Ousted Student Body President Gets $35,000

Reinstated Santa Monica College student body President Patrick Ortega has accepted $35,500 from the college to settle a lawsuit in which he had accused the college and others of violating his constitutional right to free speech.

Ortega won the election for student body president last spring but was disqualified before he took office for running a negative ad campaign. He appealed the disqualification to the Santa Monica Community College District Board of Trustees, but the decision was upheld.

Aided by the Washington-based Center for Individual Rights, Ortega sued the college. A trial had been scheduled to begin Tuesday.

Among other things, the settlement makes permanent the terms of a preliminary injunction that Ortega obtained in federal court last month, Ortega’s lawyer, Stephen Rohde, said Thursday in disclosing the settlement.

The preliminary injunction blocked the college’s student government, known as Associated Students, from having an election Oct. 26 to replace Ortega. It also temporarily reinstated Ortega as student body president and student representative on the board of trustees and deleted from the student election code the language banning negative campaigning.

The award accepted by Ortega consists of $33,500 in legal fees and $2,000 in back pay for the office of student trustee, which pays $400 a month, college spokesman Bruce Smith said.

College district lawyers could not be reached.

“I think the college acted responsibly,” Rohde said. “The writing was on the wall. . . . They avoided a trial, which would have added to legal expenses.”

Ortega said student government members conspired to keep him out of office because of his conservative political views.

He said he feels vindicated and hopes to move forward.

“We must pull together and get down to the business of students,” he said. “We must be tolerant of each other’s views.”