I have placed it on this page because of the correspondence which follows.
6 January 2000
This letter describes yet another harmful incident at West City Center that could have been entirely prevented by proper planning, implementation, and counseling of staff.
Background: Due to the grievous incident with Associate Dean Lyon on the first day of the fall semester, and my need to drop all class attendance for the considerable time I needed to recover, I had e-mailed Roy regarding the latest difficulties, and requested information from him. He never responded to this e-mail. As I was gradually starting to return to most but not all of my classes, I went to the counseling office to make an appointment with Roy, and was unable to reach him on my first attempt. On a subsequent attempt on 6 Jan 2000, the following occurred.
Incident in West City Center Counseling Office on 6 January 2000, 4 PM As I entered the Counseling Office, I noticed Nelia was gone from her desk, and so I asked Tracy where Nelia was. Tracy said that Nelia had left. I explained to Tracy that I wanted to contact Roy to prep him regarding what I had planned to discuss at the appointment I had made earlier through Nelia for the next day, 7 January.
Tracy picked up her phone and said that she would let me talk to him. Since I was in the passageway, I moved to get out of the way of anyone entering, and approached Tracy so that she could hand me the phone as soon as Roy was on the other end. She made no comment or motion for me wait by the entrance, nor did I see any reason to since I have stood by her desk on other occasions with no objection from her or anyone else.
Apparently, Roy was either not at the Clairemont site or was unavailable, so a stood there briefly to consider with Tracy what my options might be at this point. At this point, Otis Williams enters the office and walks in a rude manner straight toward me. I stepped back toward the wall to avoid him. He says nothing, and as he gets around behind me as I am facing Tracy and continuing our conversation, he suddenly barks out in my ear to get behind the "line". I wasn't aware of what line he was talking about, but I swiftly and immediately moved toward the entrance and away from him. This unexpected, loud, and obnoxious provocation was extremely traumatic under the circumstances — particularly since I had filed a grievance months ago regarding Otis William's documented history of provocation and disturbing behavior, and Mr. Jim Smith supposedly had at least talked to him about my objections to his behavior toward me. I noticed a sign was up against Nelia's desk, that didn't clearly demark anything, since it appeared to be out of use, or possibly intended to indicate that passage down the hallway was prohibited. Mostly, it just looked like it was set out of the way in case it was needed in the event that the office was going to be unattended.
At this point, Otis walked past me and down the hallway between the counselors' offices and disappeared from view. I asked Tracy how she felt about this incident and whether she thought Mr. Williams actions were justified. I asked Tracy if it was in line with his job, since we were talking face to face very peaceably, and he could have had no idea of what led up to our conversation. She avoided direct comment, and instead suggested I discuss it with Roy the next day.
As Mr. Williams was now walking once again angrily in my direction, and had no hint of apology about him, I responded to Tracy with a simple "OK" and immediately left the office, to return to my class. I reflected on how my grievances hadn't been addressed and how inappropriate Mr. William's outburst had been. I was unable to concentrate during my evening class and my sleep was disturbed that night and afterward.
Follow-up: At a meeting with Mr. Roy Hernandez the following day, I asked if he would obtain a detailed description of yesterday's incident with Mr. Williams and forward a copy to me as soon as possible, so that I could pursue the matter, and hopefully prevent a similar recurrence. Roy said he would forward my request. I waited for two weeks to hear from Roy regarding this, but received nothing. Instead, on 12 Jan 2000 I received word that Dean St. John wanted to see me, and he handed me a curt written warning regarding my presence in the Counseling Office on 6 January that contained primarily misleading information and a distortion of what happened. I immediately went to the Counseling Office and noticed the sign has been moved across the aisle to a new position that drew more attention to it.
I approached Dean St. John the next day and stated my objection to such gross distortion of the facts. I let him know that I felt a factual description from Tracy was appropriate, and he seemed to agree, but did not offer to help. I asked what his letter of warning was based on and he responded that it was based on information he had received, but refused to say from whom, when I asked him. Obviously, I was now being targeted as a cover-up of failures on the part of others to make policy clear, and to treat students with respect under the circumstances. I brought a camera to school to take photos of the sign and its change of position. When I went to take these photos, Tracy did not want to be in the background so I waited for her to move aside for the brief time it took to take two photos. I asked her about whether she had a description of the 6 January incident for me, and she wouldn't say, telling me to talk to the dean. I told her I had just talked to the Dean and he wasn't willing to help me. I asked if she was unwilling to witness the incident in writing, and she ignored me and went into Shera's office.
Suddenly, I heard some weeping, and knowing how high-strung Shera is, I could only think Shera's was in an emotional crisis of some kind. Then Shera comes storming out with her face all screwed up and her hands up like she was going to push me or strike me, even though I was calmly just standing there. She thought better of that idea, as she whisked past me and down the hall, exclaiming "I'm calling the police!" I had actually just finished a rather lengthy conversation with them minutes ago, and it seemed so odd that if Tracy was upset why didn't Shera comfort her in her office instead of leaving her there. If she wanted the police, using the phone would have been a better idea. It's hard to understand such overreaction, when I had been calm and unthreatening the whole time, unless the truth itself was threatening and others wanted to cover it up.
When saw Shera was so immature and out of control, I felt like any reasonable response was not going to come out of this, so I walked over to the officers who I had talked to earlier and indicated I was fed up and just going to leave. I talked with them another long while, and decided rather than miss my evening classes, I would hang in there which I did. But obviously, I did not sleep well that night either, and for many night since. I remember thinking that the truth only sets those free who value it. Otherwise, the truth can be considered an enemy, and be regarded as scary.
Overview (written on 26 January 2000): Dean St. John has once again allowed himself to be used by staff members to advance a distorted representation of the facts. Repeatedly, he has made the mistake of not getting both sides of an event from those involved before taking action, such as calling for disciplinary action based on false accusations, and distortions of fact — or deciding to do nothing when some further action was appropriate. I asked him if he was going to follow-up with a letter to sort out fact from fiction, and clarify motives and intent, and he has not offered one. Rather than clear the air of misunderstandings, I suspect that these distortions will remain uncorrected, as has occurred numerous times in the past, and that these more recent distortions will be added to past distortions in a future attempt to either defend his actions and inactions or to possibly further attack me on specious grounds in an unfair effort to restrict my activities and access — and to discourage further truth-seeking and accountability where so little currently exists.
If you keep advancing through these grievance-related pages, you will eventually find that my documentation slows and then stops around the time that the District stopped all pretense of fairness. Progress became impossible, as the District resorted to setting up a kangaroo court to remove me and my criticisms of the San Diego Community College District. I didn't expect the lack of professionalism to reach such lows as it did, and to be so pervasive. The District saved its worst behavior to use when it bacame obvious that addressing my concerns would expose far too much dirty laundry for current management to tolerate. The way I was treated toward the "end" of this process will be further documented in due time, however, the betrayal I feel as a good student with good ideas reached a point that remaining focused on all the retaliative and obnoxious treatment I suffered warrants a break for needed healing and illumination.
The District administrators circled their wagons, and used lies and distortions by District employees to suspend me in May of 2000, rather than deal with serious gaps in professional behavior and policy conformance. In order to suspend me, the District arranged a kangaroo court, and despite my strong objections. I formally protested the biased "Disciplinary Committee" selection and the unfair actions by the Disciplinary Officer selected to pursue two ridiculously and distorted allegations:
(1) Taking photos of the Counseling Office where I was assaulted by a custodian;
(2)Walking up to a secretary's desk to receive a phone call when there was a sign to one side that was supposed to demark a staff only area, but which clearly did not.
It was so obvious that certain individuals would resort to any ruse to get rid of me rather than respond adequately to the embarassing management and employee issues I raised. It has been hard to stomach this ugly first-hand encounter with the entrenched hypocrisy in our schools.
