Pelican Bay Human Rights Movement presents counter-proposal opposing CDCR ‘Security Threat Group Strategy’

Preface

Pelican Bay prison guard George Sherman carries a rifle whenever a guard enters a cell pod in the SHU. – Photo: John Burgess, Santa Rosa Press Democrat

The Pelican Bay State Prison Security Housing Unit (PBSP SHU) short corridor prisoner representatives have read, carefully considered and hereby oppose the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s (CDCR’s) March 1, 2012, “Security Threat Group Prevention, Identification and Management Strategy“ proposal (hereinafter proposal), based on the following reasons. Additionally, we do hereby present our counter proposal.

I: Summary of issues

Beginning in May of 2011, the PBSP SHU short corridor prisoners collective presented CDCR with a formal notice of intent to go on a peaceful protest hunger strike beginning July 1, 2011, in order to expose and force policy changes regarding our subjection to 25 years of torturous human rights abuse in California SHU and Administrative Segregation (Ad Seg) units. The formal notice included a list of five core demands and a formal complaint summarizing the facts and circumstances leading up to and supporting the basis for putting our lives on the line to stop the torture of our families and ourselves.

Top CDCR administrators admitted several times that the five core demands made by prisoners were reasonable and, during the negotiations conducted in late July, August and October 2011 between CDCR administrators and PBSP SHU prisoner reps and our outside mediation team, the CDCR made repeat assurances that the five core demands would all be addressed via meaningful, substantive changes, responsive to the specific demands as soon as possible. The five core demands are summarized here for the purpose of clarity:

1. Eliminate group punishment. When an individual prisoner breaks a rule, the prison staff often punishes a whole group of prisoners of the same race. This practice has been applied to keep prisoners in the SHU indefinitely and as a pretext for justifying the imposition of harsher conditions in SHU and Ad Seg units.

When an individual prisoner breaks a rule, the prison staff often punishes a whole group of prisoners of the same race.

2. Abolish the debriefing policy and modify active/inactive gang status criteria. Prisoners are accused of being participants in illegal gang activity based on innocent associational activity and unsupported fabricated “evidence” provided by confidential prisoner informants, resulting in indefinite SHU isolation torture. And to obtain release from these torturous conditions, they must successfully “debrief”; this means provide staff with information about gang activity. Debriefing produces false information that CDCR-OCS uses to justify the indefinite torture of thousands of California prisoners via SHU isolative sensory deprivation for coercive purposes, as well as endangering the lives of debriefing prisoners and their families.

3. Comply with the recommendations of the U.S. Commission on Safety and Abuse in Prisons (2006) report, calling for an end to the use and abuse of long-term isolation as well as the use of segregation as “a last resort for as short a time period as possible.” And when segregation is necessary, there needs to be access to meaningful programming, human contact, sunlight etc.

4. Provide adequate food, food that is nutritious and served in adult-size portions on clean, sanitary trays. Prisoners must have the ability to purchase nutritional supplements.

5. Expand on and provide constructive programs and privileges for indefinite SHU prisoners with a list of examples of things provided at similar supermax prisons across the nation.

With respect to core demands 1, 2, 3 and 5, regarding policy and practice of the basis for indefinite SHU isolation, avenue(s) available for gaining one’s release therefrom, and the progressively punitive nature of SHU and Ad Seg conditions, it’s important to remember, many SHU prisoners have been held indefinitely and subject to sensory deprivation and every other abuse imaginable that occurs in such hidden hell holes for 10 to 40-plus years and counting, solely based on what the CDCR Office of Correctional Safety (OCS) refers to as their “intelligence system,” i.e., debriefer allegations and innocent associational activity without ever actually being charged and found guilty of committing a criminal gang-related act.

Thus, the parties understood CDCR’s intelligence system for indefinite SHU placement was one of the major issues of concern to the class of SHU prisoners and their families, subjected to such long term isolation and abuse without being charged and found guilty of committing a criminal act by credible evidence and after the due process such formal charges would require. The parties all understood [the need for] a major fundamental change away from the above referenced “intelligence” based system to a “behavioral” based system, defined as a system wherein prisoners who engage in “criminal gang activity” that is supported by “credible evidence” will be subject to sanctions (per CCR, Title 15, §§ 3312-3315, et seq., i.e., rule violation reports, referral for prosecution, determinate SHU term, and corresponding loss of privileges – after receiving due process and being found guilty of the criminal act alleged).

On March 9, 2012, CDCR issued a press statementand presented their proposed gang management policy changes (the proposal) in response to our peaceful protest activity and related five core demands and the negotiation process referenced above.

II: CDCR’s proposal is not acceptable

The PBSP SHU short corridor prisoner reps have read and carefully considered CDCR’s March 2112 proposal and we hereby summarize our opposition to the proposal. This rejection is based upon the CDCR’s failure to act in good faith, as demonstrated by the mockery made of our agreements (referenced in above Section I), including Secretary Cate’s delegation of the policy change process to the Office of Correctional Safety (OCS), which resorted to the same 25 years-plus fear tactics of California prison gangs being the “worst of the worst” in order to propagate, manipulate and promote their own underlying agenda, which is to increase the power, staffing and money of the OCS office within CDCR. (See, e.g., in the last paragraph on page 5 of the proposal: “the continuing evolution of our existing intelligence network.”)

Note that the OCS is the gang intelligence goon squad in charge of the Special Services Unit (SSU) and Institutional Gang Investigation (IGI) unit within CDCR. This propagandist, manipulative abuse of state power includes the ongoing use of long-term isolation and sensory deprivation designed to coerce prisoners to become state informants, while also making a ton of money from such SHU/Ad Seg torture units.

The proposal seeks to manipulate the lawmakers and the taxpayers into allowing the CDCR-OCS to significantly expand on the use of these SHU and Ad Seg units, via the creation of new criteria and classes of what they term Security Threat Groups (STG) involved in “criminal gang behavior.” (See the proposal in general.)

The CDCR-OCS is asking the lawmakers and taxpayers to allow it to continue to violate thousands of prisoners’ human rights, including the use of torture with impunity based on false propaganda scare tactics exemplified below.

The CDCR-OCS is asking the lawmakers and taxpayers to allow it to continue to violate thousands of prisoners’ human rights, including the use of torture with impunity based on false propaganda scare tactics.

The proposal and related CDCR press statement begin with propaganda, claiming California prison gangs are “the most violent and sophisticated prison gangs in the nation. California prison gangs are connected to major criminal activity and have had influences on nearly every prison system within the United States,” according to the press statement of March 9, 2012; similar statements appear in the proposal on pages 2, 3 and 5.

They also claim their current torture practices, those utilized for over 25 years, have been “successful in reducing the impact sophisticated gang members have in CDCR facilities” by “isolating them from the general population” (proposal page 2, paragraphs 2 and 4). These are the same manipulative tactics used by OCS for 25 years. They’ve gotten away with it at a cost of hundreds of millions of taxpayers’ dollars and with the destruction and severe physical and psychological damage long term subjection to torture units has caused thousands of prisoners and their loved ones outside prison.

And all of this in the face of the facts and evidence to prove that CDCR-OCS’ propaganda-style manipulative statements are false. In spite of being subject to 25 to 40 years of extreme security surveillance by alleged gang expert special agents, the majority of the prisoners classified as prison gang members have never been charged or found guilty of any criminal gang-related acts! Moreover, a statistical study of the CDCR’s practice during the 25-year period prior to imposition of the current policy of placing all prison gang affiliates in SHU and comparing this data with the current 25-year SHU policy will prove that CDCR general population prisoners have been significantly more violent and out of control since the current policy has been in place.

CDCR-OCS is directly at fault for these 25 years of madness in the general population prisons by way of staff manipulating prisoners against each other to further the staff’s agenda. A lot of riots and other violence is useful support for increasing prison construction, staffing, extra hazard pay, overtime etc.

CDCR-OCS’ gang management policy of the last 25 years is a 100 percent failure, and its March 2012 proposed changes are not acceptable because they seek to increase the use of torture units and do not change the manner of dealing with those classified as prison gang members at all, which is a blatant violation of the parties’ agreement(s) during the negotiation process last year. This is shown by reference to the following examples:

A) The proposal wants to change the classification of “prison gang member” into “security threat group I” member (STG-1 member), while continuing the current policy and practice of keeping these alleged gang members in SHU indefinitely, using the same alleged “evidence” that’s been used for the past 25 years. The proposal specifies that STG- I members will remain in SHU indefinitely, until they successfully complete the process or the “step down program” consisting of a minimum of four years to complete all four steps.

Protesters rallied outside CDCR headquarters in Sacramento on July 18, 2011, during the first round of the hunger strike. – Photo: Grant Slater, KPCC

Notably, it states, “STG-I members will remain in SHU and will not be able to gain release to the general prison population via step down program based on IGI’s confirmation of participation in criminal gang behavior.” Confirmation requires either “1) a guilty finding in a serious Rules Violation Report; and/or 2) any document that clearly describes the gang behavior and is referred to the Institution Gang Investigator (IGI) for confirmation.” No. 2 is in reference to “documentation,” consisting of statements from confidential inmate informants/ debriefers, staff’s alleged observations, and other forms of innocent, associational type behavior. (See pages 3, 7 and 17-25.)

This is the exact same process CDCR-OCS has used and abused for 25 years. This changes nothing for the prisoners classified as prison gang members, which is a majority of those in PBSP short corridor, most of whom have been in SHU for between 10 and 40 years already – without ever being formally charged and found guilty of a criminal gang act.

B) The proposal fails to make meaningful, substantive changes responsive to core demands 1, 2 and 3 – and does so unsatisfactorily re core demand 5, e.g., making a mockery of our request for weekly phone calls, contact visits for steps 3 and 4 etc. And we see no point in having four steps – each requiring a minimum of one year to complete. And the vague wording in the rest of the proposal leaves too much room for abuse and manipulation – which CDCR-OCS staff have a long history of doing. All of this makes the CDCR-OCS proposal unacceptable.

III: PBSP SHU Short Corridor Prisoner Representatives

Based on CDCR’s lack of good faith in the process of changing their illegal policies and practices regarding the use and abuse of long-term isolation torture and for the reasons briefly summarized above, together with our belief that the CDCR-OCS proposal is so blatantly out of step with what was agreed to during negotiations between July through October of 2011, as to constitute an intentional stall tactic designed to prolong our subjection to those torturous conditions.

Therefore, we hereby respectfully present our attached counter proposal – to be implemented without further delay.

Respectfully submitted by the negotiators named at the end of this Pelican Bay Human Rights Movement statement

Pelican Bay Human Rights Movement Proposal

Modern Management Control Unit (MMCU)

This proposal starts by looking at concrete programs that have been implemented by CDCR and functioned effectively and by examining how they can be immediately adopted to the present-day PBSP and all 180 prison structures.

In the 1970s and 1980s the Max-B management control unit (MCU) programs, such as Chino, DVI and San Quentin Max-B, afforded as much programming as the general population (GP) prisoners had, and held individual prisoners accountable who failed to program within the MCU setting.

Today in 2012 there are still some small Max-B type programs functioning in a few CDCR facilities under different names, but segregated with the same objectives.

The new 180-design prison complexes are perfectly structured for the necessary control setting and for meeting all the security requirements needed to make this modern Max-B MCU type of unit more durable and cost-effective to operate for the California taxpayers.

PBSP B Control Program

PBSP B facility – control/behavior program facility – for the general population prototype can be implemented as a pilot program and used at other 180-design prison complexes. PBSP B facility can serve a dual purpose of allowing for a short period of decompression time for validated SHU or Ad Seg prisoners who have served decades in supermax SHUs. This applies to prisoners who have not received any serious CDCR RVR 115s for any individual behavioral misconduct demonstrating factually reliable evidence of the prisoner currently engaging in criminal gang activity that shall and can be prosecuted as a criminal offense within California’s state or federal courts.

An aerial view of Pelican Bay State Prison – Photo: CDCR

The second purpose of this M-MCU program shall allow validated prisoners to successfully complete the 90-day step program; this is a three-phase program for re-entry back in the general population of a prison setting, within the new modern structural environment of the 180 design prisons like the old MCU program – similar to what existed in the mid-1970s and 1080s at Chino, DVI, San Quentin Max-B units and old Folsom State Prison – i.e., restricted housing units.

PBSP B facility is an ideal institution for the Max-B MCU Program for release to the GP, because it is in a level IV maximum security prison, with an existing policy requiring that inactive affiliates be housed on close B status within a level IV prison setting for a period of observation that shall be no longer than 12 months.

Upon completion of that observation period, the prisoner shall be transferred to another control/behavior unit (CBU) facility to GP. In the absence of real safety needs (i.e. a specific conduct/behavior act), the prisoner may be housed in a facility consistent with his classification score.

PBSP B facility is comprised of eight housing units with one main exercise yard that is divided into three smaller separate yards with approximately 20 cells per section (i.e., A, B and C) for building 1, and building 2 is a repeat of building 1. Each housing unit has three separate housing sections, with an approximate capacity of 40 prisoners in each section. Thus, each housing unit has room for approximately 120 prisoners and a facility capacity of 900 prisoners.

Additionally, each housing unit has a separate concrete wall encased yard, with a capacity of 20 to 40 prisoners during the prisoners’ exercise periods. There are generally two or three exercising periods each day. Prisoners can effectively be segregated to fit security and safety standards, like what existed under the past management control units. All segregated programming can be operated by a schedule of Group A, Group B and Group C.

Modern Management Control Facility (MMCF/GP) has three phases:

Phase I: Initial placement into MMCF from the SHU shall be for a minimum of 30 days, with no group programming, no designated work group participation, allowed non-contact visits.

Phase II: Programming within a prisoner’s particular classification assigned to Group A, B or C. Eating in dining hall. Phase II placement shall be for a minimum of 60 days, with contact visits.

Phase III: The successful completion of 90 days MMCF/GP programming, meaning a prisoner has full access to one of the main exercise yards with his assigned group.

In Phase I, the Classification Committee will designate the assigned work group; Phase II work group A1, A2, B privilege group; Phase II work group A1, A2, B privileged work group.

1. Classification should be every 90 days

2. Telephone access: one call per month

3. Contact visits

4. Educational programs

5. Canteen items not to exceed one month’s draw of assigned privilege group

6. Conjugal visits

7. Feeding in unit’s dining halls

8. Transfer CAT Programs

9. Prisoners should be able to transfer to another institution with a MMCF to GP after one year, in order to be closer to family.

Additional requirements and support for our proposal

A. IGI and OCS should discontinue the arbitrary, unfair practice of relying on allegations from confidential informant/debriefers to keep prisoners in SHU and/or from advancing out of SHU, unless such allegations are supported by credible evidence and thereby result in issuance of a CDCR 115 Rule Violation Report and required due process thereafter who himself has been denied inactive status.

Countless prisoners in California have been "validated" as prison gang members for having a copy of the Bay View in their cell. Other prisons withhold the Bay View from subscribers. But in many prisons around the country, the Bay View is used as a textbook by prisoner study groups like this one.

B. Discontinue relying on innocent associational activity, such as roster list, group petitions, address books, poems, drawings, portraits, literature, published books, manuscripts, signing of birthday cards, signing of condolence cards, legal work, chronos for talking, envelopes with a validated prisoner’s name on it etc., unless IGI can disclose undisputed evidence during inactive review that the prisoner under review has written to another on a roster list who is promoting current gang activity; written to the address of another validated prisoner who is promoting current gang activity. The same proof of evidence shall apply to poems, drawings, cards literature, etc., showing the prisoner how his written material has promoted “current gang activity,” gang violence etc.

It is known that there are IGI and ISU and OCS officials who are deliberately, during the inactive reviews, misinterpreting what constitutes current gang activity, as well as relying on flimsy information that contains no credible evidence or documentation about the prisoner who is under review, showing him to be planning, organizing, threatening, soliciting or committing any criminal gang acts. If there is credible evidence supporting this, a CDCR 115 RVR is required.

The reason for this erroneous practice is because there is an attitude to use the inactive review as a means to continue denying specific validated members a release from SHU to the mainstream general population (GP).

There is an attitude to use the inactive review as a means to continue denying specific validated members a release from SHU to the mainstream general population.

Documented evidence clearly demonstrates the opposition, e.g. OCS, is not in favor of giving better programming opportunities to SHU prisoners, like those afforded to the general population prisoners. Prisoners have loudly and clearly called for the end to group punishment and for a focus on individual behavior instead. They have voiced their willingness to accept individual accountability for individual conduct. They (prisoners) will get that under this plan, an individual who fails to remain in compliance with the PBSP B facility (MMCF) structural setting will return to the SHU or Ad Seg.

The current long term SHU prisoners have already fulfilled a step down program during the decades spent in supermax SHUs. They should not have to do more to earn their release into a PBSP B facility (MMCF) program setting, like what existed in the mid-1970s and 1980s in what was called management control units within the SHU structure. The security level today in the 180 level IV prison is much more controlled and therefore suitable for a MMCF to be easily implemented and effectively operated.

This document is in direct relation to the Pelican Bay Human Rights Movement to address the illegal warehousing of prisoners held in California torture chambers – i.e., solitary confinement, SHU and indefinite isolation – which is stated in the five core demands that CDCR Secretary M. Cate, former Undersecretary S. Kernan and current Undersecretary Terri McDonald have all agreed that we, the prisoners held within indefinite isolation, i.e., SHU, should have had coming and we shall be afforded all of the prisoners five core demands, which is supported by California Gov. E. Brown. These demands are all reasonable.

Prisoners currently held under the indeterminate SHU term shall be relocated into this PBSP B facility-MMCF and shall be authorized to receive the same personal property items for prisoners assigned to the BMU; see Title 15, CCR 3334(e)(g).

Evidence proves CDCR SHU and Ad Seg sensory deprivation from solitary confinement conditioning causes harm to prisoners. This illegal torture must end.

These demands are all reasonable. This illegal torture must end.

The science of sensory deprivation was theoretically structured in the federal prison in Marion, Illinois, in the 1970s. It was the first known behavior modification program in the United States. There were no pre-conditional snitching (debriefing) requirements connected to being released from said program.

In California, at Pelican Bay State Prison Security Housing Unit (SHU), under the reign of the prison intelligence units (PIU) – SSU, ISU, LEIU, IGI and OCS – a high intensity (enhanced) sensory deprivation program was implemented in December 1989 against a targeted class of prisoner between the years of 1990 and 2011. Hundreds of targeted prisoners in the principal ethnic groups of New Afrikans (Black), Northern Mexican, White and Southern Mexican were tortured into debriefing.

The fact of sensory deprivation being a form of torture is linked in its application and the results. For the sake of argument, the American Medical Association Encyclopedia, page 1103, defines sensory deprivation as a form of torture. The experimenting with sensory deprivation in California has far succeeded the federal behavioral modification program.

Long-term solitary confinement by itself is an irrational and unjustifiable instrument of corrections, and when the state of California allowed the prison-industrial complex (PIC) to implement such sensory deprivation for over five years, CDCR has recklessly modified the genetic features of what are human beings’ social characteristics. And suppressing a human’s natural social behavior changes the thought process of the targeted prisoner by removing objective reality.

Once deprivation sets in, the second signal system – subjective reality – of the targeted prisoner’s thoughts will supersede the first signal system, which then produces irrationality, cannibalism, racism, chauvinism, terrorism, conformism and obscurantism. The process of deprivation passes through three phases: 1) judgment, 2) awareness, and 3) fatigue. Once the three phases are tapped into the physiological basis for the targeted prisoners, association and loyalties become short-circuited. The targeted prisoners of deprivation believe they’re no longer accountable for their behavior and actions.

Sensory deprivation has secondary phenomena, which are social deprivation, cultural deprivation, ethical deprivation and emotional deprivation. No sane targeted prisoners can escape this type of deprivation that comes from long term interment in supermax control units. The science of deprivation has been perfected by the handlers to operate with devastating force.

The techniques of torture by deprivation are used by United States military intelligence and the political police interrogators to break down the will power of the targeted prisoners. CDCR has conducted a war of attrition against the mind and body of thousands of prisoners over a prolonged period of time.

CDCR has conducted a war of attrition against the mind and body of thousands of prisoners over a prolonged period of time.

There’s a misconception that “mental” torture is not as brutal and barbaric as physical torture. Military intelligence experts will attest to the fact that mental torture is more effective than physical torture, especially inside the prison theater: 1) Physical torture produces short range returns. 2) Mental torture produces long range returns.

Admittedly, from the overview of sensory deprivation, there is no separation between physical torture and mental torture. Torture is a two-edged sword and can be an effective way towards 1) exacting punishment or 2) revenge. And, of course, the objective being to obtain a confession or information from the subject, we know that PBSP SHU was architecturally designed and intended to produce maximum sensory deprivation impact. These are its features:

1) The cage pods have no windows; the targeted prisoners will go decades without ever seeing the natural physical scenery – i.e., trees, mountains, grass, dirt, plants, birds or wildlife – of the objective world.

Prisoners will go decades without ever seeing the natural physical scenery – i.e., trees, mountains, grass, dirt, plants, birds or wildlife – of the objective world.

2) The cage pods have several strategic secret capabilities that are used for disposal of human beings, by incineration, refrigeration and or gas chamber – the degree of heat of combustion and cold (freezing point) or gaseous asphyxiate.

3) Ventilation shaft is designed to circulate stale and noxious air from cage to cage, resulting in poor air quality.

4) High intensity impulse noise is trapped in a vacuum.

The prison intelligence unit (PIU) has an established profile of every targeted prisoner’s socio-psychological characteristics – dictatorial attitude, level of self-discipline, personality, group orientation, dominance, submissiveness, paranoia, sociability, non-compatibility. The PIU establishes the racial-ethic social ecology makeup of every eight-cell pod.

It is essential to the intensity of deprivation that the social polarity atmosphere influences the phenomenal effects. It does play a significant role in bringing about the deterioration of the targeted prisoners. No targeted prisoners can escape the transformation of objective reality into subjective reality of self-preservation. The external world must become immaterial in the targeted prisoners’ minds if they are to survive the war of attrition.

During the last six months of 2011, California prisoners were compelled to get involved in two peaceful, non-violent hunger strikes to let this country’s President Obama and Gov. Brown of California and CDCR Secretary M. Cate know that this country, USA, and the state of California do in fact torture state prisoners. They later drive some to the state of sensory deprivation through the personnel of prison intelligence units, military intelligence agents and political police tormentors.

This country, USA, and the state of California do in fact torture state prisoners.

Now, over the past nine months, July 2011 to March 2012, we prisoners have lost three fellow prisoners, whom we shall honor for their courageous struggle for our PBHRM call for justice and humanity.

In memory of:

1. Johnny Owen Vick, PBSP Ad Seg

2. Hozel Alanzo Blanchard, Calipatria Ad Seg

3. Christian Gomez, Corcoran Ad Seg

These are men – human beings – who were subjected to the inhumane treatment in solitary confinement who dedicated their lives to our struggle to be liberated from these torture chambers. We dedicate to them our commitment to continue our struggle.

Respectfully submitted by Sitawa Nantambu Jamaa (Dewberry), C-35671; Arturo Castellanos, C-17275; Todd Ashker, C-58191; and Antonio Guillen, P-81948.

Court upholds California affirmative action ban

Affirmative action proponents took a hit Monday as a federal appeals court panel upheld California's ban on using race, ethnicity and gender in admitting students to public colleges and universities.

The ruling marked the second time the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals turned back a challenge to the state's landmark voter initiative, Proposition 209, which was passed in 1996.

Affirmative action proponents, who had requested that the court reconsider its 1997 decision after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2003 that affirmative action could be used in college admissions, said they would continue fighting.

"We think the decision is wrong," said Detroit attorney George B. Washington, who is representing the group of minority students and advocacy groups that filed the latest challenge in January 2010.

Washington said he would ask the full appellate court to review the case since this decision was issued by a three-judge panel.

In its ruling, the court rejected the plaintiffs' arguments that a new ruling is needed and said the previous decision still applies.

Ralph Kasarda, attorney with the Pacific Legal Foundation who had argued in favor of the ban, said the court's decision was not surprising since the issue had already been decided. This case was redundant and baseless, he said.

"The bottom line from both decisions by the 9th Circuit -- today's and the ruling 15 years ago -- is that California voters have every right to prohibit government from color-coding people and playing favorites based on individuals' sex or skin color," Kasarda said in a statement.

At least six states have adopted bans on using affirmative action in state college admissions.
Besides California and Michigan, they include Arizona, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Washington.

Advocates of affirmative action say such bans lead to the exclusion of minority students and less campus diversity.

In California, the year after ban was adopted, the number of black, Latino and Native American students at the University of California's most prestigious campuses -- Berkeley and Los Angeles -- plummeted by 50 percent, according to the plaintiffs cited in the court opinion.

The university has tried to compensate for the drop in those students by using other admissions criteria, including a "comprehensive review" of applicants, admitting the top 4 percent of graduates from any high school and decreasing the weight of standardized tests, the opinion said.

But affirmative action proponents say the measures have not been enough to boost opportunities for historically excluded minorities.

Although blacks, Latinos and Native Americans comprise about half of California's high school graduates, they make up only 19.5 percent of the current freshman class at UC Berkeley. Whites compose roughly 30 percent and Asians 48 percent. The remainder is out-of-state students.

"All you have to do is walk into any classroom, and you can just see it. There's like one black or Latino student," said Maria Belman, a history major at UC Berkeley and a plaintiff in the lawsuit.

"To say that it isn't a problem is just a lie."

Belman said the lack of diversity creates a hostile climate to minorities on campus and puts more pressure on the minorities who are there.

"There's racism in our society," she said. "You need something to make up for that."

Backers of affirmative action bans say ruling out race, gender and ethnicity criteria guarantees that all applicants are treated fairly and not discriminated against.

The issue has led to protracted legal battles in several states.

In 2003, the U.S. Supreme Court said the University of Michigan Law School could consider race in admissions decisions to promote campus diversity.

That decision led to a three-judge panel of the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals overturning Michigan's affirmative action ban last year. The full appellate court, however, has agreed to reconsider the case.

In February, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear another case against the University of Texas, alleging that use of affirmative action is discriminatory. If the court decides against the university, the ruling could definitively end consideration of race in public university admissions.

CSU whistle-blower loses job; accused teaches on

Justin Schwartz, a lecturer at Cal State East Bay in 2009, told his bosses that a colleague in the recreation department was spending thousands of dollars of university money to buy himself a $4,000 bicycle, passes at a climbing gym, sailing equipment and paragliding lessons while claiming they were for classes he taught.
A campus investigation confirmed that the man had billed the school for personal expenses and that much of the equipment he had bought had mysteriously disappeared, and it found that department officials had never asked questions.

Rather than thank the whistle-blower, Cal State East Bay fired him. The colleague who appeared to have bilked the school still teaches there.
What happened next - after Schwartz sued California State University saying he was the victim of whistle-blower retaliation - is that he learned he wasn't alone. In the past three years, cash-strapped CSU has paid $9 million to settle and defend seven cases of retaliation against campus whistle-blowers.

"I figured that when I came forward, some action would happen whereby the gentleman involved would be appropriately disciplined," Schwartz said. Instead, "my identity was disclosed, I lost my job, and nothing happened to him."

The CSU chancellor's office says Schwartz was let go for budget reasons. "He was a part-time lecturer," spokesman Mike Uhlenkamp said. "There was no money for that."

Michael Shumate, the subject of the whistle-blower report, is also a part-time lecturer at the Hayward campus.

'Borderline ethical'

He readily acknowledged that his methods were "borderline ethical." To benefit students taking his outdoor recreation classes, he broke rules, bought lessons for himself and used student fees to buy himself the high-end bicycle he would let students ride, Shumate told The Chronicle. He said he did it to give them an excellent outdoor education, which would have been impossible if he hadn't found a way to reimburse himself for expenses.

"We did it the old-fashioned way," he said. "Do it first, and ask questions later."

Shumate kept his job because seniority was on his side, said Jim Cimino, the now-retired associate vice president who conducted the investigation.

"If they wanted to get rid of Mike Shumate, they would have had to go through a disciplinary process," Cimino said. "The administration's job is not to 'get justice.' Our job is to run the university."

It's an approach that may explain why CSU has had to pay out millions of dollars to settle whistle-blower retaliation claims in recent years.

Since 2008, CSU has settled seven cases, and courts dismissed or plaintiffs dropped five others, each involving employees who said they were punished for reporting abuse of public funds under California's Whistleblower Protection Act.

"The whole thing is deeply troubling if in fact there's a pattern," said Professor Josh Davis, director of the Center for Law and Ethics at the University of San Francisco. "They're losing money because they're not policing (abuses) adequately, then they have to pay for the lawsuits, and then they have to pay the whistle-blowers. What a nightmare."

Susan Westover, a CSU litigator, denied there was a pattern. She said the university does a good job of encouraging employees and students to report abuse, and of protecting the rights of those who do.

"We actually have very few (retaliation) cases" relative to the size of CSU, which has 23 campuses, Westover said. "And just because you file a whistle-blower claim doesn't mean you're right."

At Cal State East Bay, "it could be that Schwartz was legitimately laid off," said Davis of USF. "What's troubling is that they have put so little energy into trying to figure out whether the other person was systematically engaging in unlawful conduct. You'd think they'd want to know that."

Climbing buddies

The story of Schwartz and Shumate began more than a decade ago, when they became friends at a climbing gym.

One July day in 2002, they were at the Wrench Science custom bike shop in Berkeley when Shumate spoke to the owner about a $4,000 Kestrel road bike he had ordered. Shumate asked to be billed in multiple, small invoices to avoid raising red flags with campus accounting, Schwartz said.

When Schwartz questioned his friend about using university funds to buy himself a bike, "he told me that if he did not spend his entire budget every year, he faced the risk of having his budget reduced in subsequent years,"

Schwartz later wrote to campus officials. He also told them that Shumate
showed him camping, climbing and kayaking equipment at his home and bragged about getting them courtesy of Cal State East Bay.

Schwartz, who began teaching recreation courses at Cal State East Bay in 2003, soon grew uncomfortable. "I felt that I was covering for him," he said.

Schwartz first approached Melany Spielman, the department chairwoman, in May 2006. In several conversations with Spielman, he accused Shumate of numerous abuses, including keeping a secret storage locker of personal equipment purchased with university funds; charging the campus for two expert-level land sailers - a kind of sailboat on wheels that costs $2,000 - from the company where Shumate moonlighted as a sales rep; and using public funds to work out at the Touchstone Climbing Gyms in Berkeley and Concord.

But Spielman always said the same thing: She could take no action without proof.

Then Schwartz began teaching Outdoor Living Skills, also taught by Shumate at a different time. Schwartz asked him for an inventory of available camping gear, which he believed Shumate had stashed in various places. Shumate stonewalled, and Schwartz returned to the department chairwoman.

She imposed a deadline for Shumate to provide the inventory. But as the deadline approached, Shumate announced a break-in at the storage locker and said everything had been stolen. He filed a police report on Jan. 6, 2007.
Schwartz went to look and was surprised to find it unlocked and still
containing "a significant amount" of equipment, he told Spielman. She still wanted proof. More than two years would pass before Schwartz figured out how to get it.

He returned to Wrench Science in 2009 and got copies of the six old invoices for the bike Shumate bought in 2002. They totaled $4,076.74. On May 19, Schwartz attached them to an official whistle-blower report, listed his allegations and sent them to Cimino, who ran the campus' human resources department.

By December, Schwartz was out of a job.

Investigation launched

But his whistle-blower report had triggered an investigation, and on March 22, 2010, Cimino sent a four-page memo upstairs. It said that Shumate had been reimbursed $2,700 for three personal lessons from Advanced Paragliding, though he had reported they were for his students.

Cimino also found that while shopping at Wrench Science, Shumate bought parts for road bikes, not the mountain bikes his students used. Noting that Shumate had been reimbursed $1,529 for a bike frame and $132 for a seat post, Cimino wrote: "Many of the individual parts cost nearly as much as an entire mountain bike."

And he found that Shumate had double-billed the university and its foundation for the same expenses on two occasions, receiving more than $2,000 in reimbursements.

"Several thousand dollars of expenses reimbursed to Mr. Shumate cannot be reconciled or supported by the documentation he provided," Cimino wrote.
"They appear to have been for Mr. Shumate's personal gain."

In all, Cimino identified 26 questionable payouts between July 2002 and December 2008. Shumate couldn't prove they were legitimate because, the instructor said, much of the equipment had been stolen. He filed five police reports from 2005 to 2009.

Cimino called that a reasonable explanation. His memo chastised the
department for failing to inform management about the repeated thefts, and for lax approval procedures for reimbursements.

Campus officials declined to comment.

Cimino said he understands Schwartz's outrage, but "he lives in a fantasy world. This is the way the world works."

He compared Shumate's use of public money for personal paragliding lessons to a CSU official going to a "professional conference."

"It's pretty clear that students were never going paragliding. The insurance would have been insane," he said. "But was it within the realm of him to go out and explore it? Yeah."

CSU never ordered Shumate to pay the money back.

"I didn't do anything wrong," Shumate told The Chronicle. He said his methods allowed students to go sailing, kayaking, orienteering and more, all for a $50 fee.

"The only way they could do that was the way I used my resources," he said, adding that CSU, scraping for every dollar, would never have paid for such expensive equipment through normal channels. "I'd bill, use my connections, my tools."

Did he double-bill?

"All the time," he said. "You'd have to do it. There was no way I could've done what I did without billing. It's to help students get what they want."

The days of geocaching or kayaking classes at Cal State East Bay are gone now, and Shumate said he's mystified as to why his popular courses were halted. He now teaches three Introduction to Recreation classes - all online.

"It's a major disservice to students," he said.

Schwartz, the whistle-blower, is still looking for work. His case against CSU goes to trial this summer.

Whistle-blower protections

-- The California Whistleblower Protection Act: links.sfgate.com/ZLIV
-- CSU has several whistle-blower sites, including: links.sfgate.com/ZLIW and links.sfgate.com/ZLIX
-- The state Attorney General's whistle-blower site: links.sfgate.com/ZLIY

Nanette Asimov is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Twitter: @NanetteAsimov. nasimov@sfchronicle.com

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/04/01/MNLS1NO615.DTL

Hospital: Mom booted from ER who died in jail was treated appropriately

RICHMOND HEIGHTS, Mo. – Officials at a St. Louis hospital on Thursday defended their actions in the case of a homeless woman who sought treatment for a sprained ankle and died in police custody after being arrested for refusing to leave the emergency room.

An autopsy determined that Anna Brown's death in a jail cell in September was caused by blood clots that formed in her legs and migrated to her lungs, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported. The newspaper also obtained surveillance footage of the woman's final moments. In the video, officers are seen carrying Brown into a jail cell. The cell door closes and Brown is heard moaning and crying.

Brown's family says authorities treated the 29-year-old mother of two unfairly and have hired a St. Louis-based lawyer, Keith Link. Link did not respond to telephone messages from msnbc.com on Thursday.

St. Mary's Health Center says its staff followed medical guidelines and performed appropriate tests, acknowledging the “outrage being expressed in this tragic event.”

“Unfortunately, even with appropriate testing using sophisticated technology, blood clots can still be undetected in a small number of cases,” according to a statement released by St. Mary's Health Center on Thursday. “The sad reality is that emergency departments across the country are often a place of last resort for many people in our society who suffer from complex social problems that become medical issues when they are not addressed. It is unfortunate that it takes a tragic event like this to call attention to a crisis in our midst.”

Police have said officers had no way of knowing Brown's dire condition.
Brown went to three hospitals complaining of leg pain in the days leading up to her death, including her visit to St. Mary's that led to her arrest for trespassing. She was wheeled out in handcuffs after a doctor said she was healthy enough to be locked up.

Brown had been struggling after a series of devastating setbacks, family say.

'Starting to make progress'

A New Year's Eve tornado in 2010 destroyed Brown's home in north St. Louis home, the Post-Dispatch reported. She and her two children moved to Berkeley, a St. Louis suburb, and she lost her job at a sandwich shop soon afterward, the Post-Dispatch said.

According to the Post-Dispatch, her utilities were shut off because she stopped paying her bills, and after a child welfare agent who visited the home in April found a feces-filled toilet, burn marks on the floor where she had lit fires to keep warm and other distressing signs, Brown was arrested for parental neglect. Police reported at the time that she seemed confused, the newspaper reported.

Her mother, Dorothy Davis, received custody of Brown's children on the condition that Brown couldn't also live with them, and Brown's home was condemned, the newspaper reported. She lived in four homeless shelters from May until September, according to the Post-Dispatch.

Brown joined the St. Louis Empowerment Center, a drop-in center for the mentally ill, the newspaper reported.

"She was just starting to make progress," Kevin Dean, a peer specialist at the center, told the Post-Dispatch.

Dean and another staff member at the drop-in center recalled hearing Anna Brown say she hurt her ankle.
Davis, who said Brown called every day to check on her children, said she wants answers about her daughter's death.

"If the police killed my daughter, I want to know. If the hospital is at fault, I want to know," Davis told the Post-Dispatch. "I want to be able to tell her children why their mother isn't here."

AB 441 (Monning): Incorporating health and equity into state guidance

What the Bill Does:
Currently, when the state provides guidance to local and regional government agencies on land use and transportation development, it often overlooks the impact of its decisions on the health of residents in those communities.  
AB 441 would include health and equity criteria in the documents that the state uses to provide guidance on land use and transportation planning and development. The bill would ensure that city, county, and regional governments consider the health implications of planning and development decisions. The following are the documents in which the criteria would be included:  


• Office of Planning and Research (OPR) General Plan Guidelines 
• California Transportation Commission Regional Transportation Plan (RTP) Guidelines 
Why We Need This Bill: 

Decisions about land use and transportation systems have enormous influences on health outcomes. 
Research shows that neighborhood and city designs can directly impact rates of health conditions such as asthma, diabetes, obesity, depression, unintended injuries, and some cancers. For example, in the study, “Researchers Link Childhood Asthma to Exposure to Traffic-Related Pollution,” USC researchers found that children living in close proximity to a freeway or major thoroughfare are more likely to develop asthma. Although development and implementation of many plans occurs at the local or regional level, the state plays an important advisory role in encouraging health considerations in land use and transportation decisions. By requiring the incorporation of health indicators into comprehensive planning and community design documents and guidelines, California will promote innovative approaches to 
improving our neighborhoods and creating a healthier and more prosperous state. 

Link Between Health and Healthy Environments: 
According to the Institute of Medicine, improving health in the 21st century will require new approaches to environmental health, including strategies to deal with unhealthy buildings, urban congestion, poor housing, poor nutrition, and environmentally-related stress. AB 441 would help promote clean air and water, safe buildings and streets, and healthy public spaces. Transportation decisions can also influence positive health by encouraging walking and bicycling. This bill can help California set a precedent that will build healthy generations. 
Who is the Sponsor of this Legislation: 
The California Pan-Ethnic Health Network (CPEHN) is sponsoring this legislation. CPEHN works to eliminate health disparities by advocating for public policies and sufficient resources to address the health needs of communities of color. From advocating for culturally and linguistically appropriate care to advancing social and environmental conditions that promote health, CPEHN is at the forefront of improving the health of our communities: www.cpehn.org.  
For more information please contact:
  
Ronald Coleman with CPEHN at rcoleman@cpehn.org, (916) 475-7156 or   
Beth Capell with Capell & Associates at bcapell@jps.net, (916) 497-0760

State Schools Chief Tom Torlakson Leads Opposition to Child Care Cuts

LOS ANGELES—State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson joined parents, teachers, and business leaders today in opposing further cuts to California’s beleaguered child care system, and called for the state to renew its commitment to quality early learning programs.

The proposed state budget would cut more than $500 million from child care programs statewide, cutting services to as many as 62,000 low-income children. The new cuts would come on top of nearly $700 million in reductions to these programs over the last four years—a 42 percent reduction in state funding.

“For decades, California has been committed to a simple but powerful idea: Children deserve more than just a safe place to wait while their parents work. They also deserve a chance to learn and to grow. It pains me to say it, but California’s budget crisis has put that commitment to our children in jeopardy,’’ Torlakson said at a news conference at Proyecto Pastoral’s Centro de Alegría (The Joy Center), one of many child care providers threatened by the proposed budget cuts.

Torlakson was joined at the news conference by Assemblymember Mike Eng (D-Alhambra); David Rattray, vice president of the Greater Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce; Rafael Ramirez, director of the Proyecto Pastoral Early Education Centers; Kathleen Malaske-Samu of the Los Angeles County Policy Roundtable for Child Care; and by parents who depend on the program.

“Early child care is key to helping young children develop the linguistic, cognitive, social, and emotional building blocks necessary to succeed in school and in life,” Assemblymember Eng said. “I believe this is especially true for children that come from low-income and working-class families. While I understand that reductions are necessary to balance our $9.2 billion deficit, I believe that slashing our support for child care and development programs is unwise and will ultimately cost the state more in the long run.”  

“California is experiencing a looming budget deficit and is faced with difficult decisions,” said Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce Senior Vice President David Rattray. “It is instrumental that through this painful process, we carefully maintain our investment and infrastructure of early childhood education, which is the foundation of a skilled future workforce.”

“At Centro de Alegría we provide our children with high-quality learning experiences that will prepare them academically, socially, and emotionally not just to excel in kindergarten but to succeed in life,” said Rafael Ramírez, Director of Early Education Centers at Proyecto Pastoral. “The proposed budget cuts could shut out half of the children we currently serve, and have a ripple effect on the community who relies on the programs.” 

As misguided as the proposed cuts to services is a proposal to also reduce the quality of these programs by severing the tie between providers and the California Department of Education (CDE), which provides training, curriculum, guidance, and oversight of quality preschool and child care programs statewide.

“These proposals fly in the face of literally decades of research into the benefits of strong early childhood education programs,” Torlakson said. “The consensus is clear: invest in kids early, and reap the rewards of a better-educated, more productive workforce, and a healthier state, or pay the price later—with more high school dropouts and more young people headed for trouble.

“For decades, our early learning and child care system has been a model for the nation. Teachers are well-trained. The curriculum is carefully developed. And longstanding partnerships exist between the Department of Education and local providers,” Torlakson said. “The proposal to sever that connection and place oversight of these programs in the hands of overworked county welfare offices—with no background, no training, and no support—would be a huge step backward for California. Elmo and Barney are great TV characters, but they’re no substitute for a dedicated teacher and a quality early learning and child care program.”

# # # #

Early Childhood Education Fact Sheet

March 16, 2012

CHILDREN SERVED:

504,000 children receive services annually; in any given month, 307,000 children benefit from CDE-funded programs:

144,588 in state-subsidized preschool

  40,666 in General Child Care

  57,405 in CalWORKs Stage 2

  30,329 in CalWORKs Stage 3

  34,728 in Alternative Payment Programs

    2,103 in Migrant Child Care

       161 Severely Handicapped

PROPOSED CUTS:

The Governor’s budget proposes to cut more than $500 million to early childhood programs:

-$113.7 million, reducing payments to child care providers

-$361.6 million, tightening eligibility requirements by requiring families to meet federal TANF work participation requirements and reducing the income eligibility

-$41.5 million in foregone cost-of-living adjustments

The proposed cuts would be in addition to $677 million in reductions to early learning programs since 2008, bringing the total cuts to these programs to $1.1 billion from a total budget of $2.6 billion, a reduction of 42 percent.

In addition, the Administration has proposed severing the connection between these programs and the state’s nationally recognized system of training and support for early learning—increasing administrative costs while reducing the quality of programs.

IMPACTS:

Estimates indicate that more than 62,000 children statewide will lose access to child care— many of them children who are likely to enter kindergarten with a readiness gap that is likely to be reflected later as an achievement gap.

Among them: 

• 38,000 Latino children (more than 60 percent of those affected)
• 10,000 African American children (16 percent of those affected)
• 45,000 affected children are dual language learners (73 percent of those affected)
• 20,000 are being raised in single parent families (32 percent of those affected)

These reductions would be in addition to the more than 100,000 children who already have lost care since 2008.

PROYECTO PASTORAL: IMPACT

Currently 36 children aged 18 to 36 months are enrolled in the Infant/Toddler Program. The proposed budget would reduce the program by half in 2013 and the entire program would disappear by 2014 once services are shifted to the county.

The preschool program provides services to 48 children from 37-60 months (3-5 years o ld); the budget would shut out 24 students and shift the program from full day, full year, to half day and nine months in 2013. The preschool program would also disappear in 2014.

DECADES OF RESEARCH PROVE THE VALUE OF EARLY LEARNING PROGRAMS

• The Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University briefing on Early Childhood Program Effectiveness concludes that “effective services build supportive relationships and stimulating environments. To develop strong brain architecture, babies and toddlers require dependable interaction with nurturing adults and safe environments to explore.”

• Early childhood programs generate benefits to society that far exceed program costs. Extensive analysis by economists has shown that education and development investments in the earliest years of life produce the greatest returns. Most of those returns, which can range from $3 to $16 per dollar invested, benefit the community through reduced crime, welfare, and educational remediation, as well as increased tax revenues on higher incomes for the participants of early childhood programs when they reach adulthood.

• According to a review by the UC Berkeley Labor Center, the early childhood education industry “benefits the California economy by promoting and facilitating parents’ ability to participate in the paid workforce. Research has found that high-quality and reliable child care increases worker productivity and improves businesses’ bottom line.”

• The same report points to the long-term benefits for children in early childhood education programs: “Neuroscientists as well as social scientists now know that fundamental skills begin to develop in infancy and are well-established by the time children enter kindergarten. This includes cognitive skills like development of language, but also “character” skills such as attentiveness, motivation, self-control, and sociability (Heckman & Masterov 2007).”

By California Department of Education

• 
  

More than 20,000 California teachers pink-slipped

More than 20,000 public school teachers in California opened their mailboxes over the last few days to find a pink slip inside as districts met the state's Thursday deadline for dispensing the dreaded news to the educators that they may not have a job in the fall.

The layoff notices are preliminary, the districts' best guess at the amount of money they will get to educate kids next year after the Legislature concludes its annual budget fight this summer. But a proposed tax measure on the November ballot offers more uncertainty than usual.
Districts won't know until two months into the new school year whether voters will approve a tax increase that would prevent a $4.8 billion trigger cut to education funding, as proposed in the governor's budget.

That cut would be about $807 per student, the equivalent of 55,000 teacher layoffs or 17 days of school, according to The Education Coalition, representing 2.5 million teachers, parents, administrators, school boards and other school employees.

"Though the very future of our state depends on California's teachers ... (they) will now spend months in limbo, worrying about their futures and the future of their students," state Superintendent Tom Torlakson in a statement.

The layoff notices were sent to teachers, librarians and others in schools all over California. Not many districts found a way to skirt the deadline.

San Francisco sent out 500 layoff notices.

In Los Angeles, 11,000 were sent.

About 700 were mailed in Sacramento.

Every school librarian in Union City got one, along with 100 teachers, administrators and other school staff.

Oakland Unified avoided having to send out the notices because administrators found a way to balance its budget through attrition, prior elimination of adult education, across-the-board cuts at school sites, school mergers and closures, as well as other program cuts.

Disgruntled public

As the pink slip deadline approached, the mood in dozens of districts across the state reflected a growing public impatience with budget cuts to education. Parents protested, teachers rallied, and three students in San Leandro held a weeklong hunger strike to draw attention to the cost to classrooms.
In years past, many of the layoff notices issued by the March 15 deadline have been rescinded because of concessions from labor unions, changes to the state's revenue outlook or successful parcel tax measures.

This year, the tax measure in particular makes it unclear how much wiggle room districts will have.
In the meantime, there are tough decisions to make.

At Sherman Elementary School in San Francisco, parent Crystal Brown said the school had to choose between losing a reading specialist to help struggling students or all the paper, pencils, erasers, paper towels, toilet paper, paint, scissors, crayons and other supplies the school would need next year.
"We were making decisions that were ridiculous," said Brown, president of Educate Our State, a parent group formed to support public education in California.

Banding together

Brown's group organized a Thursday morning protest called "This budget blows." Parents and children at 60 schools in 40 cities blew bubbles to illustrate their point.
"Parents from all different cities and towns across the state are saying we're not happy," Brown said.
Educate Our State also launched a letter-writing campaign to ask legislators to make education funding a top concern. Within six hours Thursday, 1,500 letters were sent.
The voices for the schools across the state are getting louder, Brown said.

Union City layoffs

In Union City, parents and teachers wore pink T-shirts this week in solidarity with the 100-plus teachers, custodians, librarians and other workers who received layoff notices.
Since 2008, the district has lost 14 percent of its teachers, 23 percent of administrators and 13 percent of other staff.

Another 100 would be unimaginable, district officials said.

"Much of what teachers, parents and this community have worked to build up the past 30 years - the magic and the promise of our schools - will be gone when students return to their classrooms in the fall," said Charmaine Banther, president of the New Haven Teachers Association in Union City.
She said the number of school employees who received notices is numbing. "There are students behind every one of these folks."

Jill Tucker for SFGate.com