Often times the corrupt system preys on those that are ignorant of their rights. It’s extremely important for activists to be aware of all their civil rights. One important law that UH SAS has learned is the Texas law on taping phone calls and other forms of electronic communication. Texas is known as a one party consent state. That means only one party has to give their consent to tape a conversation.
For example, if you were being harassed by a bill collector and thought that the speech veered into a criminal violation you could tape the conversation without asking bill collector’s permission. See this website for more information on the specific law in Texas: summary of Texas laws on one party consent.
Probably the most important right for activists is the First Amendment to the United States Constitution which is also known as freedom of expression. Freedom of expression consists of the rights to freedom of speech, press, assembly and to petition the government for a redress of grievances, and the implied rights of association and belief.
The First Amendmentprotects the freedom to speak your mind and protest in peace without being bridled by the government. It also protects the freedom of the media, as well as the right to worship and pray without interference. In other words, Americans cannot be silenced by the government.
The University of Texas, the flagship school in our state even has an explicit policy recognizing this important right:
“First Amendment Rights
In general, expressions of opinion by members of the university community that do not otherwise violate state and federal laws or university rules are protected as “free speech.” This is true even though the opinions expressed may be unpopular or offensive to some. With a population of 71,000, UT Austin encompasses a wide array of opinions and views. We encourage all those associated with the university to exercise their constitutional rights and freedoms responsibly. We do not, however, punish people who express views that may be unpopular or offensive, but who break no laws or university rules while doing so.”
Recently a lawyer with the Texas Attorney General’s office filed an extremely useless motion in a lawsuit that our member Tim filed for some shenanigans around his graduate education. We thought it would be instructive to post it to see how unfamiliar this silly lawyer is with the First Amendment… read and enjoy, very little of what is written in the motion is actually factual or based on any law, but that does not stop this silly man. It’s important to keep in mind the fact that this guy has to work for the public is because he couldn’t get a job at a big firm. Since he has very few legal skills (he has not been able to get Tim’s federal lawsuit against our University [now a year old] dismissed either) he has to spend his time imagining the First Amendment does not exist and wasting the taxpayers time and money by filing frivolous motions like this.
This afternoon three of our members had a few quick errands to run on campus. We had to do some banking, we needed to add our fall meeting time to our banner, and then we had to go by the university general counsel’s office to set up a time to view some documents per a request that our member Brendan Laws made. We also had to pay $40 for another public information request. The Texas Public Information Act is really useful because it allows citizens a way to look at documents created by the government. Click here for a quick primer: Texas public info.
Anyway it was just another routine day on campus for a few activists. However as is often the case at the University of Houston, where they make up new laws everyday, the most mundane task can turn into an ugly incident of oppression of happy go lucky students.
It was about 1:45 when we walked toward the lawyers office. We came upon Leslie Pruski, (secretary to Dona Cornell, the general counsel) in the hallway. She asked who we were here to see and we told her Valerie Coleman-Ferguson, one of the lawyers on staff. Pruski went into the office and told someone. A woman came out and we told her the same thing. She told us to wait, which we did. We sat for around 15 minutes. Now bear in mind all we had to do was give them $40 cash and get a receipt and go. Another woman passed through the reception area we were waiting in and we asked her to check on things. She returned and told us they were checking on the law and would get back to us. They had to check on the law to see if they could accept cash? But wait it gets better. Then still another woman came out and showed our member Tim a receipt and took his $40, but instead of letting us have the receipt she said she had to take it and photocopy our money and our receipt.
So we waited another ten or fifteen minutes. Except now Brendan was going to be late for work because it was 2:30 so we went ahead and went into the hallway where the offices are and the video above shows what happened.
It’s important to note the the lawyer in this video, Mr. Rangel, is not just having a bad day, he has a bad day everyday students are around on legitimate business. For review and contextual purposes, below are two more videos showing Mr. Rangel acting unprofessional and ignorant. We think this accurately reflects most UH staffer’s attitudes towards students or at least the ones that we’ve encountered over the years of our activism.
Its also important to note that our group is primarily made up of working class students. We mention that because we had to buy this expensive video camera and we must continually buy tapes for it just to protect ourselves. Its bad enough that they jack up the tuition every year, but it is just ridiculous that we can’t do the simplest errand on campus without having these folks go beserk on us. This idiotic behavior of staffers just makes us use up more film and more time documenting it.
On November 7, 2008 president and chancellor Renu Khator blew over $40,000 of our tuition / tax dollars on her investiture ceremony. Poor Dr. Khator had a rough childhood, she grew up in a forty room mansion with seven servants. Now that she’s the head of a traditionally working class university it does not even occur to her to try and economize. Not even a global financial meltdown will stop Khator from wasting taxpayers money celebrating herself.
Instead of spending $40,000 on scholarships for low income students, Khator blows it on herself.
Today in response to our public information request we received some of the receipts for her investiture. They totaled $43,904.10 but that’s not all. There are untold more dollars that were spent on the investiture that the university is trying to conceal. Yes the UH lawyers as per their usual methods went crying to the Texas Attorney General’s office claiming that some of the receipts were excepted from disclosure in order to keep the donors names secret!
Over a week ago the Chronicle of Higher Education reported that several university presidents gave back some of their pay or passed on getting their raises. Did Dr. Khator give any of her pay back? Heck no! Let’s review her pay package since her salary gets the most searches on our webpage.
$425,000 per year salary
$100,000 per year retirement pay
$50,000 yearly bonus
Total annual cash payout $575,000
And don’t forget Khator’s very generous fringe benefits like free housing in a 6,700 square foot mansion, automobile with all gas, maintenance, insurance paid, club memberships paid and of course all general expenses such as travel, entertainment, paid including travel expenses for spouse.
Let’s remember that Khator also blew over $100,000 on her “first 100 days” campaign which resulted in absolutely nothing for students in the way of financial aid or scholarships. While students and their families struggle to make ends meet, Khator lives it up on our dime. Is it possible for her to be more uncaring for the financial predictament many students find themselves in?
The Public Information Act provides that government agencies including state universities have to open their records for inspection. See the Texas Attorney General’s website for FAQ’s on how to file a public information request. Atty general FAQs
Students Against Sweatshops often files these requests to help gather information for our sweat free campus campaign. Long time readers of this blog won’t be surprised to know that our administration officials often don’t tell the truth, therefore we must inspect documents to find out what is really happening with our issue.
Last spring we filed a request about the non-democratic apparel committee president Renu Khator set up. As usual the UH attorney in this case Valerie Coleman-Ferguson ran to the attorney general and asked to with hold various documents. There are many exceptions to the Public Information Act however because Coleman Ferguson has a very distant relationship with ethics, she abuses the system by asking the attorney general to with hold documents she knows she must release. Then the attorney general issued an opinion letter ordering her to release the documents. Even though the law says she can’t argue with the attorney general, she did in this case. Coleman Ferguson missed a deadline to ask to with hold something and then the attorney general sent her a letter with a copy to us since we were the requester. The attorney general said Coleman Ferguson violated the law and must turn over the documents.
However when we brought the letter from the attorney general to the UH attorney’s office, they still would not turn over the documents. Watch the video and see what Jose Rangel, another UH lawyer did when we asked for our documents: (please note that Texas is a one party consent state for video / audio taping so when Mr. Rude Lawyer tries to make us stop videotaping he is not aware that we know the law and trying to make sure there is no record of his law breaking). This video makes it clear that the UH legal department is nothing but a cesspool of corruption and unprofessional attorneys who instead of serving the public as State of Texas employees, spent their time harassing honest and hard working students dedicated to bettering the lives of their fellow human beings.
In response to our public information request asking for documents related to the “apparel task force,” the university has asked the Texas Attorney General for an opinion on whether they can withhold this information. A public university seeking to hold information from the public can only mean one thing – they’re up to no good. Read it -atty general letter
