Fight Your Wrongful Suspension for Free Speech at School

Across many public college campuses in this country, administrators are attempting to prohibit students rights to free speech with illegal free speech zones, student conduct codes cloaked as vague and prohibitive speech codes, and harsh disciplinary sanctions for what they feel is little more than a vocal student challenging them to move outside their comfort zones. Fortunately, the high courts of this country have almost unanimously defended the rights of students to free speech both on and off campus.

With the explosion of Internet and video technology, students have found a haven in sites such as YouTube, Facebook, and MySpace to express themselves, including sometimes childish, distasteful, and vehement criticism and parodies of their schools, administrators, and faculty. Student blogging, a new grassroots form of expression found in free sites such as Blogger and WordPress, is on the stellar rise. Simply put, school administrators are terrified of this new online student empowerment and wish to quell these vocal and technologically savvy students with suspension and various disciplinary measures. Sometimes they hide behind zero tolerance policies, other times they cry material disruption of the learning environment. Oftentimes, they just throw a handful of vague and well-crafted one-size fits all speech codes at these poor souls.

To see if your school has made the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education's (FIRE) Hall of Shame for speech code violations, search FIRE's spotlight database. I'm confident that at the rate Santa Monica Community College District is going, it is soon to receive the coveted worst Speech Code of the Month award from FIRE. Really horrible schools who trample students' rights to free speech can even get a red flag rating like the University of Southern California (USC) and Coast Community College District. Although USC is a private college in Los Angeles, CA, it is still required to protect free speech under the California Leonard Law (California Education Code Section 94367).



Most parents and students don't know how to fight back. One student at Santa Monica College, Jeff Higley, does. Today, faced with vague disciplinary charges of disrupting the educational environment for his exercise of free speech at SMC's Free Speech Area, he successfully argued his wrongful charges leveled against him by SMC Disciplinarian Judith Penchansky and won. Forced to acknowledge his rights to both speak freely and videotape both the campus police and the performers of a "spoken word" event, Penchansky dismissed the charges against him. My gratitude for Jeff's courage to stand up for bloggers' rights and students' rights is enormous. Perhaps for the first time in her career as a public servant at SMC, she had to comply with the California Education Code and immediately produce his disciplinary records (which he should not even have in the first place) for inspection and copies. Way to go, Jeff!

Today, I contributed to the cause of bloggers' rights and students' rights by standing up for us all when I caused to be filed my appeal from my wrongful suspension for also exercising my rights under the California Public Records Act (CPRA), the Free Speech clause of the First Amendment, and for my offline SAVE SMC Blog. As SMC is aware, or should be aware, it is a violation of the California Education Code to suspend a student for off-campus free speech, including blogging and maintenance of off-campus websites. Obviously, neither SMC nor Penchansky is interested in complying with the law. SMC's summary of my alleged violations of the Student Conduct Code (of course devoid of substantiated facts) in nothing more than Penchansky's dirty laundry list of First Amendment, CPRA, student rights, and civil rights violations.

I share my official Appeal from Suspension and Request of Hearing (dated June 6, 2006) as well as my Notice of Intent to Appeal Suspension (dated May 25, 2006) for other students, in California or elsewhere, in the hopes that they shall have some legal ammunition in their disciplinary arsenal with which to defend their sacred rights. Both documents are in Adobe PDF format and made available online, including the links to the SAVE SMC Blog and SAVE SMC website from which my wrongful suspension derives. As I have stated on more than one occasion, rights are not concrete, but malleable like clay. If we do not exercise them, we will slowly have them taken away from us. Let's all find that courage that the school administrators don't have to move outside our comfort zones and take a stand for Free Speech and Due Process.

Here's another email I sent Judith Penchansky today. Again, she's remained curiously silent as SMC's administration, including Robert Sammis, struggles with the best way to now save face and graciously back out of their attempts to wrongfully suspend me for two years for nothing more than their trumped up violations of their speech codes and my rights to freedom of press. Ironically, while SMC complains of being irritated and embarrassed by my free speech, they think nothing of exercising theirs beyond its intended Constitutional use for their well-orchestrated smear campaign, including their defamatory, patently false, malicious and less than credible written statements against me. While there are Student Codes of Conduct and Professional Ethics Statements for Faculty, where’s the college policy governing the conduct of its administrators? There's something to think about. While allegedly unethical individuals such as Judith Penchansky are reeling in excessive salaries for public services rendered to discipline what is in her mind the unruly mob of disruptive students placed before her, who is the watchdog ready to discipline this same Disciplinarian when she violates our student rights?

---------------------------- MY EMAIL TO PENCHANSKY ---------------------------------

RE: Written Notice of Your Ongoing Violation of My Rights

June 6, 2006

Dear Ms. Penchansky:

By copy of this email, I am giving your formal written notice of your ongoing violation of my rights. Despite numerous repeated written requests for access of my student records, including those disciplinary records maintained by you in your SMC Office of Judicial Affairs, you have continued to willfully and blatantly violate my rights under the California Education Code, FERPA, and SMC's own administrative regulations.

As recently as this morning, my authorized representative, Stephen E. Drury, again went into your office with my written request for inspection and copies of my disciplinary files. You even date stamped and initialed my written requests. Despite this acknowledgment and the fact that I have timely caused to be filed my appeal from your wrongful suspension, you have continued to wrongfully withhold my records from me... records that I have a right to inspect and correct. Furthermore, you have failed to provide me answers to all my written requests and questions, including the names and titles of the Student Conduct Appeals Committee. As previously indicated, you provided these names to another SMC student upon written request.

The same day that you violate my rights, you comply with SMC student Jeff Highley's request for access, inspection and copies of his disciplinary files. This afternoon, on his first alleged oral request, you produced his files when you met with him and another SMC student this afternoon. Furthermore, you had allowed him an extension of time to meet with you, a courtesy you did not grant me and my attorney. Again, you have created one set of standards for one student and another lesser standard for me, a disabled student. This is clearly in violation of SMC's non-discriminatory policies as well as federally mandated law.

Furthermore, you have exonerated Mr. Higley (and rightly so) of any charges of disrupting the learning environment for his conversations with the SMCPD and various SMC individuals, all of which were videotaped. However, although my conversations with the SMCPD and various SMC individuals are held to the same SMC disruption standards as well as Free Speech protection afforded under the U.S. and California Constitutions as well as the California Education Code and various Supreme Court decisions, you are continuing to move forward with your sham charges against me. Do disabled students at SMC have less right to speak their mind that non-disabled students?

Furthermore, you admitted that SMC has no clear written policy implemented that governs the prohibition of videotaping on our public community college campus. As such, there is also no policy governing taking photographs on campus, yet you have used any alleged photography I have taken about ten months ago to instantly suspend me from Santa Monica College.

Finally, despite your knowledge of AET Professor Jim Keeshen's academic dishonesty governing his written falsified statements against me and SMC student Thomas J. Baker's dishonesty in violation of the Student Code of Conduct for his written falsified statements against me, you are continuing to maintain both your wrongful hold on my student records, including enrollment in classes at SMC, as well as this instant wrongful suspension.

As a result of all these violations of my rights, the instant suspension should be removed forthwith.

Very Truly Yours,

Des Manttari /s/

U.S. Department of Education, Office For Civil Rights
Dr. Chui Tsang, President

-- 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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