FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Teach-In Re: Pat Washington Tenure Discrimination Case & Other Race/Gender Cases in CA Higher Education

SAN DIEGO, Calif. The community is invited to a teach-in regarding Pat Washington’s discrimination and retaliation case against San Diego State University and the CSU Board of Trustees. The event will be held from 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm, August 24, 2004, in Room 110, Springfield College, 5348 University Avenue. Representatives from the American Association of University Women (AAUW), NAACP, California Black Faculty and Staff Association, and other supporting organizations, will discuss connections between Dr. Washington’s continuing fight for justice and similar efforts to combat sex and race discrimination in other California colleges and universities.

A representative of AAUW, whose legal advocacy fund is assisting Dr. Washington in her tenure discrimination and retaliation case, will discuss her experience of going to court with another AAUW Legal Advocacy Fund Plaintiff, Dr. Janet Conney, who just recently won a discrimination and retaliation case against UCLA. Former SDSU faculty member and co-founder of the Coalition for Educational Equity, Felipe Razo, views the teach-in as a way for scholar-activists and others to speak out against what he views as a form of “tax-payer funded discrimination within the CSU in general and SDSU in particular.”

The Pat Washington Support Committee will provide updates on Washington’s case. There will also be a discussion of declining black student enrollment at SDSU, as well as the precipitous loss of black faculty and staff at the university in recent months.

According to Pat Washington Support Committee Chair Nicole Murray Ramirez, the purpose of the teach in is to “let the community know that the fight to reinstate Pat Washington continues. More importantly, it’s to let the community know that what happened to Pat is not an isolated incident. We will not tolerate race and sex discrimination or retaliation in our institutions of higher learning—or anywhere else.” SDSU alumna Janice Jordan agrees, “Fifty years after Brown and thirty-two years after Title IX, it’s high time our university administrators got the message that individuals should not be barred from education or educational employment because of their race, their sex, or any other non-business related criterion. Higher education officials must learn that they are not above the law.”

# # # #