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Tutorial program caught under fire

By Daily Bruin Staff

Jan. 22, 1997 9:00 p.m.

Thursday, January 23, 1997

DISCRIMINATION:

Student alleges AAP illegally hires based on political
philosophiesBy Hannah Miller

Daily Bruin Contributor

In retrospect, Alvaro Cardona thinks that he should have given
them what they wanted. ‘Them’ is the Academic Advancement Program
(AAP), and what they wanted in Cardona’s job interview may have
been illegal.

According to Cardona and a variety of similarly disenchanted
UCLA students, the (AAP) is prevented from best serving UCLA’s
underrepresented and low-income students by its own discriminatory
and uneven hiring policies, ideological conformism and a culture of
silence that stifles dissent.

Cardona, a fourth-year history student, feels that his own case
involved all of the above wrongs. In November 1995, Cardona applied
to be a tutor in the AAP English lab. He felt encouraged by English
Tutorials Supervisor Tanya Bauer that his two years of tutoring at
West Valley College’s Writing Center qualified him to work at
AAP.

He turned in his application and was called in for a meeting.
During the half-hour interview, Cardona alleges he was asked no
subject-related questions, "not even to define a past participle,"
as he puts it, nor to simulate a tutorial session. Instead, Cardona
was asked questions only about his "philosophy on racism,
discrimination and affirmative action," as he recalls.

Cardona answered these questions cautiously, saying that he
would have to examine each case individually. As he recalls the
interview, the series of questions that were asked became "more and
more general," as Bauer tried to assess his ideology. Cardona
stressed that his main job was to teach students to write papers,
but that he was willing to deal with discrimination when it came
up. He left the interview with the understanding that the job was
his.

Bauer called him back a week later and told him he hadn’t got
the job because "he couldn’t understand the needs of AAP students."
Cardona describes himself as Latino, poor, a History honors student
­ and liberal on most issues. "I am someone that AAP is
supposed to be helping," he says.

The conversation that ensued between him and Bauer made it clear
to Cardona what had cost him the job: his skepticism that "50
percent of a tutor’s job should be validating the students" in any
way they require, as Cardona understood it.

Since his job interview, Cardona has grown increasingly
skeptical of AAP’s mission. "They underestimate the power and
maturity of students," says Cardona. "As a tutor, you are basically
supposed to provide a shoulder to cry on."

AAP Director C. Adolfo Bermeo defends the interview process,
saying that affirmative action questions are asked because
"employees need to really believe that people who are here belong
here. That’s a pedagogical issue, not a political litmus test."

This is echoed by Bauer, who argues that "AAP wouldn’t not
accept someone based on their political views."

So where do politics stop and job duties start? Cardona feels
that AAP illegally discriminated against him on the basis of his
"creed or political beliefs," which he claims UCLA Student Legal
Services later upheld as a violation of his First Amendment
rights.

Although Legal Services says that attorney-client privilege
prevents them from confirming or denying this, Director Liz Kemper
says that "we did provide Al with a lot of legal information.
(Cardona’s case) is not an isolated incident."

Section 1101 of the California Labor Code prevents employers
from discriminating on the basis of political affiliation. As David
King, an attorney specializing in labor law at Gibson, Dunn and
Crutcher in Los Angeles, says that Section 1101 is more stringent
when it comes to public agencies.

"There are also relevant common law provisions about invasion of
privacy," King explains. "But this is a slightly unsettled area of
the law."

Cardona took his case to the UCLA Ombudsman’s office, which he
found to be unresponsive to his complaints.

In a mediation session with Humanities Tutorials Supervisor Don
Wasson, "I was told basically that (not being hired) was my fault,"
he recalls. "I was told that maybe I shouldn’t have been so honest
in my interview."

The Ombudsman’s Office could not comment on Cardona’s case
because of their confidentiality policy on individual cases.

In a letter written to the Daily Bruin last year after Cardona’s
interview, Bermeo publicly claimed that the tutorial hiring process
involves answering subject-related questions and "simulating a
tutorial session on the subject they hope to tutor," but Cardona
never had any such simulation in his interview.

"We’re supposed to do a simulation," reflects Supervisor Wasson.
"Tanya did not do one with Al and she should have."

Bermeo also claimed in his letter that affirmative action was
"not a political litmus test" for job applicants. This is
contradicted by the understanding of AAP job applicants such as
third-year political science student Brandon Lu.

Lu had heard positive things about AAP through a friend. After
multiple contacts with the office, he was called in for an
interview to tutor for Fall Quarter 1996.

Before the interview, Lu was prepped by a friend employed in
AAP. As he recalls, "I was told flat-out by an AAP tutor to say I
was in favor of affirmative action or they wouldn’t hire me."

"Everyone going in knew to say this," he says. "I’m just
wondering what this question has to do with tutoring students."

Lu was not hired. "I assumed I said something wrong" in response
to the affirmative action question, he speculates. Shortly
afterwards he was hired at Academic Tutorials, which he feels has
much stricter standards for employment.

There appear to be other forms of deviation from AAP’s hiring
practices. Although Wasson claims that "’in my experience, no one
has ever been hired without an interview,’ there is the case of
Yurie Hong."

Hong, a third-year classics student, has been an AAP tutor since
Winter 1996. She was recommended by her classics teaching assistant
for the job, filled out paperwork, and claims that she was hired by
AAP without undergoing an interview process.

"You’re not going to find a better-paying job on campus," Hong
reflects, confirming that AAP tutor positions are a highly coveted
job. Tutors make $12.43 an hour for tutoring in sessions of two or
more students, the most common format.

Tutors can pick which courses they want to tutor, design their
own schedule, and choose up to 17 hours per week. Whereas athletics
tutors must reapply every quarter, AAP students are hired for an
indefinite term.

"There is definitely pressure that you uphold the same beliefs
as the program does," reflects Hong. "There’s this silence ­
if you believe otherwise, you don’t express it."

In Hong’s experience, many of her co-workers are at AAP just to
tutor, as opposed to in-depth activism. Of the almost 200 tutors
that work for AAP, Hong feels that "many are just like me ­ I
have beliefs, but they’re not strong enough to get me to campaign
meetings."

In 1991 and 1992, AAP cut back its staff by 20 percent. Bermeo
attributes these cuts to reorganization and financial cutbacks. "My
belief is that AAP resources need to be spent on programs rather
than hiring more administrators," Bermeo reflects.

Mannie Rezende, for one, feels that those layoffs were more
deliberate than they appear.

"The official word was reorganization, but the unofficial word
was that we were seen as rabble-rousers," said Rezende, who was an
English/Humanities Tutorial Supervisor laid off along with four
others in 1991.

Rezende was laid off during a period of internal debate on AAP’s
overall mission: whether or not AAP was to focus on graduation and
retention of students at UCLA, or whether it should work on
"greater political issues, like how you define affirmative action,
and whether it’s working," Rezende says.

"We stirred folks up," Rezende remembers, "and that was seen as
not what we were supposed to be doing."

However, Bermeo feels his layoff decisions were legitimate.

"When I decided to make cuts in 1991 and 1992, all of tutorial
was involved in that decision," he says. Each tutorial lab was to
report to Bermeo on where to cut, but the only one that didn’t was
English/Humanities ­ where Rezende worked, according to
Bermeo.

After the UC Board of Regents’ July 1995 vote to disband
affirmative action and the ballot initiatives 187 and 209, AAP
faces an uncertain future. One result appears to be the stifling of
internal conflict, as in the case of Raoul Lomeni.

Lomeni, a fourth-year political science and Latin American
studies student, counseled at AAP for a year and was promoted to
the head position for students in the counseling department. After
two years of counseling work, he was fired, as he feels, unfairly.
He criticizes AAP’s personnel practices as "going against what
affirmative action is about."

"Student workers are scrutinized too much," he says.
"Affirmative action is about opening up spaces to people who come
from a disadvantaged background."

Lomeni wanted to take his grievances to the press, but with all
the public furor over 209, chose not to contribute to the
"propaganda against affirmative action."

When he told his story to his colleagues, Lomeni found that
neither the full-time counselors nor student counselors were
willing to speak up in his defense. "They didn’t want to lose their
jobs," he claims.

Bermeo counters that AAP staff do feel free to express their
views, but that "there is a difference between input and decision
making." As he says, "ultimately, a tutor doesn’t get paid to be
director of AAP."

Lomeni is caught, like Al Cardona, having to choose between
working in AAP while toeing the party line, or dissenting and being
shut out from meaningful positions.

To remedy hiring problems, Lomeni has a suggestion. "AAP needs a
committee that can hear these cases," he offers, to counter the
committees that currently make many important personnel decisions.
Otherwise, as he says, AAP risks "destroying the union that has
been built" ­ the union which makes it so valuable to the
students it serves.

GENEVIEVE LIANG/Daily Bruin

Al Cardona feels the Academic Advancement Program denied him a
tutorial job because of his political beliefs. He is one of several
students frustrated by AAP’s personnel policies.

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