtalk” with Larry Mantle the other morning? It was more fun than a cat in a petri dish. The political reporter from the Register led Larry through recent developments at SOCCCD, with Larry interrupting every once in a while to exclaim “Really?” or “You’re kidding!”—or to wonder aloud if the new Chancellor could possibly be the same awful little man who, in recent years, sued his employer, took on student protesters, went after this very journal, and so on, delightfully. I don’t really like Larry, but he knows a weird, strange, unlikely story when he hears one. 

     Later in the week Larry did a special call-in show on whether Dr. Raghu P. Mathur should be given the Gold Medal for figure skating instead of those Russians and Canadians, though I may have heard that wrong. 

     Caller: I think Jews killed Kennedy. Nova Southeastern University is a swell school. Raghu should get the gold. 

     Larry: Steve, is that you? 

     Cat bite pleasures: Despite not often strolling IVC’s hollowed (and crumbling) halls these days, I do get nifty electronic announcements from the little college in the disappearing orange grove. I receive them via a plastic box my cat likes to call her couch, but which also delivers my email. And, boy, was I pleased to get the announcement of Dr. M’s matriculation to chancellorhood. 

     —It’s like when the doctor (I mean a real doctor) says the nurse will call you in 24 hours with test results cuz you got bit by a potentially rabid stray cat and you’re waiting by the phone to hear if you’ve gotta get those 14 shots in the stomach, but then the nurse finally calls and says, no, the cat wasn’t rabid but they’re gonna destroy it anyway. Well, upon hearing about Raghu’s TOTALLY SURPRISING APPOINTMENT AS CHANCELLOR, I wasn’t sure whether to feel like the doctor, the nurse, the cat, or the guy who got bit. 

The J. Edgar Mathur Memorial Scholarships 

     But I couldn’t have been more pleased when I learned that the Mathuristas (Board members and administrators on whom he apparently has the goods, viz., dirty pictures with animals) were sponsoring a scholarship in the name of the Great Man himself. Meow! An educational scholarship in honor of a lousy Chem Professor who got his “doctorate” through a mail order institution is kind of, well, like cloning cats or something. If you’re gonna clone something, aren’t rabbits the more obviously ironic Kafka-meets-Dr. Frankenstein-meets-Dr. Doolittle choice? 

     Yeah. 

     This news of course caused Red Emma to speculate about other possible scholarships we might see springing up soon and to which we, of course, encourage you all to donate. 

  1. The Raghu P. Mathur Security Stipend Scholarship. Sponsors: Argenbright Security Inc. Description: offers any student being harassed by Kate Clark a monthly stipend for purchase of mace, pepper spray, and a Rottweiler. 

  2. The Raghu P. Mathur-Dorothy Fortune Scholarship for Heterosexual Awareness. Sponsors: Pam “Same-Sex” Zanelli, Sharon McMillan, Sherry Miller-White. Description: a dollar bill, with portrait of our very butchest president, mailed to each voter in the county around, say, election time. –Obtuse, yet symbolic; sleazy, yet certainly not homo, no f**kin’ way! 

  3. The Raghu P. Mathur Revisionist History Scholarship. Sponsors: Steven Frogue, Thomas Fuentes, Michael Collins Piper, Spotlight. Description: an all-expenses paid trip for one lucky IVC history student (a Mathur Fellow) to Dachau, the Dallas Schoolbook Depository, the Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace, and the A-100 building. 

  4. The Raghu P. Mathur El Toro Airport Scholarship. Sponsors: Tom Fuentes, John Williams, Dorothy Fortune, Don Wagner, and Nancy Padberg. Description: employs a lucky IVC student to stand underneath the proposed flight path screaming, “Tom Fuentes was against this, goddamn it! Oh, the humanity!” 

  5. The Raghu P. Mathur Reassigned Time Abolition Scholarship. Sponsors: Hypocrites Anonymous. Description: At an elaborate Pancake Prayer Breakfast, a student is surrounded by a supportive prayer circle. Various godheads are evoked and then the lucky IVC scholar is awarded a keg of Vermont maple syrup and a shiny new “Greed is Good” button. 

      Our whimsical contract: Some readers may recall that your faithful Red scribe once objected, loudly, to the deliberate—or just stupid—failure of SOCCCD to honor the contract, which provides that Adjunct Faculty who’ve worked 5 years are entitled to receive an interview if they are silly enough to want an opening full-time teaching gig in the district. Last month, I finally sat down with, yes, a couple of lawyers, some union comrades, a nice arbitrator, and the district’s sole and singular representative: the acting (and bad acting it was) Chancellor, one Dick “The Woodsman” Jones, who, as I said, waxed so cluelessly about my profession. I wonder if Dick asks dentists about the old grind? 

     Anyway, the arbitration turned into a mediation, which turned nasty when the union had the audacity to suggest a financial award on my behalf. In a few months, I’ll walk into another meeting with lawyers, arbitrator, union comrades, and perhaps the apparent official representative of the district, the Chancellor, when I hope to experience, finally, the happiness, the joy, of meeting, in person, that awful little man.

     Which reminds me of Oscar Wilde’s instructive remark on learning that people were cloning cats: “On an occasion of this kind it becomes more than a moral duty to speak one’s mind. It becomes a pleasure.” 

 —RE

Humanities & Languages Adjuncts speak out: and are fired (archives)

An “archive” post:

Adjunct writing instructor Andrew Tonkovich (aka Red Emma) was fired by Mathur stooge Howard Gensler, apparently owing to the former’s “attire,” among other sins.

In fact, T had written a piece for a local paper that was critical of IVC President Mathur. Do you suppose that was the real reason for T’s termination?

Earlier, a full-time teaching job opened at Saddleback College. Tonkovich was, according to the faculty contract, entitled to an interview, owing to his long-time service at IVC. Nevertheless, he was not invited for an interview, despite repeated efforts reminding HR that he was thus entitled.

No matter, someone was hired, and T was left to confront a district that was determined to do whatever was necessary, including violating the contract, to keep him from being hired full-time. The error was acknowledged by the district, which, nevertheless, did nothing to correct the situation.

This story—and the fate of another part-timer who dared to speak the truth—is told in the following Dissent excerpts from 8 or 9 years ago.

From a piece entitled, “Takin’ Out the Trailer Trash,” by “Chunk Wheeler and Sherlock,” Dissent 49, 5/15/00

A part-timer pays the price for “extramural utterances”

You’ll recall that, a few weeks ago, the full-time faculty of the School of Humanities and Languages walked out on a school meeting when it became clear that Acting Dean Howard G[ensler] intended to prohibit discussion of an apparent change in adjunct hiring policies, among other forbidden topics.

The real issue, of course, was academic freedom—specifically, the right of an adjunct instructor to criticize the college president in a local newspaper, as he had done in December.

Well, a few days after that meeting, I emailed the Acting Dean, requesting that he agendize the policy change, among other topics, for the next meeting, which was scheduled for May 2, a Tuesday. He never got back to me. On the day of the meeting, however, I sought him out to ask about the agenda, and he seemed agreeable to any topic.

At the meeting, Howard showed up with two retired UCI geezers in tow. One geezer called himself Myron; the other called himself Frank. We all regarded the two, wondering what they were doing there.

Myron introduced himself, saying, I think, that, as an instructor, he had been active in the American Association of University Professors (the AAUP); Frank, sporting a John Deere cap, sat at the other end of the room, and he had little to say. Apparently, Howard had asked the two to attend the meeting, and their task, it seemed, was to “monitor” it. (Afterwards, Frank explained that Howard had been his attorney in a dispute with UCI administration.)

I began the discussion by identifying our long-standing “seniority” assignments policy for adjunct faculty. I asked Howard if it was his position that he could change the policy unilaterally.

Others chimed in to confirm my understanding of the policy’s pedigree. The Acting Dean seemed to profess ignorance of, and indifference to, the policy’s long history in the School. “That’s not my policy,” he said, adding that, yes, he can indeed make a unilateral change.

What, then, was our new policy? We sought an explanation of the bases upon which, in general, the Acting Dean might now act to fire an adjunct. Howard’s answer was disappointing; he said that the continued employment of adjuncts was a matter of his “discretion,” and that he planned to use a “broad standard” in making these decisions.

Faculty pressed Howard for details of the “broad standard.” He responded by offering three “examples”: (1) teaching performance, (2) “attire,” and (3) whether the instructor has violated the academic rights of another instructor.

“Attire?” asked Jim. “Yes, attire,” replied Howard. We all stared in disbelief.

Howard’s “examples” were curious, for, as a matter of fact, the adjunct instructor whose treatment at Howard’s hands occasioned this discussion—Professor T[onkovich]—had at one point written a letter to the editor of the school paper and its (temporary) faculty advisor, offering unremarkable criticisms regarding a student editorial and the paper’s news coverage, which seemed often to miss the campus’s political struggles. Some full-timers had expressed similar sentiments in similar communications. Apparently, the faculty advisor took offense to these criticisms and notified the dean.

Further, I have been told that, during a meeting with department chairs, Howard referred to “attire” while discussing his reasons for not rehiring Professor T as a writing instructor. In fact, Professor T’s attire is pleasant and unremarkable, which has inspired the suspicion that Howard is confusing the presentable Professor T with the pierced and bestudded Mr. S, a member of the Student Liberties Club, which T helps advise, though not concerning fashion. Further, nothing about Professor T’s recent letters constitutes a violation of anyone’s rights. T offered only criticism, and he did so most decorously. He gets to do that.

Anyway, we all listened to Howard’s “examples” in polite silence. If Myron and Frank expected a food fight, it did not materialize.

Faculty explained to Howard that the “seniority” adjunct assignment policy—which presupposes that “senior” faculty have received positive teaching evaluations—has worked well for the School for over twenty years. The policy emphasizes teaching performance, not attire, not politics. By what logic, we asked, could something like “attire” be placed alongside the question of actual teaching performance?

Howard’s answers to our many questions were at times evasive. At other times, he betrayed a failure to comprehend our queries, thereby causing waves of quizzical expressions across the room.

I raised a second issue: was it true that the School’s long-standing practice of basing scheduling on faculty recommendations was now vulnerable to the whims of the Acting Dean? Earlier, Howard had expressed the intention of making decisions based on what he called the “totality of circumstances” test. He repeated this intention. Essentially, the Acting Dean was saying that he would not be pinned down regarding the bases of his decisions.

Naturally, faculty again expressed concern: wasn’t the Acting Dean in effect embracing an arbitrary and whimsical decision-making procedure? Someone asked how, given the vagueness of Howard’s criteria, an instructor who had been fired would ever be in a position to remedy an erroneous judgment?

Even Myron seemed concerned. Normally, he said, the dean’s recommendation is only “one step”; it isn’t the whole process. Also, when a dean makes a decision, he is obliged to give reasons. That’s just part of “adequate consultation” between the dean and the faculty.

Lewis, Kate, Richard, Frank, Marjorie, Rebecca, and others spoke and spoke well. They asked: are you ultimately justifying this policy change on the ground that, legally, you get to do that? Do you really mean to deny that teaching performance is the central and overriding criterion for the hiring and continued employment of adjuncts? Do you really intend to place your own judgment—the judgment of a non-expert (who has never held a full-time teaching position at a college and who has no advanced degrees in the Humanities or Languages)—over the judgment of faculty experts?

The ensuing “dialogue” did nothing to move Howard from his curious stance.

At one point, Dale, an elder statesman among faculty, suggested to Howard that some of his decisions “baffle” faculty. “There’s an element of bafflement among us,” he said. Howard responded by explaining that he works closely with the chairs and that they help him to arrive at decisions. He seemed to suggest that the chairs “own” his decisions, too. But one chair clearly took exception to the suggestion, noting that, in truth, she had explicitly protested the decision not to schedule a history course in the fall that had been recommended by the faculty of the relevant department. Frank raised other concerns regarding this particular decision and the grounds that Howard had given for it.

Someone suggested that the top administrators of the college “don’t have a clue” what they’re doing, resulting in a decline in enrollments, among other things. She suggested that Howard should help turn the tide by supporting and empowering faculty, who have some experience and expertise regarding scheduling and adjunct assignments and all the rest. Howard appeared unreceptive to this suggestion.

A senior instructor raised further concerns about Howard’s new adjuncts “policy.” She asked: if this is how we are going to treat adjuncts, just who is going to work for us? We’re going to get the “dregs,” she added. That’s what we get now, she said, for administrators. The dregs.

We all looked at the Acting Dean. He looked back.

[ENTER ADJUNCT KEN BROWN]

Ken, the only part-timer present, listened concernedly. Toward the end of the meeting, he was asked to offer his view. He responded with a statement that was both eloquent and impassioned. He reminded everyone what is at stake. It isn’t easy, he said, losing half of one’s employment in one fell swoop, as sometimes happens to a part-timer, for one reason or another. He explained that, at one time, IVC valued and respected adjuncts. Full-time faculty were supportive, and administrators were very fair, willing to do right by adjuncts. In his experience, he said, adjuncts were hired or fired on the basis of merit, and the system worked well.

But now, he said, he was “scared to death.” Based on what he had been hearing, it was clear that he and other adjuncts had no protection based on criteria. Clearly, now, there is no “process,” only “whim.” Sadly, it is now a “different school.”

Ken closed by saying that, in his estimation, he was a pretty good instructor, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to continue to teach for IVC, not under these conditions.

Someone added: “Howard, you should know that Ken is our best philosophy instructor, and that includes full-timers.” He was right.

Howard then consulted his watch, said “Thanks,” and left the room. The meeting was over.

* * * * *
As things now stand, Professor T, despite having received excellent evaluations, will not be teaching for us in the Fall. No word yet on whether he has found alternative employment.

Did you hear what happened at Orange Coast College? They just hired a new dean of literature and languages. Michael Mandelkern, most recently the chair of the Humanities Department at the College of New Rochelle (Brooklyn Campus), has 12 years of teaching experience at the college level, and he’s a scholar and writer. He’ll start work on July 1.

Soon, at IVC, we’ll be hiring the permanent Dean of Humanities and Languages. Who do you suppose will be hired?

What follows is from a piece entitled “The Year of Living Stupidly,” Dissent 58, 5/16/01

If it’s Brown, flush it

Tolerance is another word for indifference.

—Somerset Maugham

As you may know, Ken Brown, a long-time IVC philosophy part-timer and bonhomme, has established an enviable reputation as an instructor and colleague of the highest order. As was explained last year during a tense Humanities and Languages School meeting, he is in fact our best philosophy instructor, or so said the sole philosophy full-timer at that memorable gathering. Plus he has made numerous valuable contributions outside the classroom.

Even so, he has now been fired, evidently owing to alleged rudeness or something. He thus joins a growing list of proud firees who…

—Wait a minute. This episode concerns a part-timer. Who cares?

Evidently, not the full-time faculty, who have done virtually nothing about the situation. I guess they shot their wad (an unimpressive little package) a year ago, when the regime went after Andrew T, that noted raconteur, rabble-rouser, and similarly excellent fellow.

Faculty silence speaks volumes. No wonder the Dissent went into hibernation. It shall do so again, tout à l’heure….

What follows is from a piece entiktled “+” by Red Emma. It appeared in Dissent 61 (I think), about February of 2002.

Our whimsical contract:

Some readers may recall that your faithful Red scribe once objected, loudly, to the deliberate—or just stupid—failure of SOCCCD to honor the contract, which provides that Adjunct Faculty who’ve worked 5 years are entitled to receive an interview if they are silly enough to want an opening full-time teaching gig in the district. Last month, I finally sat down with, yes, a couple of lawyers, some union comrades, a nice arbitrator, and the district’s sole and singular representative: the acting (and bad acting it was) Chancellor, one Dick “The Woodsman” Jones, who, as I said, waxed so cluelessly about my profession. I wonder if Dick asks dentists about the old grind?

Anyway, the arbitration turned into a mediation, which turned nasty when the union had the audacity to suggest a financial award on my behalf. In a few months, I’ll walk into another meeting with lawyers, arbitrator, union comrades, and perhaps the apparent official representative of the district, the Chancellor, when I hope to experience, finally, the happiness, the joy, of meeting, in person, that awful little man.

Which reminds me of Oscar Wilde’s instructive remark on learning that people were cloning cats: “On an occasion of this kind it becomes more than a moral duty to speak one’s mind. It becomes a pleasure.” —RE


From the OC Weekly, October 13, 2000

Cirque du Socccd
Goofiness is back at South Orange County Community College District

by Matt Coker

Let us revisit one of the weirdest marriages in the history of Orange County’s political freak show. It’s 1996, and the leadership of the liberal union representing South County community college faculty members has locked arms with four conservatives running for the board of trustees.

Their reasons are simple: the union, which spends more in these races than all other sources combined, will use its ample treasury to prop up conservatives in one of the most conservative voting areas in California, the South Orange County Community College District (SOCCCD), which encompasses Saddleback and Irvine Valley colleges. In return, said conservatives will protect teacher salaries, already the highest in the state community college system, in the face of the financially strapped district’s looming bankruptcy.

The strategy of this unholy alliance was best illustrated in what became known as the “homophobic hate mailers of ’96.” To ensure the conservatives’ victory, the union paid for campaign mailers that played on the fears of conservative voters. The mailers claimed that the conservative slate would fight to protect voters’ hard-earned tax dollars from being used to fund health benefits for the same-sex partners of district employees.

Same-sex benefits were neither an issue in the race nor on the district bargaining table, but the tactic worked beautifully. Three of the four conservatives—Dorothy Fortune, John Williams and Steven Frogue—breezed to victory; fellow conservative Don Davis lost to incumbent David Lang.

The ’96 election left a bad taste in the mouths of many in the district. Acrimony led to lawsuits, turf wars, recall campaigns, outgoing staff stampedes, closed-door meetings, closed-door-meeting-law violations, threats of lost accreditation and an eventual changing of the guard in the faculty-union leadership.

But now it’s election time again, and gay-baiting has returned to the SOCCCD. Faxes that have been dropping like SCUDs at Irvine Valley College (IVC) the past few weeks riff off the same homophobia used in 1996. Claiming to be newsletters produced by IVC’s “Gay-Lesbian Task Force,” the faxes applaud a reform-minded slate of candidates—incumbent Lang and newcomers Bill Shane, Bob Loeffler and Bill Hochmuth—for supporting same-sex benefits.

Using political reverse psychology—and lots of capital letters—one fax reads: “Please, do not vote for those candidates who would DENY us our domestic-partner same-sex benefits (DON DAVIS, JOHN WILLIAMS, DOROTHY FORTUNE and TOM FUENTES).”

Fuentes, the chairman of the Orange County Republican Party, recently replaced Frogue, who stepped down from the board after a tumultuous reign that included two unsuccessful recall campaigns against him amid allegations that he is racist and anti-Semitic.

As is par for the SOCCCD, the faxes are total bullshit. There is no Gay-Lesbian Task Force. The name of the “registered Democrat” identified as the author of the abovementioned fax is not in the phone book, the district’s employee roster or the county registrar’s list of registered Democrats. The “author” listed on a second fax does exist but denies having created either fax and is offended by being linked to them.

A third fax sent out last week makes the same claims about same-sex benefits but directs all inquiries to IVC’s Gay & Lesbian Student Club—which does exist, although club members deny any involvement in this sordid mess. Fax No. 4 claims that Lang has won the endorsement of the North American Man-Boy Love Association (NAMBLA).

Despite their over-the-top quality, the faxes prompted another IVC professor—who also exists—to announce the formation of a conservative faculty group to fight “liberal extremists” who have taken over the union and created a rogue and illegal PAC that has secretly recruited candidates to push for same-sex benefits. That professor confirmed to the Weekly that he authored that fax.

Andrew Tonkovich, a liberal adjunct faculty member at IVC and a constant thorn in the side of conservative trustees and administrators, responded to the fax campaign by putting out a satirical release from the “One True Conservative Faculty Association.” Noting that his organization “put the ‘con’ in ‘conservative,’” Tonkovich announced his group’s endorsement of Fuentes for not one but all four vacant district trustee seats this November. He concludes his delicious lampoon by pointing out that his public “remarks were met by complete indifference.”

“Complete indifference” is how we’re supposed to regard community college districts. When it comes to government fiefdoms, community college districts rank near the bottom in importance, sandwiched somewhere between vector-control and lighting-assessment districts. Here’s a little secret: community college boards don’t actually do anything. Most money for community colleges comes from the state and is earmarked for specific purposes. Talking about gays and lesbians is just a way to get some voters to pay attention.

The Weekly apologizes for having wasted this much ink to tell you that.

From a piece entitled “The Return of Red Emma (with an appearance by Mrs. Red Emma),” by Red Emma, Dissent 53, 10/9/00

A “Conservative” Occurrence

Responding to a press release sent out by the South Orange County Community College Conservative Faculty Association, a part-time IVC faculty member recently sent his own release. In a shameless effort to mollify one of his favorite contributors, your editor has agreed, despite his best instincts and the high journalistic standards of this publication, to reprint it, below. —R.E.

PRESS RELEASE—TONKOVICH
THE SOUTH ORANGE COUNTY COMMUNITY COLLEGE DISTRICT

Saddleback College
Irvine Valley College
THE ONE, TRUE,
CONSERVATIVE
FACULTY ASSOCIATION
#1

Our mission: “TRUTH”
Our motto: “ONENESS”

Our constituency:
the really, really truly conservative faculty members of the South Orange County
Community College District.

Our enrollment numbers: wouldn’t you like to know?

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

* The One, True, Conservative Faculty Association Challenges SOCCCD Faculty Association
* Membership Announces Endorsement of Tom Fuentes—for ALL FOUR TRUSTEE positions
* Affiliate Faculty Associations endorse Fuentes

Contact: Andrew Tonkovich, Chair, OTCFA (949) xxx-xxxx

Today, Friday September 22, the Chairperson of the SOCCCD-OTCFA denounced the SOCCCD Faculty Association as “a small rogue group of faculty members made up of the majority of faculty in the two-campus district.” Comments attacking the legitimacy of the faculty labor union and its PAC were made by OTCFA Chair Andrew Tonkovich, an Adjunct Faculty member at Irvine Valley College, one of the district’s two colleges.

“Who do they think they are? A union?” sniffed One True Conservative Chair Tonkovich. “Just because they negotiate our contracts and we elect them to office doesn’t mean that they represent us.” He went on to declare, “So what if their membership is at an all-time high. Who cares that the state California Teachers Association (CTA) recognized this remarkable growth with an award? It doesn’t mean that the SOCCCD Faculty Association represents anyone other than the people behind them—the faculty.”

The un-elected, un-appointed, unofficial spokesperson of the One, True Conservative Faculty Association touted the credentials of his own newly-formed organization: “We’re NOT like those other faculty associations you read about in the papers. We’re NOT recognized as a collective bargaining unit by the state. We DON’T collect dues. We DON’T hold meetings. We DON’T negotiate teachers’ contracts.”

“In fact,” offered Tonkovich, “we DON’T have any legal or political standing at all. No, not a lick! Still, we offer the ONE, TRUE CONSERVATIVE VISION: Oneness. Truth.”

Tonkovich added that his organization “put the ‘con’ in “conservative.”

Tonkovich then announced his Faculty Association’s endorsement of Orange County Republican Party Chair Tom Fuentes for not one, but all four district Trustee positions in November. “He’s our candidate. If he’s not on your ballot, just write in his name or ‘GOP guy.’ They’ll know who you mean.”

Fuentes is currently a candidate in only one district, but has raised an unheard of $100,000 to fund his race, more than four times the average amount of other candidates.

Fuentes was recently appointed by the Board of Trustees to replace the retiring Steven Frogue, an alleged Holocaust revisionist, who was the subject of a community recall effort. “We believe Tom Fuentes plans to use this position as a stepping stone toward a Supervisorial run,” said Tonkovich. “That’s fine with true conservatives like us.”

OTCFA’s position follows the SOCCCD-FA’s recent endorsement of four “Clean Slate” candidates for the Board of Trustees’ race. “Their endorsement means diddly squat,” said Tonkovich. “Look, all the Faculty Association did was put together a democratic process allowing all faculty to develop questions about important issues facing the district, interview candidates in an open forum, and then vote their choices. Just because the vote was unanimous doesn’t mean a thing. I mean, this is America, isn’t it?”

Tonkovich cautioned reporters to “Listen to us! Not THEM!”

He also announced the formation of affiliate One, True Conservative groups, each offering individual F.A. endorsements of Trustee Tom Fuentes for all four positions. These affiliate groups include:

The One, True, Conservative Nudist Faculty Association (OTCNFA)

The One, True, Conservative Buddhist Nudist Faculty Association (OTCBNFA)

Friends of the Tom Fuentes Urban Park (FTFUP)

The One, True, Free, Faux Conservative Faculty Association ( 1234CFA)

Tonkovich’s remarks were met by complete indifference. He is, nonetheless, available for comment. (949) xxx-xxxx.