Des Manttari Defends Student Rights at SMC

Back in our blog post on April 13, 2006, entitled "My Speech to the SMC Board of Trustees," I posted the full text of my public commentary to the Santa Monica College Board of Trustees in an effort to stop the hate crimes and hate speech against its disabled student body. Despite numerous emails to the Board of Trustees in addition to my public commentary, not a single one has yet answered the call for help. In the valid exercise of my student rights, SMC has responded by violating them further with a wrongful suspension, in further violation of my civil rights to redress grievances.



Now, thanks to the courage of Jeff Higley, vocal concerned blogger and active civil rights advocate, the video footage of my speech is made available online. It is one thing to read my April 10, 2006 speech; it is another to view the rather rude responses from various board members. Now you can watch student trustee Belinda Phillips writing secret notes during my speech to Herb Roney who then forwards this note to Dorothy Ehrhart-Morrison who then nods at them, acknowledging whatever their secret correspondence entailed about me. Roney then passes the note back to Phillips and the show goes on.

In violation of the Ralph M. Brown Act, the SMC Board had just emerged from a closed door section in which they were in most likelihood discussing creative ways to exercise their shut up control against me and to extort me from dropping my California Public Records Act lawsuit, as the Board of Trustees meeting shows my case was a featured closed door event. Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks, and the great Dr. Martin Luther King would turn over in their graves by the rude responses of Phillips and Ehrhart-Morrison, both African American women. In fact, if it were not for the courage of Rosa Parks, who launched the civil rights movement by courageously refusing to obey the law by not giving her bus seat to a white person, these two women would not enjoy the privilege of their seats in the pantheon of the SMC Board of Trustees.

But the real show kicker was the smirking expression by Board of Trustee Margaret R. Quiñones (facing Robert Sammis who was whispering to her back and forth) as I cried out to end the police force, hate crimes, and wrongful disciplinary sanctions doled out endlessly by Assistant Dean of Judicial Affairs Judith Penchansky. Is the behavior of Ms. Quinones not a disruption of the learning environment? Given that SMC has been found to be a community that lacks mutual respect and goodwill, shouldn't its Board be a shining example of exemplary behavior?

CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT TOP: Quinones smirking to Sammis, Roney writes the secret note to Phillips, Roney passes the note to Ehrhart-Morrison who nods in approval, and Roney passing the note back. Notice Robert Adams, the man who emailed me the wrongful suspension at the bottom.

Well, let's give credit where it's deserved. Board members

Susan Aminoff and Rob Rader were very respectful. If anyone knows the history of the Board, these two individuals have been advocates for the school since the beginning. In fact, Susan Aminoff was a vocal opponent of Quinones. A mere glimpse at Quinones' 2004 campaign contributions (see: part 1 and part 2) to her Friends of Margaret Quinonese campaign re-election fund shows whose side she's truly on. But all this has been thoroughly covered on this SAVE SMC Blog in previous articles.

Lastly, let's give credit to our new SMC President, Dr. Chui L. Tsang. He was very attentive during my speech. He's the new kid on the block, struggling to figure out whom to trust in the former Piedad Robertson administration and tackling the huge "mess" as Professor Jim Keeshen appropriately referred to SMC last August. Thomas J. Donner, the former interim president, looked a little nervous during my speech, clicking his pen, so I'm glad he's now gearing up to step down from SMC's administrative circle. He's slated for an alleged June 30th retirement this year.

A glimpse of Robert Adams and Robert Sammis, Vice President of Planning and Development, can be seen in Higley's video footage. How did these two men respond to my speech? Robert Adams, Vice President of Student Affairs, took it upon himself to email me a suspension notice, sent by Penchansky's assistant Marilyn Goodrich, on May 23, 2006. As indicated in my last blog posting, Penchansky has refused to provide me a copy of the signed suspension letter, if SMC even bothered to send one, despite my written request as set forth in the SMC Administrative Regulations.

And what about Robert Sammis? On threat of suspension by Judith Penchansky, I was forced to attend a meeting on April 21, 2006 with Sammis, who is also an attorney for the school, and SMC's high priced attorney Joshua Morrison (who curiously worked in the same law firm as Sammis did). SMC student Dustin Curran, another fearless defender of student rights, also attended this meeting. About a half hour into our meeting, I discussed Academy of Entertainment and Technology Professor Jim Keeshen's March 1, 2006 hate speech against the disabled and his threats to come after his students, which Keeshen justified under the guise of "school policy."

Sammis' response, according to Mr. Curran, was the following or words to that effect:

Jim was speaking on his own behalf. He was not articulating any position on behalf of the college. It's not something we would condone... Official in his mind. And school policy in his own mind. That's not our policy. He was speaking completely on his own. He had no authority to represent the college. And quite honestly if he were ever to be sued for that, we would not defend him. We would not be liable for it. He was on his own when he said those things.

Really now? Then if Jim Keeshen's hate speech is not being condoned by SMC and if SMC is not willing to defend his statements that he would come after his students, then why are his falsified written statements against me to Judith Penchansky being used in part to justify my suspension from this same college? Two of his blatantly false statements were provided to me after his hate speech.

And what about the March 15, 2006 email I wrote Jim Keeshen regarding his ongoing retaliation, respectfully requesting that he cease and desist these kinds of statements and behavior? And what about the polite written request for an apology? Of course Jim Keeshen never responded, but Judith Penchansky jumped all over it as yet another chance to "discipline" me. The charges this time:

Willful or blatant misuse of email or other inappropriate forms of communication towards faculty, staff or students including but not limited to phone, voicemail, written notes and any form of electronic communication.

Penchansky and Robert Adams hide behind SMC Administrative Regulation 4410 (L). Under this SMC regulation, a student can be suspended for "good cause" or "misconduct." Asking someone to cease and desist publishing comments that I was an "asshole" on the school's online eCompanion is now a "willful and blatant misuse of email"? Wasn't it a violation of SMC AR 4410 (L) for Professor Keeshen to post those comments about me in the first place?

The email I sent Jim Keeshen was also copied to the SMC Board of Trustees. If I were doing something willful, disruptive, blatant, or otherwise within the scope of "misconduct," I would have never sent that email to concerned parties at SMC. Furthermore, the email I sent was from my home, on my private email account to Keeshen's private email account. On its face, this is clearly outside the scope of the school environment. SMC's AR page even supports California law regarding this. Under California Education Code section 76034, the law makes clear:

No student shall be removed, suspended, or expelled unless the conduct for which the student is disciplined is related to college activity or attendance.

Oh, but since when has Judith Penchansky obeyed any laws? Not since I've dealt with her. I have not been given my student records, Judith Penchansky originally blackmailed Jim Keeshen to write his first false statement against me, and she's circulated a petition against me, of which at least two SMC students refused to sign. I'm sure they've since been retaliated against for their refusal to be coerced by her.

Additionally, in writing, Jim Keeshen had previously stated that it was the school that was ordering him not to speak to me. He never wrote me requesting that I not speak to him. Given all these facts, one could construe that Jim Keeshen was blackmailed into making his March 1, 2006 hate speech to his ET 18 Storyboarding class on fear of job loss. After all, he stated in writing that SMC was making him the "sacrificial lamb" in all of this.

Oh, but according to Robert Sammis during that April 21, 2006 meeting, Jim Keeshen allegedly "lied" to me about being blackmailed by Judith Penchansky to sign that first falsified statement against me. If that's so, then why did Penchansky inform me back in August of last year that Jim Keeshen refused to come to the meeting enforced by Penchansky? I tend to believe Jim Keeshen more than I believe Robert Sammis and Judith Penchansky.

What did Jeff Higley write about my April 10, 2006 speech to the SMC Board of Trustees? Here's his comments in their entirety:

Des Manttari is a tenacious defender of the rights of Santa Monica College students to be safe on campus, to their right to know and is pursuing remedies against the college in a lawsuit. Listen to Des and watch the reaction of the SMC Board of Trustees to her remarks given during the public comment portion of their April 10, 2006 meeting.

Now it is important to see the date and time that Mr. Higley posted these comments and the accompanying video footage of the April 10, 2006 SMC Board of Trustees meeting. Mr. Higley posted these comments on May 24, 2006 at 9:45 a.m. Later that day, in retaliation, Judith Penchansky whipped up another one of her boilerplate disciplinary letters, alleging that Mr. Higley has violated the student conduct code by being "disruptive, argumentative, and rude." Of course no formal written charges were ever provided to him, only her pat little letter that she went out of her way to personally serve him on or about May 25, 2006, right after I wrote on my blog that I suspected that Mr. Higley would be the next in line targeted for wrongful suspension. And this all occurred back-to-back with my suspension email. Imagine that?

Are there so many students out there in Gramma's Happy Flower Garden (as Jeff calls it) who need pruning for the educational tree as bad "disciplinary" apples or is Jeff Higley's rights being blatantly violated for upholding the Ralph M. Brown Act and advocating the rights of the SMC's diverse student body and its disabled students in particular by videotaping a newsworthy event? After all, very few students even bother to attend the SMC Board of Trustees meeting, let alone have the moral courage to stand up for their rights in public comment. We, who do, are a lone breed; now facing extinction by systematically being eliminated from the school by its administrators. Oh, but isn't it suppose to be our school? I guess not.

Here's the video for you to watch:

Des Manttari defending student rights at SMC Trustee meeting



Here is the speech I delivered to the Board of Trustees on April 10, 2006. Although you have the actual speech to watch and listen to, since I am advocating the rights of the disabled, I post the full text of the speech for those who suffer from visual and auditory disabilities.
Dear Mr. President and ladies and gentlemen of the Board,

My name is Des Manttari. I am a student at SMC's Academy of Entertainment and Technology vocational program. I have recently written a number of you via email about the ongoing violation of student rights at Santa Monica College and republished such on my SAVE SMC blog and website.

We as a community are no longer one of mutual goodwill and respect. Rather, we are a community of bath faith and disrespect, especially against SMC's disabled student body. Over the last year, I and other students have been denied our student records, vital public records under the California Public Records Act, and subjected to unwarranted police force on an ongoing basis. Our rights have not been read, our grievances not addressed, and we have been interrogated in Nazi Gestapo fashion by campus police.

We have been subjected to retaliation, harassment, and threats to our lives by faculty, administration, staff, and students. Several students are fearful of returning to class after a faculty member made an announcement in his class under the guise of school policy that autism is a mental disease that causes a person to be destructive and a problem. This same faculty member threatened to come after his students, get them, have them kicked out of school, and that they would suffer other unspecified consequences. And this faculty member said this all to a disabled student.

Despite writing all of you here not a single board member has responded. Yet today allegedly you discussed me in your closed-door secret session prior to coming here. For three years, SMC has promoted me on its website, claiming that the handicapped are welcome. I ask you now: welcome by whom? SMC has succeeded in turning its diverse community against itself, like a two-headed serpent who is swallowing its own tail.

Now, thanks to the efforts of the SMC Office of Judicial Affairs, the victims are now being blackmailed with suspension. Despite numerous written and oral cries for help, we have been unheard, if not silenced. I ask you now: are we to work together to create a community of goodwill and respect or are we to allow Santa Monica Community College to become a concentration camp of the human spirit?

I ask you to think very carefully about this as our education and our very lives depend on it. Please stop the hate crimes and hate speech against us. Thank you for your time.

Now, compare and contrast my speech with Jim Keeshen's March 1, 2006 hate speech. Now ask yourself this simple question: Why am I being disciplined and Prof. Keeshen is not? Here's an interesting quote from Professor Jim Keeshen, allegedly delivered to his ET 2 Storytelling Class. Since it was not a Mary Pickford public speaker day, I was not present.

We have a society now that's acceptable to lie. We have a society now that's acceptable to do dishonest things. We have a society that even says its okay to torture people.... The other thing that we're really having a problem with in this society is our education. And not that that's too far off because education comes through storytelling. We are in California 24th in the 50 states as far as good education goes. And as a country we're way behind. Even third world countries have better education than we do.

-- SMC Professor Jim Keeshen to his ET 2 Storytelling Class at AET on April 17, 2006.

Is it any wonder that Jim Keeshen also stated to his ET 18 students: "Lying is better than not lying"? Is it any wonder we have such a horrible education system in California? SMC is fostering this hostile environment and eliminating anyone who dares to stand in the path of its bloated bureaucratic machine, whether it is faculty, staff, or students.

For all of you who are next in line for wrongful disciplinary measures, please take a short moment of your valuable time and email at least one SMC Board of Trustee and support Mr. Higley or myself in our fight for all our civil and student rights or feel free to post a comment on this blog in support. It could mean a world of difference for all of us here at SMC.

-- Des Manttari,
Editor-in-Chief,
Phoenix Genesis

(c) 2006: Phoenix Genesis/MBS LP

Feel free to link or print this; just include the SAVE SMC URL: http://savesmc.blogspot.com/

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