Cypress College ‘cancel culture’ probe: Not for your eyes

Vintage culture wars, immortalized by Zoom:

The young, White, male student extolling the virtues of police. The older, “unapologetically Muslim and queer” professor arguing that some commit atrocious crimes with impunity. The video of their exchange posted online — perhaps in violation of campus rules — that went viral, spurred death threats against the professor, shuttered Cypress College for fear of violence (a May 3, 2021 email from “The New Klan” warned that someone with an AR-15 rifle and explosives would visit campus) and made the student who posted the video a media darling in conservative circles.

That “cancel culture” clash in a community college communications class ignited a firestorm 18 months ago. Faculty excoriated college administrators for failing to be “anti-racist” and vigorously defend the professor. Students demanded the resignation of the college president. Questions about how administrators handled the incident — from telling the professor to shush up and lay low for her own safety, to putting her on leave, to failing to explain the video’s fuller context and letting a one-sided view gain traction — were to be probed for “lessons learned” and pearls of wisdom to prevent any sort of repeat.

“We agree that fully understanding the implications of the video and its release to the public are critical to moving forward,” Chancellor Cheryl Marshall said after criticism finally stopped at a North Orange County Community College District meeting that May. “To that end, an impartial review is in progress that will provide us with the information to move forward and continue the mission of the district.”

Marshall was confident that, once that review was done, it would be clear that decisions were made for the right reasons.

In an email to faculty, Campus President JoAnna Schilling said “an objective review process … will help us understand the full context of this situation.”

And how eagerly we awaited that objective review’s full context!

The report was supposed to be wrapped up in September 2021. We inquired then, and were told it would be done in October.

We inquired again in October, and were told it would be done in November.

We inquired again in November, and were told to pound sand.

“(T)he report you have requested will be an attorney-client privileged communication and, therefore, will be exempt from disclosure under the CPRA (California Public Records Act),” spokesperson Kai Stearns told us by email.

We have continued to pester the college folks regularly over the past year. They simply stopped responding to our entreaties until we had a little freak-out this week. We were told to refile a records request — which we did, asking, again, for the report, as well as a pile of related documents that will hopefully shed light on who did the investigation and when and how and who received it and how much it cost and what, if anything, was learned.

The administration and board of trustees may have gleaned mighty pearls of wisdom from this painful, messy episode — or not. The people who pay them deserve to know which way it went. If you agree, you might want to let the powers that be at the community college district know. Email addresses for the board of trustees can be found at www.nocccd.edu/board-of-trustees, or share your thoughts by phone at 714-808-4797.

We’re certainly used to nagging and hounding and pleading and groveling for public documents. And we’re used to waiting. For years.

In 2016, we filed a federal Freedom of Information Act request with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission seeking emails and other documents that will shed light on how and why a cancer study was killed. Some documents have dribbled out, and we await the rest. Our request will celebrate its seventh birthday in June.

In 2020, we filed a California Public Records Act request with the Orange County Health Care Agency, seeking communications between the long-suffering director during the pandemic’s early days and officials who may have been leaning on her hard over mask mandates. Mostly useless documents have been dribbling out for years, and we await the rest. Our request will celebrate its third birthday in May.

In case you’re wondering, the professor, Faryha Salim, has left Southern California, according to public records. Colleagues and friends raised more than $11,000 to fund her legal defense. She didn’t respond to our request for an update on how she’s doing, but is still teaching.

Student Braden Ellis is no longer studying at Cypress College, but remains active politically. On Twitter, he describes himself as a “Thought Crimes Producer” at Turning Point USA (“We play offense to win America’s culture war”), a nonprofit whose mission is “to identify, educate, train, and organize students to promote the principles of freedom, free markets, and limited government. Turning Point USA believes that every young person can be enlightened to true free market values.”

“The infamous Cypress College incident is a microcosm of a bigger problem happening in America’s education system,” Ellis told us by email. “The leftist indoctrination and hijacking of young people’s minds is evil. Free thinkers have to deal with professors attacking them for their beliefs daily. That’s exactly what happened at Cypress College. I didn’t agree with that professor’s propaganda and she went after me for it. I think you should agree that every student in America should have the right and opportunity to speak freely without harsh attacks from others with ill intent.

“The ‘investigation’ looks dead to me,” he continued. “I have had no one reach out to me about the ‘investigation.’ I pray for the sanity of our country and education system.”

We’ll keep you posted on how things go with our records request to the college district. Hopefully, we’ll be updating you before 2030.

Source: Orange County Register