Cal State Fresno Surrenders Conference Videotape to Prosecutors

University officials have turned over to federal prosecutors in Pennsylvania a videotape from a February academic conference at Cal State Fresno on radical environmentalism.

The two-day conference featured former members of groups linked to firebombings and vandalism committed in the name of animal rights and environmental protection.

Janette Redd Williams, a lawyer at the Cal State system’s headquarters in Long Beach, said Tuesday that videotapes were subpoenaed a month ago by a grand jury working with the U.S. attorney in Erie, Pa. She said she did not know what authorities in Erie were looking into. Federal prosecutors in the western Pennsylvania city could not be reached for comment.

But the Erie area was struck twice late last year and again on Jan. 1 by arsons for which responsibility was claimed by the Earth Liberation Front. The incidents included the firebombings of an auto dealership and a mink farm and an arson at a U.S. Forest Service lab.

Craig Rosebraugh, described as a former spokesman for the Earth Liberation Front, was a featured speaker at the Cal State Fresno conference.

Redd Williams said federal prosecutors initially requested all videotapes taken at the conference. She said that university officials had balked at turning over tapes of classroom discussions related to the conference. The two sides, she said, soon came to an agreement that the university would turn over a single tape, a recording made at the one session during the conference that was open to news media and some members of the public.

“The part we turned over was essentially a public session. There were members of the press there. It was widely reported, and I don’t think that, given the fact it was already out there in the public, that it was an incursion on academic freedom,” Redd Williams said.

She said that turning over videotape of classroom sessions could have posed issues of invasion of privacy for students and others involved.

But Michael Becker, a political science lecturer at Cal State Fresno who helped organize the conference, said the action by federal prosecutors “smacks of surveillance” of those involved in the conference.

He said that once the subpoena was issued, the university “probably was pretty much forced to comply with the request.” Becker said his main grievance was with the decision to issue the subpoena in the first place, calling it a reflection of a broader curtailment of civil liberties in American life.

“It’s a time in American history that sort of hearkens back to the McCarthy era, and I think we need to be very careful about protecting a range of liberties, including academic freedom,” Becker said.

Becker said he still was thankful that the university agreed to go ahead with the February conference after it came under criticism from business and community leaders and some faculty members.

Critics had accused the conference organizers of lending legitimacy to extremists, abandoning reasonable scholarly standards and possibly threatening the safety of people on campus. The session was held under heavy police guard, without any violence or arrests.