College Senate Asks U.S. Inquiry Into Recording of Lecture

Saying an instructor had been a victim of “governmental abuse,” the Rancho Santiago College Academic Senate voted unanimously Tuesday to ask the U.S. attorney’s office to investigate the audiotape recording of a lecture that ended up in the possession of an Orange County Sheriff’s Department intelligence officer.

The tape was made during a 1981 lecture on Mace by police administration instructor George Wright, who had run unsuccessfully against Sheriff Brad Gates in 1978 and was considering running again.

“The senate of Rancho Santiago College has a particular concern for the invasion of the college classroom by the police,” reads the senate’s letter, copies of which will be sent to the Orange County Grand Jury and to each of the colleges in Orange County. The senate represents the Santa Ana-based college’s 1,100 full- and part-time instructors.

“This abuse of government . . . is intolerable and represents a wrong that must be righted,” the letter said. “We believe that George Wright has been the victim of governmental abuse in a number of ways. His constitutional right of privacy and of free speech, his right to fairly seek public office and his right to be informed of action taken against him have all been violated.”

The Wright tapes were turned over March 27 by Gates’ attorney, who was under a court order to provide all investigative files on Wright and two other former Gates election opponents. The material was given to Wright’s attorney, who was preparing for trial in a civil rights lawsuit against the sheriff, alleging that Gates used his office to improperly harass and spy on his critics.

The same day the tapes were produced, Gates’ attorney offered to settle the case out of court. On April 2 county officials approved a $375,000 settlement to be divided by Wright and the other plaintiffs, former Municipal Judge Bobby D. Youngblood and private investigator George Patrick Bland.

Gates could not be reached for comment Tuesday, but he previously has declined to discuss the tapes. His attorney, Richard Simon, also has declined comment on the tapes.

In a declaration on Feb. 6, 1985, Gates said under oath that “neither I nor my department has conducted any surveillance of or have monitored the activities of . . . George Wright. Nor is it the custom, policy or practice of this declarant or of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department to surveil and/or monitor the lawful activities of citizens of this county because of their political criticism of myself or my department.”

According to John Oskins, of the Orange County risk management office, the tapes may have been recorded by an informant for the Sheriff’s Department.

Following the unanimous vote by 25 members of the Academic Senate, trustees of the Rancho Santiago College District voted 6 to 0 to reaffirm their 11-year-old policy supporting academic freedom in the classroom.

Senate President Cites Irony

“It is appropriate that the (Academic) Senate ask the appropriate bodies to investigate,” Board President John Dowden said.

Earlier, Academic Senate President Lee Mallory had said: “It is ironic that George Wright, who teaches the principles of American justice, should be undercut by the very system he tries to serve.”

Wright had been dismissed as a plaintiff in the lawsuit against Gates, based on the lack of records found on him among the Sheriff’s Department investigative files and a sworn declaration by Gates, Cisarik said.

However, two weeks from the scheduled start of trial, Gates’ attorneys discovered the Wright tapes in the garage of a Sheriff’s Department sergeant, who had been assigned to the department’s intelligence unit when the tape was recorded, according to Michael Cisarik, Wright’s attorney. The names of that sergeant and another Sheriff’s Department intelligence officer are written on the tape, Cisarik said.

At the time the tapes were made, Wright was considering running against Gates in 1982, as he had unsuccessfully in 1978. Wright later decided not to run again.