Mailbag: Surreptitious recording in class is against the rules
Editor’s note: OCC lifted the student’s suspension Feb. 23. The following letters were sent to the Daily Pilot beforehand.
Re. “OCC suspends student who recorded professor’s anti-Trump comments; appeal is filed,” (Feb. 15): The state and district codes of misconduct on surreptitiously recording in class protect students and professors, on the left and right, from being recorded and posted out of context to cyber-bully.
Instead of encouraging students like Caleb O’Neil to ask for clarification and debate in class, attorneys have encouraged them to go behind a person’s back, bear false witness and pose as victims. For their own agendas, lawyers are rewarding cowardice over courage.
I stand with Jesus: “Woe to you lawyers also! For you load men with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers. Woe to you!” (Luke 11:46)
Gary Hoffman
Huntington Beach
The writer is co-chair of the English Department at OCC and a member of the coalition of Concerned Instructors.
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No expectation of privacy in the classroom
The PC mentality is collapsing upon itself when institutions protect their own at the expense of freedom of speech.
Since when are an instructor’s words protected from taping in a public venue? It’s not a private conversation, is it? Time to stop demonizing difference and work hard to find common ground that benefits the country.
David Swerdlin
San Juan Capistrano
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Tax dollars are funding political viewpoints
Why do so many college professors think their political opinions are so important?
If Professor Olga Perez Cox wants to air her political views, she should rent a hall and like-minded students can attend. Where do teachers get off thinking they can take up class time talking politics? Just think how important and arrogant they must be.
We are paying tax dollars for professors to teach our kids the subjects they sign up up for. Period. I am sick of my tax dollars going into the bank accounts of these uber-liberal, intolerant educators.
Juli Hayden
Newport Beach
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Students are being taught inaccuracies
The student, Caleb O’Neil, did us all a favor to record the remarks his professor made. Our children in university are being told untruths in more places than Orange Coast College!
Patricia Irwin
Corona del Mar
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Free academic speech for liberals only
How sad and pathetic it is when so-called professors are allowed to pontificate to their students about subject matters having nothing to do with their appointed positions and are supported by their administrations in discriminating against a student taping their public comments.
Sure sounds like discrimination and fascism to me. Shame on this school; oops, I mean propaganda mill.
Tim Strelitz
Long Beach
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It’s OK to record speech in class
We used to record lectures so we could review and sharpen our notes and that was in the Stone Age. What happened to these bastions of free speech? It really has to be the correct speech and that is not free speech.
Mark McDonald
Los Angeles
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I see a conflict in councilman’s vote
Re. “Complaint alleges conflict of interest in Newport councilman’s vote on harbor jetpack ban,” (Feb. 16): The vote, which I personally see as a conflict of interest, recently made by the City Council about the jetpacks sets a scary precedent.
But first, let me be clear: I voted for Councilman Brad Avery (we were not competitors in any council race), and I also consider him a friend.
The fact is — love them or hate them — jetpacks have received a total of zero citations for noise, for wake, or for collisions. There is literally no quantifiable data that show them to be a nuisance. However, Avery is currently employed as a director of operations for Orange Coast College’s sailing organization, which he has stated has intentionally avoided operating in the area where the jet packs operated.
If I were to pay someone as a business manager to manage my business, and they were subsequently elected to council, and then voted to ban our competition from operating in the ever-shrinking space where we operated, that would be a clear conflict of interest. And that’s exactly what I believe is happening here. (Editor’s note: Councilman Avery says there is no conflict, as he is a public employee with a fixed salary unaffected by private industry performance in the harbor.)
Avery either needs to recuse himself from this vote, just as Mayor Pro Tem Duffy has done, or he needs to decouple himself from receiving money from organizations that compete for harbor usage.
Mike Glenn
Newport Beach
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Republican Party is no longer inclusive
I must respond to the letter “Californians Should Return to the Republican Party,‘’ (Feb. 11): I will give letter writer Michael Torres the benefit of the doubt that he is not espousing the autocracy of the current president.
However, he does exalt what he sees as the virtues of the Republican Party as “small government, personal freedom, accountability and financial restraint.” We must acknowledge that there are some issues, environmental standards, public health, infrastructure, to name a few, that must be handled by a national government.
I was amazed at his statements that his party is inclusive, accepting of all ideas, and rich with kindness and humility. I challenge him to tell us where these virtues are in the repeal of health insurance for millions, privatization of Social Security and Medicare espoused by Republican lawmakers, not just our current president.
It is hard to believe the incredulous statements of engaging in “ sincere, open discussion and diversity.” How does he regard the Muslim ban?
He states the Republican Party is for economic prosperity. For whom? The billionaires who donate to and support his party? Certainly not the working public that is denied equal pay for women, benefits and a living wage.
I cannot accept Mr. Torres’ exaltation of the Republican Party as being the party of economic prosperity and freedom. These claims are incredulous as we look at the work of House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to silence fellow members of Congress, deny climate change, repeal the Affordable Care Act anti-abortion laws (written and sponsored by men), anti-LGBT rights, privatizing Medicare and Social Security. Is this satire?
Margaret Mooney
Costa Mesa
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Congressman should listen to constituents
Re. “71-year-old staffer for Rep. Dana Rohrabacher was hurt during protest, spokesman says,” (Feb. 14): Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Costa Mesa) says that we, the people of the 48th Congressional District, are “enemies of American self government and democracy.” This will not stand.
Boyd Roberts
Laguna Beach
The writer has declared his candidacy to run against Rohrabacher in 2018.
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Rohrabacher helped me but doesn’t have my vote
I am an unabashed progressive and registered Democrat. Three years ago I had a literary work copyrighted, and after a year I had not received any feedback from the copyright office.
My queries were unanswered, and I was beginning to fear my submission had disappeared into a bureaucratic black hole.
I decided to contact my congressman, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Costa Mesa), sadly expecting more red tape and/or being ignored. What I experienced, however, was a model of courteous and professional public service (a staff member picked up when I called the office and invited me to come right over.) I explained my issue, and the copyright office was contacted. Within two days the copyright office responded to me.
I called the congressman’s office back to express my appreciation and asked if I could meet him and thank him personally. The very next day I was in his office and we chatted for about 30 minutes.
I found him warm and extremely down to earth, and we ended our meeting with a photo taken beneath the surfboard on his wall, and shaking hands “surfer style.” I’ll probably never vote for Rep. Rohrabacher, but likewise I’ll never forget his graciousness.
Ron Terranova
Huntington Beach
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Support the EPA, protect our water
As a Huntington Beach High School graduate, a U.S. Army medic, Vietnam veteran, and longboard surfer, I believe that keeping our oceans, water, land and air pollution-free is of utmost priority.
As you know, President Nixon signed the environmental protection act (EPA) in the early 1970s, due to the constant pollution created by unregulated industry in search of profits that poisoned the air in Los Angeles with five-stage smog alerts for months at a time and caused other problems nationwide.
I support the efforts of Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Costa Mesa) efforts to preserve the Environmental Protection Agency. I will see him in the water.
Tom Joliet
Laguna Beach
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California must shore up its dams
Since Gov. Jerry Brown, supported by the Legislature, put a moratorium on the development of dams in his first term as governor, 1975-83, the population of California has nearly doubled from 20.8 million to 38.8 million.
Both Brown and environmentalists, including President Obama in Brown’s recent gubernatorial term from 2011-18, have worried more about endangered species then the increase in humans in the state and the need for adequate water for both farming and for the human body to drink water to live.
Instead of learning from what happened in the past, in Brown’s second term he supported raising the sales taxes by 1% on top of the income tax and drove many businesses and people out of the state, with a net population loss in the migration to other states due to the cost of living and availability of good-paying jobs.
Much to Brown’s and the Legislature’s surprise, the great weather in California is no longer the draw it used to be. North Dakota and Texas are two of many destinations people are moving to live and work. Businesses are leaving for economic reasons.
One would’ve thought that the state’s dam management would have monitored all of the dams to make sure the water supply was secure with such an increase of population. Twelve years ago, they concluded that upgrades were not needed. The upgrades should have been done with what just happened at the Oroville dam.
Instead some of the inflow of money from taxes went for redistributionist social welfare programs with 4 in 10 Californians lives below the poverty line, according to the California Public Policy Institute, state employee pensions and an enormous penal archipelago. In retrospect, that was extremely shortsighted by the leaders in Sacramento in a state growing at such a pace.
The reason I’m so familiar with the Oroville dam is that my wife was raised in Yuba City and experienced an evacuation in the 1950s of the Feather River when it overflowed its levies and flooded the town. In the ‘60s we also watched the Oroville dam being built. When the dam was half built in the ‘60s there was some flooding but most of the levees held, due to the Oroville dam.
I propose that we request additional federal funding for upgrading the dams we have which is consistent with our new president’s call for infrastructure modernization. However, the state will have to pay for a large share of this bill by cutting social welfare spending and state employee pensions.
I say forget the federal funding of the bullet train to connect San Francisco and Los Angeles. It’s not expensive to take an airplane to get to San Francisco and back.
Finally, what Brown can do with the current construction of the bullet train track in the Central Valley is bill it as a monument to gross mismanagement of the state by both the governor and the Legislature.
To quote Victor Davis Hanson’s op-ed in the L.A. Times on Feb. 15: “The crisis at Oroville is a third act in the state’s history: One majestic generation built great dams, a second enjoyed them as a third fiddles as they now erode.”
Jim Place
Newport Beach
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Sickening Kent State comment causes concerns
Re. “Michigan GOP leader apologizes for tweeting: ‘Time for another Kent State’,” Los Angeles Times, (Feb. 6): I am old enough to remember all the protests about the Vietnam War during President Nixon’s tenure in office. This most certainly includes the day nine were injured and four innocent people killed by the National Guard at Kent State in 1970.
So imagine my reaction to the recent comments by Dan Adamini, a Michigan county Republican officer, when he tweeted, “Violent protesters who shut down free speech? Time for another Kent State perhaps. One bullet stops a lot of thuggery.”
Besides feeling sick to my stomach, I also felt angry. That’s because Adamini spoke without really understanding what happened at Kent State.
It’s up to each of us to listen to our better angels, no matter how upset we are about today’s demonstrations. Yes, the times have changed, but the feelings millions of us 60- and 70- somethings still have run deep.
Denny Freidenrich
Laguna Beach