First of two parts
Dateline Altadena – After Tuesday evening’s intended climate changing Town Hall for Pasadena City College faculty and students over the war with the PCC president, one of the campus’s most visible figures, Prof. Roger C. Marheine, spoke out on the latest tightening of already strained relations.
It is the latest colorful tale to emerge from a sorely troubled campus that did not used to resemble a real-life re-enactment of the Civil War.
Mr. Marheine said the targeted instructor is being bullied by PCC, the fifth professor to be placed on leave in the past year when opposition to President Dr. Mark Rocha has accelerated,
As reported here last week, days after an angry, swearing student physically confronted an older, decidedly non-physical English professor (on Oct. 31) during a lecture on racism, the controversial administration of Dr. Rocha moved with alacrity – against the teacher.
Imposing an unusually early penalty, PCC suspended 64-year-old Prof. Mark McQueen indefinitely with pay.
The first question for Mr. Marheine, president of the Faculty Assn., was, what are the chances of Prof. McQueen being reinstated?
“Not clear,” he said. “But I am personally hopeful.
“Originally, he was placed on leave very quickly, after a simple accusation. However, the administration soon realized the student had lied. There were 15 eyewitnesses, other students, and they corroborated Mark McQueen’s claim that he felt threatened. He was menaced. He was afraid.
“Mark has two eye surgeries. He could lose the sight in his left eye, the one nearest the right hand of the student, if he is hit on the side of his face,” Mr. Marheine said. “He was very much afraid.
“The college pulled the trigger way too quickly, putting him on leave.”
A key question: Was this Dr. Rocha’s call?
“We have requested an answer, and no one has responded to us (at the Faculty Assn.). I assume it has to go all the way to Rocha, or at least to (Senior Vice President) Bob Miller. Our lawyers have asked, ‘Who actually made the decision?’ I personally asked the (Human Resources) dean, and I asked the Vice President of Instruction. No one has been able to tell me.
“Rumor is,” Mr. Marheine said, “that a particular dean said to Mark (McQueen) and Mark’s wife, ‘We really hope that Mark will be back in the spring, and we hope that all of this will be over.’
“What has happened is this: In a week and a half, the administration realized they would have to defend Mark in a lawsuit by a student, that there would be a payout.
“So they are working hard to retreat, to change their view that Mark was, in fact, threatened.
“We have a combination of mismanagement on one hand,” said Mr. Marheine, “a toxicity, a hostility of faculty, a rush to judgment.
“This is the style of Mark Rocha and his cohort Gail (Cooper),” Pasadena City College’s legal counsel who, last heard from, was facing sexual harassment charges herself.
(To be continued)
