Gov’s Appearance Sparks Debate

By Ann K. Williams
Staff Writer

June 22 -- The governor is gone, but sparks are still flying at Santa Monica College as faculty and officials engage in a heated debate over whether to apologize for the raucous reception that greeted Arnold Schwarzenegger at this month's graduation ceremony.

The latest controversy revolves around a letter being circulated among faculty which apologizes to the governor for the behavior of protesters who drowned out his speech and faculty members who turned their backs on him.

“The consequences of the disrespect shown to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger… will affect our college presidential search, enrollment, funding for California community colleges, fundraising for the SMC Foundation, in effect, the future of this institution,” warned Carole Currey, chair of the Board of Trustees in an email to College faculty and staff.

Currey has already apologized for “the disrespectful behavior of a few faculty members” in her thank you letter to Schwarzenegger. She also complimented him on his “incredible aplomb in a most challenging environment.”

But this is not enough for some at the College, who’ve been quarreling about Governor Schwarzenegger’s appearance for more than two months.

Fran Chandler, professor of business, and Shane Smith, math instructor, want more. They have written a “Collective Apology” which has been emailed to all faculty members.

“The disruptive behavior of loud-mouthed student hecklers in the audience and the faculty members who turned their backs on you was unacceptable,” they wrote to Schwarzenegger.

“We trust you will not judge Santa Monica College by the behavior of a rude few,” they added.

The letter was sent with instructions to reply by email if the recipient wanted to sign it.

“No need for negative replies, please” Chandler and Smith added, but, as one might expect given the controversy, the request was ignored.

Alan Buckley, a professor of political science, had tried to avoid the confrontation at last week’s graduation, but got caught up in the post-mortem argument.

Buckley chose not to attend the graduation ceremony because he said he had anticipated the reaction to the governor’s visit.

Buckley had urged Interim President Thomas J. Donner to rescind the Governor’s invitation, as did many others during the days and weeks before the commencement.

“Our college administration was well aware of Mr. Schwarzenegger’s divisive political agenda and the likely audience reaction but persisted in its invitation to him without consulting the faculty or students,” Buckley wrote in an email to faculty and trustees last week.

“The resulting demonstration was both predictable and unfortunate and our College must now deal with the inevitable public reaction to these events,” Buckley wrote.

“With all due humility, I find my own comments prescient,” he wrote, referring to an email he had sent saying much the same things to President Donner in early April.

Sociology Professor Guido del Piccolo, one of the faculty members who turned his back on the Governor, didn’t hesitate to jump into the email fray.

Within a day, he had composed a verbose rebuttal to an email Chandler had sent to the faculty the same day she sent her letter.

“No one can honestly say that Mr. Schwarzenegger’s free speech rights have been or will be violated as long as he is the governor,” del Piccolo wrote. “Power simply does not work that way.”

He went on to take exception to Chandler’s characterization of the protesters.

“Some, as you point out irrelevantly, were involved with various SMC student organizations, others were not,” del Piccolo wrote.

Chandler had identified some of the students in the bleachers as members of MeCHA, a Latino students group, and Progressive Alliance, a leftist offshoot of an earlier socialist students club.

Progressive Alliance sponsored a demonstration during the commencement at the 17th Street college entrance.

There was a general agreement among faculty and union protestors not to disrupt the graduates’ day of honor. Some faculty members had agreed to limit their demonstrations of solidarity with the protesters to before and after, but not during, the graduation ceremony.

The union-led demonstrators were confined to the 19th Street parking lot, far enough away that their noise wouldn’t interfere with the commencement.

The governor’s opponents are up in arms over his education policies which they say shortchange California’s schools and students.

His supporters claim that Schwarzenegger has been good for the community college system and particularly for Santa Monica College, which has received tens of millions of dollars in equalization funds in the past year.

Schwarzenegger’s visit was hotly debated in Academic Senate meetings, at a recent Board of Trustees meeting and elsewhere on campus for weeks, including at a meeting reputedly called by members of the Sociology Department at which Campus Republicans and Progressive Alliance students squared off.