Santa Barbara College Facing Unusual Discrimination Complaint

by Santa Barbara IMCista



An activist with a long standing record of human rights activism and progressive politics - including extensive anti-deportation activism and solidarity with los indigenistas- has been forced by Santa Barbara City College officials toreluctantly complain to US DOE about "reverse" discrimination. According to the complainant, Republican-linked vendidos sought to sabotage his work administering various peace list servs, writing protest letters to Congrress woman Lois Capps and human rights complaints to the GUatamalan ambassador to support forensic human rights workers in G.City. "Trabajo de derechos humanos, pero el vendidos no tienan corazon por los campesinos. Ellos querdan dinero y no les importa derechos humanos. Estoy consado de situacion sin salida. "

After a wearisome battle with school officials who "have lied every step of the way", a Santa Barbara activist who writes as Ahimsananda has filed a discrimination based on race and national origin with the US DOE Office of Civil Rights. Stated Ahimsandanda, "The attempts at mediation just got bogged down to the point where I serfed a notice to Dean Carole Purdie of the Selma O Wake Center to CEASE AND DESIST defamatory statements. In reply, Dean Ben Purtee send me an ultimatum that I go to a trial in which the very people who stonewalled me for six months were going to sit in judgement."

Ahimsananda, who has fasted three times in the course of his protest, picketed, and written articles for Santa Barbara Indymedia and studied Ghandi in depth, states that the whole problem derived from the digital divide; minority staff who were placed in positions of responsibility were often confused by ordinary computer behavior which they assumed resulted from hacking activities. They were incorrect, and the matter could have been easily resolved, except that "rich white bureacrats kept trying to create divisions", according to Ahimsananda.

The complaint reads, in part, as follows:





4. What institution discriminated?

Institution Name: Santa Barbara City College

Selmer O. Wake Center

Computers in Our Future

John Romo, President





5. Have you tried to resolve the complaint through the institution's

grievance process, due process hearing, or with another agency?



Yes



Status: Long and bitter email exchanges led to ultimatum that I meet

with adversaries, in adversarial proceeding, with no rights stated,

without an agenda, various other indications of bad faith on the part of

SBCC.





6. Describe the discrimination

OCR enforces regulations that prohibit discrimination on the basis of

race, color, national origin; sex; disability; and/or age.

All that apply:

race or color national origin retaliation you filed a complaint or

asserted your rights

Why you believe the discrimination was because of race, sex,

disability, or whatever basis you indicated above or why you believe the action

was retaliatory.

May 20th 2005 "[name redacted]", staff, mounted a barrage of false

allegations of minor violations of petty computer rules, all of which were

false. [name redacted] then threatened to have me excluded from SBCC. I sought

to file a greivance with Nancy [name redacted], at the office, but she had no

corms for a greivance. I subsequently stated grievance to [name redacted person 2],

who retaliated with false allegations resulting in my arbitrary ban by

Dean Carole Purdie on July 15th 2005 [name #2] stated expressly that she

wished to forbid my assertion that I was a "citizen"; she is a Mexican

national. Subsequent attempts to arbitrate have been met by a

reprehensible series of bad faith actions on the part of SBCC officials, including

stonewalling and shunning and refusal to process my complaint. The

entire staff at the Computers In Our Future ceneter are Mexican or

Mexican-descended and they demonstrate systematic race-based favoritism. There

is also a pattern in the wall postings on the wall indicating

favoritism to Chicanos, sadly. I sought resolution but SBCC staff consistently

misrepresented facts which I can rebut with documentation. I believe

they were stalling me with the intent to get beyond the 180 window, which

I did not know about. Complainant is non-Chicano, though born in

California USA , raised in a mulicultural environment, well traveled in

MExico and fond of all Latin culture.

Do you have written information that you think will help us understand

your complaint?

Yes