Takin' It to the Street, Part 2: Free Speech on Wheels!

Last night, we gave you some info about how you can help spread the word about the election by painting on your car rear window.

Here's an update with some additional tips:

If you use tempera according to our previous directions, try lightly spraying the inside of the rear window with hair spray first. (If it runs, just smooth out with a paper towel.) The hair spray will dry clear (more or less) and help act as a primer: your paint will go on more smoothly and stick better. Let the hair spray dry thoroughly before you paint. After the paint is completely dry, you can apply another very light coat of hair spray.



An easy (though slightly more expensive) alternative to tempera is glass chalk, which can be used on the outside of the windows. Supposedly, it will hold up in the rain yet comes off easily when scrubbed with water. Check at auto supply stores and hardware stores for this one.

Finally, once you've done your window, please send us a photo of the job at saveourswc@yahoo.com, and we'll post it on the blog!

And keep those tips coming. Let's do this!

Award-winning SWC Sun Shut Down

Twenty-six press awards, and what does the college do to the Southwestern College Sun? Cancel the first issue.





As reported in Southwestern Board Must Go!, twenty-six reporters just received San Diego Press Club Excellence in Journalism Awards. The administration has responded . . . well, it hasn't responded. Nothing. No press release. No "way to go." Nada. (And given that faculty union president Andrew MacNeill sent an email informing SWC Superintendent/President Raj Chopra and PR man Chris Bender at 6:40 this morning, there's really no excuse.)

Shortly afterward, The SWC Sun released the statement, "Publishing Crisis Update: Issue #1 Canceled." The statement points out that district PR claims that they were working to quickly resolve the crisis were "misleading or false."

Also revealed in the statement are four areas of concern:

(1) Suspension of the printing of the Sun.

(2) The threatened arrest of Branscomb [faculty adviser to The Sun] and three students who were stopped by campus police for removing a journalism computer from the journalism lab.

(3) The district's plan to remove the Sun's link from the home page of the college's website.

(4) An administrative prohibition of campus employees from talking to Sun journalists without the permission of district spokesperson Christopher Bender.

By now, the first three are still shocking but familiar to most. The fourth is downright flabbergasting.

How many times does the administration and Board of Southwestern College have to be taken to task for First Amendment violations? And how can they be stopped?

Step 1: VOTE IN A NEW BOARD THIS NOVEMBER!

Watch for mailers that should be arriving soon, and please share and display. Let's Save Our Southwestern College!

Feels Like Old Times

It was just one year ago that the Save Our Southwestern College blog got its start. The issues at the time: ham-handed administration, threats to freedom of speech, accreditation headed for the rocks.

My, how things haven't changed.



One of our first posts linked to a News 10 story:
College President Accused Of Targeting School Paper

Sounds familiar, don't it?

Posted the same day was a set of links to coverage from The Sun documenting problems with Raj Chopra's management going back to March of 2009:
If No News Is Good News . . .

After that came a series of posts documenting the efforts of people on the ground--faculty, staff, and students--to get the college back on track. In October 2009, nine documents were posted, including a copy of the Academic Senate's Vote of No Confidence in Raj Chopra and materials explaining the importance of Shared Governance (a key area that the Accrediting Commission later found lacking).

Also posted in October '09 were alternatives to the 25% class cuts, a timeline documenting issues with adversarial leadership, other cost-saving suggestions, and the first Governing Board meeting protest, including transcripts of some of the speeches.

But wait! There's more--much more, and if you care to take a deja vu walk down memory lane, just start back in September 2009 and work your way forward. It's a lot of reading, but a lot has been going on for quite some time.

Southwestern's issues (and this blog) didn't start with the teachers' suspensions. That event merely put both the college and the blog on the map. The people who care, the people who know, the people who work in the midst of mismanagement, greed, ignorance, ineptitude, and spite (to name just a few oughta-be deadly sins) have been trying to spread the word, trying to Save Our Southwestern College.

Will you help them? More importantly, will you help the thousands of students who depend on SWC for their education?

Please visit the sites of the candidates currently running against Board incumbents. Please contribute. (See left sidebar.)

Meanwhile, here's the roll call of press pieces on the most recent free speech mess at SWC:

Sun Under Attack (from the SWC Sun)

Southwestern College Bars Student Paper from Printing (from the Huffington Post)

College Newspaper Threatened by Contract Policy (from SignonSanDiego)

Students Claim Administrators Looking to Shut Down Newspaper (from 10 News)

Southwestern College Halts Publication of Student Newspaper (from The Chronicle of Higher Education)

Student Journalists Say College Trying to Squelch Them (from Inside Higher Education)

Now is the time for change. Es tiempo de cambiar. What will you do to make it happen?

The Plot Thickens

While the SWC administration puts school newspaper The Sun on hold, SWC Vice President of Business Nicholas Alioto spams faculty at their private email addresses. Meanwhile, students rally to raise funds for independent publication of The Sun.



It's official: SWC admins have issued a "cease and desist" order, halting publication of the school newspaper, which is ready to go to press.

Senior staff writer Lyndsay Winkley will be speaking tonight at 7:00 pm at the Eastlake Bonita Democratic Club Meeting at the Bonita library (4375 Bonita Rd, Bonita). She "will be requesting the support, both financial and ethical, of the citizens in our community to help us, as student journalists, fully employ our constitutional rights." You can read more on this issue, including Lyndsay's full email, at Southwestern College Board Must Go!

As the news of this latest act of free speech suppression broke, many faculty were also shocked to find an email from Vice President of Business Nick Alioto in their private home email inboxes. At this point, no one knows how Alioto obtained these private addresses, but suffice it to say that faculty feel concerned and violated.

The email, which makes spurious, unsubstantiated claims about a candidate running against an incumbent in the upcoming Governing Board election, was sent from Nick Alioto's private account at http://www.pbcg.biz, site of the Public Business Consulting Group, Inc., headquartered in Wisconsin. (According to the site, Nick Alioto is or was--it's not clear when the site was last updated--the president/CEO of that company.)

Is this the same company that caused so much trouble for Wisconsin school districts, bilking the public of hundreds of thousands of dollars, with the result that Alioto was effectively run out of town? Why, yes it is! And, unlike Alioto's own specious claims about a candidate, this story is fully documented over at The Writer's Washroom.

Of further interest is Alioto misrepresenting himself as a licensed CPA. Typically signing emails, Nicholas C. A. Alioto, CPA, he implies that he is licensed in the state of California. However, a check at the California Board of Accountancy shows no Nick Alioto, Nicholas Alioto, Nicholas C. A. Alioto, or any other combination we could think of as licensed in the state. According to the California Board, "Only persons who are licensed by the CBA may call themselves a Certified Public Accountant or Public Accountant." (Incidentally, Alioto is not licensed in Wisconsin either; his license expired in 2009.)

The election is just weeks away. Please help Save Our Southwestern College!

Stop the Presses! (says SWC admin)

Previously, we've discussed the ongoing harassment of reporters and the faculty advisor for The Sun, Southwestern College's award-winning student newspaper (for example, Muzzle, Muzzle and Censorship and The Sun).

Well, the administration is at it again.


Excerpted from an email sent globally to SWC full- and part-time faculty by Janet Mazzarella, SCEA Vice-President:

We want to inform the faculty of some recent actions that have taken place regarding the Southwestern Sun, its advisor, Max Branscomb, and the SWC students that work on college newspaper staff. First, a couple of the students were stopped by campus police when they were moving a journalism computer off campus. Even though this has occurred before when the students participate in competitions or students are pressed to complete a story after business hours, now the students are being threatened with criminal charges by our administration.

Second, we learned today that the administration filed a cease and desist order to stop the newspaper from printing. Apparently, there is a policy that says that the contract for printing has to be approved by the Governing Board. Even though this has never happened in the past, now all of sudden this administration feels compelled to stop the Sun from printing.

There are many other forms of retaliation that the Sun, its advisor, and our students have been forced to endure. While the district may try to claim that it is doing its due diligence in following all regulations, it seems to us like an opportune moment to shut out this important (and legally protected) voice.

Some are wondering if this recent article from The Sun has something to do with this latest act of retaliation. . . .


In the meantime, please also see "A Diagram of Big Construction Payoffs at Southwestern College" at http://www.swcboardmustgo.com/. This post links to a Reader article providing background on the conflicts of interest that drive administrative decision-making at SWC.


Stay tuned. . . .

Muzzle, Muzzle, Who's Got the Muzzle?

Turns out it's Chris Bender, in charge of SWC Community and Media Relations.

The following is adapted from the “When Will They Ever Learn?” file, SCEA (SWC faculty union) Newsletter:


As we previously reported, Southwestern College’s administration has won a national award from a prestigious institution, The Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression. Due to the Chopra administration’s reaction to a peaceful student protest which resulted in the suspension of four faculty members, it was awarded the Jefferson Muzzle. The Jefferson Center created this annual award to call “attention to those who in the past year forgot or disregarded Mr. Jefferson’s admonition that freedom of speech ‘cannot be limited without being lost.’” (http://www.tjcenter.org/muzzles/).

This award is the latest result of the Chopra administration’s egregious behavior in regards to students and faculty speaking out against wrong-headed decisions and mismanagement, and just as the faculty suspensions before it, this award made national news (see our earlier post for a list of the outlets and articles). Naturally, it was also covered by our own Southwestern Sun, a paper whose work has won awards of the honorable sort, in their April 13-26, 2010 edition. (See "College Administration Named One of Nation's Worst First Amendment Violators")

Chris Bender, PR man for Chopra and the Board, took issue with the article in the Sun, and felt it was appropriate to respond by emailing the student who wrote the article to complain that the administration’s point of view wasn’t presented to their liking. Here are his issues as quoted from the email he sent to the student:

1. When we talked, you indicated this would be a small item. Conversely, it’s the lead item in the paper. If you were changing the story in any way, I believe I should have been informed so I could have decided if the college’s response was appropriate.
2. The college’s response (my quote) is literally the last item in the story, whereas the story is front-loaded with quotes from other people. To me, that is not balanced. We deserve the opportunity to respond and respond early, especially if the story is about a member of the administration. They way this story is set up, no one would even know our view if they didn’t make the jump (and the jump isn’t even on the correct page).
3. You cite VP Alioto when VP Alioto is not even mentioned in the public documents released by the Jefferson foundation: http://www.tjcenter.org/muzzles/muzzle-archive-2010/#item08. Such a citation is misleading. The last line of the public release clearly states: “Southwestern College’s administration clearly merits a 2010 Jefferson Muzzle.”
   

I’d like a quick response on all of these points.
(Chris Bender, Friday, April 30, 2010 10:31 AM)

Now we could go point by point, and in fact, Sun advisor Max Branscomb, also a winner of honorable awards and the man who should have received the email, did just that, but the email speaks for itself. Even after receiving their Muzzle and being named “one of the nation’s worst First Amendment violators” as the headline from the Sun declares, the Chopra administration continues to attack the First Amendment by attempting to intimidate a student journalist.

It should also be pointed out that in the article in question, Bender refers to the suspension of the four faculty members and the Muzzle award as an “issue” of “public safety.” He goes on to say that “the Jefferson Center has confused protecting free speech with protecting people.” This is a curious assertion for anyone who was actually there at the time of the event, as Bender wasn’t, and even more curious in light of the fact that the Chopra administration has failed to devise an emergency notification system for the campus as required by the Clery Act, federal legislation designed to ensure colleges take steps to protect their people.

Section 68.46(g) of Clery states that SWC must establish, “Procedures to immediately notify the campus community upon the confirmation of a significant emergency or dangerous situation involving an immediate threat occurring on campus.” To date, the college hasn’t developed such procedures and shows no signs of doing so.

The Chopra administration is willing to harass students and faculty in the name of public safety, but comply with the law? Not so much.

But wait, isn’t there a Freedom of Expression committee working to right all of these wrongs? Sure, and the ACLU has responded to the committee’s proposed policy and procedures with a six-page letter dated May 7, 2010 outlining the Constitutional issues with the new policy that’s being brought to the Board for a first reading at their June meeting. The ACLU’s objections include the fact that the new procedure “unconstitutionally authorizes censorship based on the content of speech,” and that the “Permit provision presents Constitutional problems.”

Furthermore, FIRE has been excluded from the revision process entirely, as noted in a May 12, 2010 letter from the organization: “While FIRE was initially invited to offer input into the drafting process, we were subsequently denied the opportunity to do so.” The letter concludes with the following:

A fundamental condition of teaching and learning in any accredited public institution of higher learning in the United States is that the institution respects basic First Amendment freedoms. For many months now, SWC has proven it does not do so. Not only does SWC maintain an unconstitutional policy, but it has failed to produce a replacement policy that passes constitutional muster.

The SCEA finds it appalling that the Chopra administration, with the blessing of the Board, continues to operate in this manner. Its initial actions resulted in national condemnation, but instead of being humbled and attempting to ameliorate the situation, they continue down the same path. Chris Bender spams our email day in and day out with missives that laud this administration and Board at the same time they try to smother the First Amendment rights of any who would disagree with their wrongheaded decisions through intimidation and arrogant disregard. They hide behind claims of “public safety” while flaunting federal law. They continue to bring shame and dishonor to our college, and they show no signs of stopping.

And the Muzzle Goes to . . . .

The Administration of Southwestern College!

That's right folks, Dr. Chopra & Co. are again making headlines with their receipt of a not-so-coveted 2010 Jefferson Muzzle. The award was granted by the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression, in part "for promulgating and enforcing a policy limiting even peaceful and non-disruptive protests to a designated 'free speech' patio."

One of ten winners, the SWC Admin has the distinction of being the only community college thus recognized. Way to go, guys!

A sampling of coverage:

Greg Lukianoff for the Huffington Post: Muzzle Tov, Southwestern College and Your "Free Speech Patio"!

William Creeley for FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights in Education): Southwestern College Receives Jefferson "Muzzle" Award for Egregious Censorship

Dissent the Blog: Southwestern College administrative rat bastards get major "muzzle" prize

CBS News: Free Speech Group Gives "Muzzle" Awards

The story has also appeared in USA Today, Fox News, and countless other news outlets, both mainstream and specialized. (Try a Google search of "muzzle award" "Southwestern College" and you'll get over 5,000 results.)

Denied!

VP Alioto Denies Blurting, While Student Denied Artistic Expression

During last week's SWC Street Painting Festival, a student was prevented from rendering her drawing of the three professors suspended this past October.

As the student points out, the drawing (at left) is a positive representation that criticizes no one. College authorities, however, found it controversial and said that it didn't relate to the festival's theme of Women's History Month.

The student remarks: "The events that happened last October until today were and are still a part of women's history. Professor [Dinorah Guadiana-]Costa, I, and a lot of female students were there! That's a slap to a lot of people's faces."


Meanwhile, Vice President for Business and Financial Affairs Nick Alioto had no trouble exercising his right to free expression at a recent Governing Board meeting. As reported in the Southwestern College Sun, "while Trustee Nick Aguilar was speaking to reassigned time and discussing the adviser's [to the newspaper] job, Alioto blurted out, 'The guy's a fucking idiot.'"

In an email message to all faculty and staff, Alioto later offered a correction, where he denies blurting, states that Nick Aguilar is not a "fucking idiot," and apologizes to a "hypothesized" fucking idiot:

There is an inappropriate statement that I made at the board meeting to another staff member. It was certainly not blurted out. Someone, however, did overhear it and report it to others. The comment was not directed at the individuals hypothesized in the paper. I have met personally with the person it was directed at and apologized and did it the day after the meeting. I apologize for making the comment to begin with.

Thank goodness that's all cleared up!

Trouble at Southwestern College

Local artist Katherine Sweetman, in conjunction with Media Arts Center San Diego, has produced a short video, Trouble at Southwestern College.

Highlighting the role of electronic news sharing, the video documents the issues leading up to the Oct. 22 student rally and the ensuing suspension of four instructors.

Please share!

ACLU Letter to Chopra

In an extensively documented letter to SWC President Raj Chopra, David Blair-Loy, legal director for the San Diego/Imperial County chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, outlines how the college's actions and policies violate the First Amendment, California Education Code, and the California Constitution.

These are the primary points of the letter:

1. California law does not allow the college to declare most of the
campus off-limits to free speech.

2. California law does not authorize a prior restraint on college student
speech.

3. The First Amendment narrowly circumscribes the college’s right to
require an advance permit for speech or assembly.

a. The policy may not delegate excessive discretion and must
contain a mandatory deadline for issuing a permit.

b. A permit requirement for small groups is an invalid prior
restraint.

c. Any permit requirement must contain an exception for
spontaneous expression.

4. The college unconstitutionally restricts protected speech.

For the full details, citations, and references to case law, please see the full letter.

And remember the free speech rally coming up this Friday the 13th! (see previous post)