College’s District Discord Heats Up

* When is an anti-Semite not an anti-Semite?

When he is an innocent history teacher and school board member who has the audacity to open a public seminar concerning the assassination of one of our presidents.

The hate campaign underway against South Orange County Community College District Board President Steven J. Frogue has nothing to do with JFK conspiracies. The hate-mongers are intent on negating the choice of the voters and working to discredit Frogue and his reform projects at Irvine Valley and Saddleback colleges.

Frogue planned to present a course called “The Warren Report on the JFK Assassination” at Saddleback College and included four potential speakers with diverse theories on the subject, beside the Warren Report documents.

Never mind that the speakers are published, acknowledged experts in the field--one of the four has been labeled anti-Semitic because of his theories tying an Israeli intelligence group to the assassination.

So Frogue’s opponents scream his experts should not be permitted to speak at Saddleback College. They label Frogue and anyone calling for discussion of this subject on grounds of academic freedom or freedom of speech a bigot or anti-Semite.

Do freedom of speech and academic freedom exist only for those opinions we agree with?

Did Oliver North get censored last year when he spoke at Saddleback or could he express his views of history? Did the Black Muslim representatives present all sides of the race issue or their point of view at Saddleback?

Now a recall movement has begun against Frogue over a course that was canceled and never once met. Are we in America or the old USSR. Or Nazi Germany?

Shame on the leaders of this campaign, who want to destroy an elected official and accomplish by defamation of character what could not be done in an election of 200,000 voters.

RAY CHANDOS

Electronic Technology Instructor

Irvine Valley College

* To have, in the midst of our educational system, a Hitler sympathizer is to denigrate and to distort fundamental principles of which the 1st Amendment is made.

ENRIQUE FRIEDMAN, M.D.

Fullerton

* The student governments of Irvine Valley and Saddleback colleges, in calling for the immediate resignation of Frogue, showed wisdom beyond their years and a level of understanding and judgment far exceeding that of the members of the board who supported Frogue in his blatant anti-Semitic attack!

L.A. THOMPSON

Corona del Mar

* I would like to clarify statements in professor Lisa Alvarez’s Sept. 7 Orange County Voices commentary on the South Orange County Community College District.

In July, the Board of Trustees approved a districtwide administrative reorganization that was unpopular with some. Professor Alvarez erroneously claims that 10 Irvine Valley College school chairs were fired. Although this reorganization eliminated the school chair positions, all 10 chairs, in fact, returned to full-time teaching positions from which they had originally been released in order to perform administrative duties.

Four deans from Saddleback College were transferred to IVC to undertake those administrative responsibilities. As a result, the 10 instructional divisions at Saddleback College were consolidated to six.

This reorganization was designed to reduce administrative costs, return more professors to the classrooms on a full-time basis and increase the number of classes offered.

Alvarez is correct in stating that the notice requirement for a meeting to appoint an interim president was not met. According to a legal ruling, the notice lacked sufficient specificity that is required by recent changes in the Brown Act. However, in his ruling from the bench, the judge also stated that there was no misdemeanor violation of the Brown Act and rejected the allegation that the board majority came to a decision prior to the April 29 meeting.

In its search for a permanent president of IVC, a process was used similar to that developed by the California Community Colleges Board of Governors in its selection of a state chancellor.

Alvarez is accurate when she states that community colleges in California have fostered a decision-making process called shared governance; and the SOCCCD board also supports shared governance.

The board encourages public participation at board meetings and forums and has expanded its meetings to include more student and staff input. However, the ultimate responsibility for the health and stability of the district rests with the board of trustees. State Chancellor Tom Nussbaum, reflecting on shared governance, stated that local boards are accountable to the general public, the California Community College Board of Governors, and the State of California to ensure that the public interest is served.

ROBERT A. LOMBARDI

Chancellor

South Orange County

Community College District

* Re “College District’s Actions Provoke Debate and Dissent,” Sept. 9:

South Orange County Community College District Trustee John Williams was quoted as saying: “Change is hard. But having to undo change--that which your predecessors made and which you see as harmful--is much harder.”

I believe Williams spoke honestly and sincerely. He was the only one of the board majority bloc to return The Times’ “repeated phone calls.” The key words in his statement, however, are the words “which you see as harmful.”

Unfortunately, those things Williams sees as “harmful” are the very things many of us see as fundamental to the integrity of our colleges and, more importantly, to the education of our students.

Williams’ successors will well understand the wisdom of his statement when they have to undo the harm this board majority has done.

BRENDA BORRON

Department of English

Irvine Valley College

* Despite the legal rulings against the trustees, despite a no confidence vote in trustees by the overwhelming majority of the Irvine Valley College faculty, despite violations of its own hiring standards and procedures, despite a course approved by the same board member who would teach it, Steven Frogue, a course that has brought shame to the district and community because of a request to pay $5,000 to outside speakers, a preponderance of whom are associated with racist and anti-Semitic groups, despite all this, Trustees Frogue, Dorothy Fortune, Teddi Lorch and John S. Williams continue to claim that the issue is money and faculty resistance to change.

RONI LEBAUER

ANA MARIA COBOS

JEANNE MAZIQUE-CRAIG

Saddleback College Faculty