Teacher seeks to oust college student leaders

The stars and stripes hang prominently in the boardroom, but the controversy over the student government at Orange Coast College hasn't abated yet, as two recent petitions have gone around campus attempting to remove the student trustees from office.

According to a number of students and instructors, history instructor Susan Smith has circulated a petition among her colleagues calling for the removal of the student leaders who voted last month to stop saying the Pledge of Allegiance at their twice-weekly meetings. In addition, Christine Zoldos, the student body vice president who resigned last week, sent out a petition of her own before deciding to withdraw it.

The petitions marked the latest development in a conflict that started out as a spat in a boardroom and mushroomed quickly into a nationwide debate. On Nov. 6, the trustees voted to eliminate the pledge from their future agendas, saying it was irrelevant to their other business and made some students uncomfortable due to the words "under God."

Even though the board voted two weeks later to restore the pledge, many still harbored resentment toward the trustees. Smith, whom a number of people identified as the author of the faculty petition, could not be reached for comment on Friday, but the window of her office displayed a computer printout of the pledge.

"I don't know of anyone else who's circulating it," said student body President Lynne Riddle.

Biology instructor Dennis Kelly said he's seen the petition but has refused to sign it, since he felt the trustees should not be penalized for exercising their freedom of speech.

"I didn't feel it was something that we should be doing to these students based on the facts of what happened," Kelly said. "In a way, it's going way beyond punishing them for something they decided to do in a legally assembled body. They did it up front and in public, and they've undone it since then.

"There's been a lot of misinformation put out about this, that … [the trustees] banned the Pledge of Allegiance. They're saying it brought shame on the college and lost donations, and I disagree with that."

Michelle Schneider, the one trustee who didn't vote to remove the pledge, said she had heard about a petition making the rounds but opted to stay impartial.

"I haven't read it," she said. "I chose not to."

Zoldos, an outspoken opponent of Riddle and most of the trustees, abandoned her own petition drive when she asked administrators how the board could be removed. Jess Craig, vice president of student services, told her that other members of the student government would have to rule on whether to dismiss the board, and Zoldos figured that it was a losing battle.

"There would be no possible way," she said. "We wouldn't be able to persuade their friends to remove them from the board."