New College Independent Alumni/ae Association

Peace and Freedom

Celebrating its 42nd anniversary, the Peace and Freedom Party of California — founded during the Summer of Love — is holding a National Organizing Conference on Saturday August 1, 2009 in San Francisco. Donations welcome.

Given what New College stood for, I’ll keep this pitch brief. Equality California is fighting back against homophobic bigotry in the Golden State. Give them your support today.

It’s funny how bits of information from the past can reform themselves in relation to each other to present a new image of events. Something akin to turning a kaleidoscope.

I was thinking about that this morning when I recalled my graduate school program chair asking me for a copy of my master’s thesis, which, seven years ago, I was in the process of writing. At the time, it puzzled me why he would want to read a draft thesis by a student he was not even instructing or advising, but I shrugged it off and printed him a copy.

Five years later, the college was subjected to a special investigation by the accrediting agency for violations of academic integrity, and in the agency report, I recall reading that the school had come under heightened scrutiny five years earlier, and that things had gone downhill from there. Reading further in the report, the oversight agency acknowledged that some of the academic work produced by students at the college was noteworthy, and that the interdisciplinary curriculum had merit, but that the administration of the school could not be relied on to ensure academic vigor or reliable records.

Looking back, I recall one of the senior faculty remarking to me in passing one day, that I was the star of the school, even though I’d not received any formal recognition or participated in any public events on the school’s behalf. I figured he was just being nice, and forgot about the encounter until I began pondering the importance of the events described in this article. It was then that it dawned on me that the college might have submitted my thesis as evidence of institutional merit, perhaps as one of several exhibits used in fending off heightened oversight, but I’ll never know for sure.

Of course, now that the college is closed, due to the frauds committed by the trustees, it doesn’t really matter what benefit my work as a student there had, except to my self-esteem. As consolation for loss of my alma mater and a lifetime of alumni involvement, I suppose that will have to do.

Word has it that the year-long, court-ordered binding arbitration for severance pay and other benefits, due terminated SEIU member New College employees, is coming to a close.  Word also has it that the state-certified wage claims from 2007-8 for all former employees of the school has gone nowhere. At this point in the unravelling of the now-defunct institution, the only avenue left to these creditors is a class-action suit against the college and its trustees, a route we recommended two years ago.

Sunshine Ludder — whom I had the pleasure of knowing briefly as part of my BA Completion cohort in 2001 — went on to associate produce Daughter from Danang, a cinematic documentary that took top honors at Sundance in 2002. Sunshine was also a 2004 Fulbright scholar in Egypt, where she studied comparisons between Egyptian women’s issues and those of Iranian women. Ms. Ludder, who speaks Farsi and whose mother is Persian, has also made trips to Iran where she still has relatives. In 2008, she was an alternate delegate to the Democratic National Convention.

Sunshine now resides in New York City where she works as an organizer for SEIU.

Here’s some photos from New College 2001-2002.

For those who might be wondering where some of the New College faculty ended up, California Institute of Integral Studies (in the San Francisco Civic Center) has employed Anne Bluethenthal, Kris Brandenburger and Judy Grahn as faculty in their Writing, Consciousness and Creative Inquiry program.

Colleen Gallagher, Class of 2001, is a remarkable jeweler now residing in Ireland. You can see some of her lovely work on her website Cloud Jewellery.

I’m working on a film project produced by the Center for World Indigenous Studies in Olympia, Washington. The film series — planned for public television — is on the UN, climate change, and Indigenous peoples. (We just sent a proposal to Sundance.)

We plan on a web page as soon as we have seed money; for now we are pursuing start-up grants, and later, major funders.

To launch the half million dollar project, we need to raise matching money for a $10,000 Humanities Washington project grant by the end of March. If you want to help us, just click on the donation button for the Prepared to Lead Fund and follow the simple instructions.

Blessings and many thanks. (I still live in Marin.)

Remember New College’s cool website? That was the creation of portal developer and web designer Mark Gould. (Mark also put together the Media Studies program.) Mark is still creating cool web designs, so if you need an eye-catcher for your work, take a look at Mark’s portfolio.

Eric Mar, past New College School of Law Dean,  was one of a handful of New College employees during the 1990s who took on the trustees for their corrupt practices that in 2008 brought the school down. Mar is now a new member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

Congratulations, Eric.

Harry Britt’s keynote speech at the Harvey Milk Memorial on the steps of San Francisco City Hall recently reminded me of the courage needed to endure political violence, and the fortitude required to carry on when life goes from bad to worse. In a 2002 interview as candidate for the California State Assembly, Britt remarked on the importance of making the status quo uncomfortable for the privileged in order to make progress toward equality. Watching his former opponent Nancy Pelosi pandering to the powerful while millions of us struggle to survive, it is good to know there are Harry Britts in this world, keeping the message of resistance alive.

San Francisco Bay Guardian asks, “Where’s Harry?” According to San Francisco Supervisor Tom Ammiano, the main man pulling the city’s gay community together when Harvey Milk was assassinated was Harry Britt. Yet Britt doesn’t appear in the new feature film Milk.

Britt doesn’t seem concerned.

History isn’t always fair to those who carry the torch, but those of us who knew Harry at New College know that his work over the last thirty years has made a big difference. Maybe someday he’ll get the recognition he deserves.

It appears that the SEIU has secured a court order to compel arbitration over unpaid back wages. Whether the 115 former employees of the school who remain creditors will ever see a nickel from the trustees is another matter. But, for now, we wish them well.

For what it’s worth, the Matthew Wilkes case has been settled out of court.

San Franciscans generally mean well, but sometimes their illogic can be lethal. Perhaps the ultimate in their economic illiteracy is Proposition K, the ballot measure supported by the city’s politically correct, pimps and other thugs.

For those committed to promoting violence as a way of life, San Francisco’s ballot provides the opportunity to combine two of the most destructive forms of violence on earth–militarism and prostitution. Maybe a revamped JROTC program in San Francisco’s public schools can add a course for adolescent girls interested in making a career of being serially raped and beaten by pimps.

In time, San Francisco might even come to acquire the ambience of a military base, where teenagers trained as killers take out their lethal hostilities on society’s most desperate women. Anyone who thinks prostitutes who organize to eliminate pimps and traffickers from their lives will end up anything but dead, maimed or deported is living in a fantasy world.

Given the documentation by WASC and USDOE of the civil and criminal misconduct by the sinister six (Hamilton, Gabel, Wilkes, Henry, McAvoy & Voutyras), it would seem that SEIU should be filing a class-action lawsuit rather than a petition for mandatory arbitration. Their referenced direct interference in the WASC attempt to prevent closure of the school and the subsequent loss of jobs by SEIU members should make them and the trustees defendants, not claimants.

It appears that Matthew Wilkes and New College might be on the verge of settling. You can read the original exhorbitant complaint by Wilkes as well as the timeline of his case in the link below.  SEIU might want to contest this settlement in order to protect the interests of its members.

http://webaccess.sftc.org/Scripts/Magic94/mgrqispi94.dll?APPNAME=IJS&PRGNAME=ROA22&ARGUMENTS=-ACGC08475167

I write a regular column for Fourth World Eye, an e-zine published by the Center for World Indigenous Studies (the premier indigenous think tank in the world). I also have a dozen personal blogs where I write on a daily basis.

The following links probably provide all you need to see if I would be a good fit as a writer or guest speaker for your organization.

CV: http://archipelagonetwork.blogspot.com/2006/03/cv.html
Profile: http://www.pen.org/MemberProfile.php/prmProfileID/33531

Website: http://www.publicgood.org/
Issues: democracy, human rights, world indigenous movement

Blog: http://skookumgeoduck.blogspot.com/

Column: http://fwe.cwis.org/author/jtaber/

Portfolio: http://www.lulu.com/spartacus
Video clips: http://www.motionbox.com/filings?folder_id=6489033

–Jay Taber

Dear Vin Harrington:

I have received word that The Service Employees International Union petition to compel mandatory arbitration on behalf of New College employees is set to be heard on November 12, 9:30 am, Dept 301. Can you please tell me exactly what this means in terms of the status of our claims?

Our shop steward, Steven Kushner, has been unable to provide me with any specific information as to the progress of our back wages/severance claims. It would seem that wage earners should be first in line as lien holders of any proceeds from sales of the New College properties that have been and are now being sold. The Superior Court is currently hearing dubious claims filed by former top New College administrators totaling about $500,000. Where does this put our valid workers’ claims?

I do not understand why there has not been any move to force the college into bankruptcy and full disclosure. Or why assets from New College property sales have not been frozen, or why the former Board of Trustees and management have been not been named and charged for failing to fulfill their fiduciary responsibilies to their former employees? Perhaps steps are being taken on our behalf, but I’m concerned that time is not on our side and that the longer we delay the less opportunity there will be for any satisfactory wage and severance settlements.

As a dues-paying member of SEIU for over ten years, I hope to receive your effective, expert representation.

Thank you for your attention to this urgent matter.

Sincerely yours,

Genevieve Lim,
Former New College of California Core Faculty

The first person I met when thinking about applying to graduate school at New College of California was Harry Britt, the former San Francisco Supervisor appointed by Mayor Dianne Feinstein in 1979 to the seat vacated by the assassination of the legendary gay activist Harvey Milk. As luck would have it, in 1987, Harry narrowly lost out in a Congressional race to Nancy Pelosi.

I doubt that Harry would ever have risen to become Speaker of the House, but there are measurements of worth that surpass that type of power, and I’d prefer to call Harry Britt a friend over Nancy Pelosi any day.

With the documentary about Harvey Milk coming out soon, I thought about the courage it took to step into his shoes immediately after his murder in San Francisco City Hall, as well as the devotion Harry showed toward his students over his long tenure at New College. I’ll always be grateful he made me feel so valued and welcome there.

Two brief notes:

The Matthew Wilkes v New College case management conference has been postponed due to failure to provide proof of service. It has been rescheduled for November 24, 1:30 pm, Dept 212.

The Service Employees International Union petition to compel mandatory arbitration is set to be heard on November 12, 9:30 am, Dept 301.

While we await news on the pending court battle over New College’s assets, we took a moment to Google Peter Gabel New College to see if he was up to anything new we might want to mention to the judge, the Attorney General or the D.A. We didn’t turn up anything new, but we did stumble across one of our associated posts from earlier in the year that readers might find enlightening. We’ll let you know when we hear anything more on the asset looting scandal, but for now sit back and enjoy Missionizing the Mission.

Two things that strike me as odd are 1. the lack of communication between SEIU and the New College plaintiffs, and 2. the apparent lack of interest by SEIU in protecting these plaintiffs’ interests. This may be simple laziness or incompetence, or it may be political. Who knows?

All the tools for protecting the plaintiffs’ interests are familiar to union attorneys, yet, for the most part, these not only weren’t used, to my knowledge they weren’t even discussed. Since SEIU could conceivably recover their attorneys costs through litigation, I’m wondering why they’ve dragged their feet for so long.

Have they even taken depositions from the whistle-blowers or affidavits from the oversight agencies? Are they intervening in any way to stop asset conversions now a year in progress? Do they plan to submit any kind of amicus memoranda to the Superior Court regarding Matthew Wilkes’ bogus claim?

I can’t imagine Agar Jaicks has so much power in the Democratic hierarchy that he can intimidate SEIU in order to protect Peter Gabel, but maybe there is something else we don’t know. In fact, I’d be surprised if there wasn’t some kind of political aspect to all this, but that would require a private investigation.

Puzzling nonetheless.

On September 25, Service Employees International Union filed a petition with San Francisco Superior Court to compel arbitration of labor management disputes. We’re not sure if SEIU has addressed the issue of asset conversions by trustees, or the issue of dubious claims by trustee insiders like Matthew Wilkes, who has a conference scheduled with the court on October 10.

The US Department of Education letter and supporting documents dated March 6, 2008  contain no surprises that I can decipher. They do, however, confirm my suspicions about why responsible parties like Financial Aid Director Renee M. Stonework bolted last summer faster than a quarter-miler at Santa Anita, leaving people like long-time Business Manager Carol Small holding the bag.

Most of the supporting docs are either related to federal rules and regulations governing student loan funds, or bank statements from one of the three banks used by New College during the final year of its demise. Perhaps of note from a bank statement dated July 31, 2007 (when the you-know-what hit the fan) are the names of Martin Joseph Hamilton and Peter J. Gabel on the Student Loan Account. (Just so we don’t forget who the responsible parties were should a federal investigation turn up criminal conduct.)

Speaking of which, there is one other item of interest in the U.S. Department of Education packet, and that is this:

WARNING: Any person who knowingly provides false or misleading information on this certification will be subject to a fine of up to $10,000 or to imprisonment of up to 5 years or to both under the provisions of the United States Criminal Code, Title 18, Section 1001.