Barred from Elected Post, Student Sues College

Patrick Ortega recalls that when he went before the Santa Monica College student government last spring after he was appointed to the post of vice president that had been vacated, students quizzed him on his political views instead of campus-related issues.

Why wasn’t he more active with Latino clubs? Did he support affirmative action? What about abortion?

He says his answers confirmed their worst fears--Ortega is a conservative.

“I strongly believe in the rights of the unborn,” he recalls saying at the appointment hearing.

Ortega didn’t get enough votes to win confirmation. But in April, he ran successfully for president of the Associated Students Board of Directors in a campuswide election.

However, the Associated Students Election Committee disqualified him for running a negative campaign ad in the student paper and prohibited him from taking office. A new election has been scheduled for Monday, and Ortega has filed a lawsuit to try to regain the post.

Ortega, 23, believes the student government conspired to get rid of him because of his conservative political views. He argued that when other candidates made negative statements in their ads, they were merely instructed to remove them.

He exhausted the appeals process outlined in the student constitution in an attempt to regain office. He met with the district superintendent and the Board of Trustees. Finally, he filed the lawsuit charging the student election code is unconstitutional.

“This matter goes beyond Patrick Ortega being president of the Santa Monica College student body,” he said. “It goes to the heart of an issue that we as Americans care very deeply for: that is the right to say what we mean and mean what we say without fear of being punished by Big Brother.”

In response to his complaints, the Santa Monica Community College District Board of Trustees agreed to modify the election code in order to guarantee freedom of speech, said board member Ilona Katz. Terminology banning negative campaigning and naming of opponents was struck. A statement banning libel was added in its place.

Board members called for another election for president of the Associated Students under the new rules. The election is scheduled for Monday.

But board members stopped short of reinstating Ortega.

“His ad was not just negative campaigning. It was libel,” Katz said. “Libel is not constitutionally protected.”

The ad in question featured a photo of Mickey Mouse and the words, “This Mouse cost you $15,000.”

The ad goes on to charge that “the Associated Students finance committee approved $15,000 of your money for Disney World, Washington, Sacramento and Oxnard,” referring to money allocated for conventions.

Ortega said the ad was approved by the faculty, as all campaign material must be. But minor changes were made before the ad went to print and the words “resort locations like” before “Disney World” were deleted.

Katz said those three words made the difference.

Daryll Robertson, election committee chairman, agreed. “He made it look like we took $15,000 and went to a party in Disneyland,” Robertson said.

He acknowledged that Associated Students has $15,000 a year budgeted for conventions, but said that students who attended a convention in Orlando, Fla., went to Disney World using their own time and money.

Ortega is not running in Monday’s election. Instead, he is trying to get a preliminary injunction to block the election until his lawsuit is heard. The lawsuit asks that he be reinstated as president. It also seeks unspecified damages and attorney fees. The injunction hearing is scheduled Monday morning.

Acting President Lori Foit, who ran successfully for vice president on the nine-person slate headed by Ortega, believes Ortega rightfully belongs in office.

“There were a lot of people I felt were underhanded and unfair in the way this was handled,” she said. “People turned it into their personal agendas instead of going by the rules and the laws.”

Foit, also a conservative, is the target of a recall movement by gay and lesbian groups on campus for an anti-gay flyer posted in her office.

Ortega owes $4,000 in legal fees so far, but he said he will keep fighting for what he believes in.

“As repugnant as they may be to some,” Ortega said, “conservative ideas must be allowed on a liberal campus in order to have a forum for discussion. If there is only one philosophy allowed to prevail, there is something wrong.”