College Group Condemns Hate Speech

A state association of community college professors and instructors has passed a resolution condemning what it terms ethnically offensive remarks and vitriolic language at South Orange County Community College District’s board meetings.

Bill Scroggins, president of the Academic Senate of the California Community Colleges, presented the resolution to the South County board Monday night.

“When something happens locally that has statewide implications for public policy, we discuss it, take action and communicate our positions to the college boards or college presidents,” said Scroggins, whose professional association represents 16,000 full-time faculty members at 106 community colleges.

John S. Williams, president of the college district’s board, called the criticism a moot point, saying the trustees in February enacted policies to restrict so-called hate speech. “We were caught by surprise at the time, and we responded,” he said.

In a letter responding to the state group’s resolution, Williams wrote: “Bigoted, anti-Semitic, racist remarks are not allowed at the South Orange County Community College District.”

But Scroggins said the board still has work to do. “They’ve adopted a mechanical solution to a substantive problem. They haven’t attacked the substance of the problem.”

The issue arose after a series of board meetings at which supporters of embattled Trustee Steven J. Frogue denounced Jewish groups and the Israeli government.

The South Orange board responded by instituting new public-comment procedures and beefing up security to guard against outbursts, name-calling and vitriolic remarks.

Frogue is facing a recall campaign by a coalition of Christian and Jewish groups, students and faculty for his proposal last year to teach a seminar on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy that would have featured speakers who hold views considered offensive by Jews.

Frogue has said repeatedly that he respects Jewish people and that he considers the Holocaust a “great atrocity.”

Frogue is part of a four-member board majority at odds with the other three trustees on issues of college policies and power-sharing.

Related to that, the state Academic Senate is preparing a request to the state chancellor’s office of California Community Colleges for an investigation into whether state regulations were violated in regard to “shared governance” procedures at Irvine Valley College and Saddleback College, the South Orange district’s two institutions.

The Academic Senate at Saddleback gave district trustees a 10-7 “no confidence” rating in a vote last week. And at Irvine Valley, 72% of the faculty voted “no confidence” in the school’s president, Raghu Mathur.