[180MDE] Oakland High Incident, Education Not Incarceration and Freedom School

Sat May 17 17:57:00 EDT 2003

1.  The next meeting for the coalition to respond to the Oakland High Secret Service Interrogation initiated by East Bay Educators Justice Network, will be Tuesday, May 20th at 4:30PM at Oakland High School, Room 311, 1023 Macarthur Blvd.  E-mail Jonah at jzern1 at yahoo.com for car pool assistance or a ride from the Macarthur BART.    

The LA Times Article on this incident is below in text form.  Sorry to people who's computer crashed when I sent it HTML form!!

2. The People's Institute's Freedom School for youth from 13-18 from July 7-25 is taking applications: www.peoplesinstitutewest.org

3. Education not Incarceration Update from Rose Braz of Critical Resistance: (www.may8.org)

Thanks to everyone who came to the follow up meeting last night.  We proposed a regular meeting schedule:  the 2nd and 4th Mondays of every month at 7pm at Niebyl Proctor.  If this is not possible for you, let rose know at rosebraz at aol.com and we will do our best to accomodate as many people as possible.

OUR NEXT MEETING WILL BE TUESDAY (monday is a holiday) MAY 27 AT 7PM AT NIEBYL PROCTOR.  THE NEXT TWO MEETINGS WILL BE MONDAY JUNE 9 AND MONDAY JUNE 23. 

The result of last night's meeting at Niebyl Proctor is a realignment into
some new working groups, briefly described below  Each committee has a contact
person, whose name and contact info I've included. If you are possilby interested in getting involved in that committee's work, please email that person.

1) Media: to work on getting feature stories in the media, especially to
put a human face on the education cuts. Laid-off teachers, already poor
schools, more crowded classroom. Might also work on editorials, op-eds,
letters to editor. (Alice= alice at jnow.org)

2) Guide for organizing: Putting a packet together
of our materials and encouraging teachers, parents, students etc in other
parts of the state to pull together similar coalitions. We might begin by
targetting schools in the districts of key legislators. (Harry - harry at b-town.org)

3)Teach-ins: What's at stake is the right of students to learn and
teachers to teach. If the state won't be paying for adequate education,
perhaps we can develop teaching performances as public protests, media
events, recruitment tools. Some ideas: a Teach In along the lines of what happened during the anti war teach ins.  Another idea a travelling show
to take into schools as well as more spectacular events. For example, the
Berkeley School Board meets across the street from the downtown park.
Teach-in during the meeting? (Alia= purplepassion1186 at yahoo.com)

4)  Increase teacher participation: Given considerable concern that most of
the teachers intimately involved in organizing for May 8 have been laid
off, how do we pull more teachers in? Can we do anything to maintain
participation of those laid off? Can we use outreach to draw teachers from
schools who have not so far been active? (Jonah (temp contact person)=jzern1 at yahoo.com)

5) Legislative Letter: Draft a letter to be signed by legislators pledging
NOT to vote for any budget that does not cut at least $X (likely something
from $500 Million to $1.5 Billion) from Corrections and restore it to
Education. Draft the letter, put together meetings with likely legislators,
develop protests and other forms of pressure to get signatures. (Rose= rosebraz at aol.com)

3) LA Times Article on the Oakland High Incident 

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-booted13may13,1,4536861.story 
THE STATE 
a d v e r t i s e m e n t 

Secret Service Interrogation of 2 Students Sparks Furor 
A teacher reported boys' alleged threats to shoot President Bush. Some say 
questioning by the federal officers violated the youths' rights. 
By Marcelo Rodriguez 
Special to The Times 

May 13, 2003 

OAKLAND — An interrogation by U.S. Secret Service agents of two high 
school students here for allegedly threatening President Bush has resulted 
in a barrage of criticism against the Secret Service and some school 
officials. The case has added impetus to a bill before the state Assembly 
that would require school officials to inform students of their rights 
before they are questioned by law enforcement officials. 

The alleged threat by two 16-year-old boys at Oakland High School was 
reported to Secret Service officials in San Francisco by their former 
English teacher, Sandy Whitney. 

Whitney called the Secret Service the day after a class discussion where 
she allegedly heard one of the students say, "We need a sniper to take 
care of Bush" and the ot her reply, "Yeah, I'd do it," according to 
published reports. 

Whitney did not return phone calls. According to a representative of 
Whitney's union, the teacher is not talking to the media on the advice of 
Oakland High School Principal Clement Mok. Mok also declined to comment. 

The two sophomores, who have not been identified, have denied threatening 
Bush and said they were just joking around during a routine class 
discussion on current affairs. 

"They were traumatized by the ordeal," said Larry Felson, a teacher at 
Oakland High School who was contacted by the students after the April 23 
questioning. "The agents used profanity and made threats against their 
immigrant parents. They were told, 'You don't have any rights, we own 
you,' when one of them asked for an attorney." 

According to Felson, each student was "grilled for 45 minutes to an hour" 
in the principal's office and Mok sat in on the questioning. "The 
principal clearly should have contacted the parents immediately. He didn't 
even talk to them until three weeks later." 

"That's just outrageous," said Greg Hodge, president of the Oakland School 
Board. "If one of my kids were to make an inappropriate comment, I would 
certainly want to be called first, before the Secret Service." 

Gen Fujioka, an attorney with San Francisco-based Asian Law Caucus, who is 
providing legal advice to the two students, believes Whitney "overreacted" 
and the Secret Service agents "acted way out of bounds." 

"The kids were told that their parents could be deported," Fujioka said. 
"It left them traumatized." 

John Gill, a special agent with the Secret Service in Washington, D.C., 
confirmed that the two students were questioned. 

"Anytime the issue of a threat to the president of the United States comes 
up, the Secret Service has to look into it," Gill said, declining to 
comment on the status of the investigation. 

Several Bay Area teachers' groups hav e denounced the Secret Service, 
Whitney and Mok over the matter. The Oakland Education Assn., the union 
representing Oakland's 4,000 school teachers and support staff, issued a 
statement calling the interrogation a "blatant infringement of students' 
free speech and academic freedom. Students have a right to discuss their 
opinions on any subject without the fear of reprisal or threats of arrest 
from law enforcement." 

Both Hodge and Oakland School Board member Dan Segal said the board plans 
to investigate the matter. "We will take any action that is appropriate," 
Segal said. 

Some educators and politicians, including Felson and Hodge, have thrown 
their weight behind AB 1012, a bill now before the California Assembly 
Appropriations Committee, backed by the American Civil Liberties Union and 
sponsored by Assemblyman Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento). It would 
require high school principals to tell students that they can request that 
a legal guardian be present befor e they are made available to law 
enforcement officials. 

Steinberg believes that the Oakland High incident proves that his bill is 
needed. 

"And if there's no imminent danger, it seems reasonable to me that the 
school should allow the students to contact their parents," he said. 

The bill breezed through the Assembly Education Committee and is scheduled 
for another committee hearing Wednesday. But it is opposed by some law 
enforcement groups, such as the Los Angeles Police Protective League, 
because "it would tie the hands of law enforcement from making legitimate 
inquiries." 

Similar legislation passed twice before but has been vetoed both times by 
Republican governors, George Deukmejian in 1989 and Pete Wilson in 1998. A 
spokesman for Gov. Gray Davis said Davis has not decided his position on 
the Steinberg legislation. 

Oakland Schools Supt. Dennis Chaconas said that, though he "would have 
preferred the teacher had contacted the principal b efore calling the 
Secret Service," he understands the motivation. 

However, Chaconas added, since Sept. 11, the district has been asked by 
Oakland police to report such threats. 

Fujioka said the students and their parents are "looking at several legal 
options." 

EDUCATION NOT INCARCERATION RALLY IN SACRAMENTO MAY 8:  http://www.may8.org
Murder By Israeli US Made Catipillar Bulldozer: Israeli Counselate: 415.844.7500
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article1248.shtml
Listen to KPFA, 94.1 www.kpfa.org  Anti-War - anti-racist: www.rj911.org

---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Search - Faster. Easier. Bingo.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.envirolink.org/pipermail/dti-discuss/attachments/20030517/19730b87/attachment.html