by Alice McIntyre
Photo: John Carmichael Addresses the Board of Trustees in a July 2020 Virtual Meeting, THE EVERGREEN STATE COLLEGE.
On Aug. 26, former Cooper Point Journal news editor Daniel Vogel filed a lawsuit against The Evergreen State College and the State of Washington, alleging Evergreen “systematically and repeatedly uses dilatory tactics to obstruct the public’s access to records that would be embarrassing or inconvenient for the school,” in violation of Washington State public records regulations.
From Cameras to Courtrooms
Vogel’s suit emerges from a series of March 2019 public records requests made during his investigation of Police Services’ purchase of surveillance cameras disguised as smoke detectors. The ostensible purpose of this purchase was in response to office break-ins, but Vogel and others grew concerned that this was a pretext for a crackdown on political activity. Many students, including staff at the Cooper Point Journal, opposed the added surveillance.
During this investigation, Vogel found that the installment of hidden cameras may have violated Evergreen’s Patriot Act Policy, stating that Police Services will “refrain from video surveillance, with exception of retail areas on campus, unless there is reasonable suspicion that the subjects of the video surveillance have or are about to commit a crime.”
When reached for comment on the cameras and the Patriot Act Policy, key figures including then-President George Bridges and all members of the Board of Trustees did not respond. Susan Harris, Executive Associate to the President and policy steward for the Patriot Act Policy, informed Vogel that “discussion would [have to] be for educational purposes only, off the record,” and “[Harris] will also need a list of questions, concerns, and/or a proposed agenda before scheduling a meeting.” Otherwise, Vogel would need to go through the Marketing & Communications office.
Given a sterile and arguably hostile administrative response, Vogel filed the public record requests in question. The Washington Public Records Act requires that agencies “provide for the fullest assistance to inquirers and the most timely possible action on requests for information.” Vogel’s suit alleges that out of over a dozen requests filed, all but one remain open. Further, it alleges that Evergreen “unilaterally decided to close [that] request” after claiming the records in question, SD card data from the cameras, did not exist because “Police Services was not using the hidden cameras at the time Vogel made the request.” When Vogel responded that the SD cards would still have footage on them regardless of whether or not they were in use at the time of the request, Evergreen then reportedly claimed the footage had been deleted and refused to attempt a forensic recovery of it unless Vogel agreed to pay for it himself.
Denial
The thrust of Evergreen’s Aug. 31 answer to Vogel’s suit is as follows: “The College denies that it has obstructed access to public records, failed to make reasonable estimates for disclosure, failed to disclose responsive records, or failed to conduct an adequate search as alleged by Plaintiff.” Evergreen states that it gave Vogel “estimates of time, which are not deadlines,” and that “there is no requirement to explain the underlying justification for revising the estimate of time needed to respond to a public records request.” Regarding Vogel’s investigation of campus surveillance, Evergreen “is without sufficient information to admit or deny what information Plaintiff may have discovered.” Evergreen has also requested that the court award it its attorney fees.
Vogel’s attorney, Rian Peck, stated that Evergreen’s response “is a tactic that government bodies use regularly to circumvent public transparency. They say, ‘Oh, we have these old decrepit systems. We have staff turnover. It takes a long time to review documents.’ But in the end, it’s a question of prioritization and allocation of resources.” Peck also noted that Evergreen’s request that Vogel cover its legal fees “[is] a tactic government entities use to punish or make afraid” those who request documents. “I’ve never seen a case in which a court has said that the requester has to pay the government’s fees. There’s not a great legal basis for it. But it’s still a very scary thing for someone to see in a response,” they explained.
Evergreen is not the only institution Vogel has filed public records requests with. Vogel states he had also filed requests with the City of Olympia, the Olympia Police Department, and the Thurston County Sheriff’s Office. One request fulfilled by the City of Olympia contained “more than 24 hours of video footage across different cameras.” Vogel noted, “You don’t have to be a journalist to file public records requests. I’ve filed public records requests just because I’m curious.” Vogel’s experience with other government bodies makes him skeptical of Evergreen’s claims that their delays in fulfilling his requests are genuine. “A section of the state’s Administrative Code requires institutions that respond to public records requests to have policies about prioritization and how to respond to those requests. So, I filed a public records request for those policies. It then took Evergreen eight months to tell me that it didn’t have any policies about responding to public records requests,” Vogel recalled.
Vogel is not alone in taking issue with Evergreen’s handling of public records requests. Public records activist Arthur West filed a similar lawsuit against the College on Aug. 2, alleging that “[Evergreen] has, over the last 4 years, repeatedly and collectively failed to make a reasonable estimate for disclosure on over 20 occasions, failed to reasonably disclose responsive records, failed to conduct an adequate search, and has asserted improper exemptions in the absence of an adequate privilege log.” West’s suit notes that there are outstanding records requests from 2017 not only to himself, but to journalists Anemona Hartocollis of the New York Times and Jillian Melchior of the National Review, former Cooper Point Journal Editor-in-Chief Jasmine Kozak Gilroy, and State Senator Lynda Wilson (R-17) among others.
“The fact that we filed our lawsuit just a couple weeks after Arthur West filed his speaks to a culture of incompetence around responding to public records requests in the ways that in Washington, [the College] as a public agency [is] legally required to do,” said Vogel. When asked whether he thought there was malice or intent behind Evergreen’s actions, Vogel stated “It would be cooler if it was malice. If I could say they’re doing this because they’re evil or something, it’d be fighting the good fight. But because of the lack of transparency, I don’t know.”
Peck added, “From the more cynical perspective, I do think that government agencies typically find a way to process records quickly—if those records would paint them in a good light. But if those records are suspected to put a spotlight on some of their bad decisions or policies, then they rely on this similar refrain of, ‘Oh, it’s a lot of documents. It’s a lot of work.’”
The allegation that Evergreen may be working to “obstruct the public’s access to records that would be embarrassing or inconvenient for the school” is not without merit. Placed in the context of the College’s track record on policing, surveillance, and other issues, one may be inclined to agree with Vogel’s conclusions.
Police and Power
As noted by the Cooper Point Journal in our statement against the surveillance cameras, “in the last two decades, the college and federal government has responded to [student activism] by infiltrating and spying on local and student political organizations.” We noted the case of military spy John Towery, who infiltrated the Evergreen chapter of Students for a Democratic Society and the local anti-war group Port Militarization Resistance in 2007. Towery’s covert operations as an informant were, according to civil rights lawyer Larry Hildes, helped along by former Evergreen Chief of Police Ed Sorger. Hildes and Evergreen alums Brendan Maslauskas Dunn and Alex Bryan uncovered “almost certainly hundreds and possibly thousands” of emails showing Police Services had shared information about student activists with outside agencies. These emails also indicated Sorger was receiving information from Washington Joint Analytics Center—the information hub Towery gave his findings to.
This seemed to contradict Evergreen’s Patriot Act Policy, which prohibits “engagement in the surveillance of individuals or groups of individuals based on their participation in activities protected by the First Amendment, such as political advocacy,” and directs police to “Refrain, whether acting alone or with federal, state or local law enforcement officers, from collecting or maintaining information about the political, religious or social views, associations or activities” of persons and organizations on campus.
Evergreen has also been criticized for lack of transparency around Police Services’ 2017 purchase of AR-15 rifles in the immediate aftermath of that year’s convulsive anti-racist protests. Writing for the Cooper Point Journal in Oct. 2018, journalist Forest Hunt reported former Chief of Police Services Stacy Brown had requested the purchase of five AR-15s on Aug. 1 of 2017, and that her request was granted by then-President Bridges exactly two weeks later, despite Brown’s resignation. Notably, her request had also asked for additional surveillance. Hunt’s article showed that the purchase had been made without consultation with the College’s Police Community Review Board, and Vice President of College Relations Sandra Kaiser answered “Not that I know of,” to Hunt’s inquiry as to whether there were any “announcements, emails, pubic forums, polls, votes, or consultations with campus committees, unions, governance groups, including the Geoduck Student Union, Faculty Agenda Committee, or Staff governance structures regarding the purchase.”
Proposals to arm campus police have long been controversial at Evergreen since first surfacing in 1995, when moves to provide Public Safety (as Police Services was then known) with pistols were met with widespread opposition by students, faculty, and the broader community—expressed through a petition of 1,200 signatures, multiple protests, and a sit-in which blocked the entrance to the Library Loop. Despite this, Evergreen police were armed 24/7 by 2003. Demands for rifles were made in 2008 following the infamous “dead prez riot” in which Olympia police “fought their way through the crowd using batons, metal flashlights, and pepper spray” after students blocked a Police Services vehicle in solidarity with arrested black breakdancer Kaylen Williams, considering Williams’ arrest an example of racial profiling. Students and faculty protest prevented the acquisition of rifles until Bridges’ 2017 purchase, as put by Hunt, “In one fell swoop, behind closed doors…achieved a goal [police had] been doggedly pursuing in the face of mass community opposition since at least 2008.”
Critical eyes may find the arming of campus police with AR-15s in response to student protests rooted in the May 14, 2017 detention of two black students over Facebook comments by those same campus police to be ironic, ominous, or some combination of the two. Many on campus opposed the rifle purchase, as well as a 2018 attempt to hire two additional police officers. Students criticized the administration for arming and expanding Police Services amid numerous layoffs and $6 million in budget cuts, primarily in the arts. Protests led by the South Sound General Education Union, a campus organization of the Industrial Workers of the World, appear to have prevented the police hiring. The rifles remain.
Striking Out
Evergreen has more than cops and cameras to keep a lid on, namely labor rights and workplace safety. In a June 2019 article titled “Structural Issues,” the Cooper Point Journal reported on a slew of health and safety complaints filed by facilities workers. Violations included forcing employees to work in hazardous conditions, mishandling of chemical spills, lack of training, and exposing employees to asbestos. One worker, Ricky Haney, suffered a hernia after working a 51-hour shift during that February’s week-long “Snowpocalypse,” and untrained student workers were directed to refuel diesel backup generators without protective equipment. For their time, student workers reportedly received a Costco sheet cake from President Bridges. Facilities workers didn’t receive compensation pay until their union organized a protest where 45 union members and supporters marched into the office of then-President Bridges and demanded it. All told, the College was fined $135,000 for the reported violations.
Student workers with Residential and Dining Services have criticized and organized against the administration since at least 2017, where a group called Resident Assistants Fighting for Tomorrow led a strike in May of that year. RAFT’s strike, concurrent with anti-racist protests, called for increased compensation, limits to involvement with police, mental health services, and workers’ control of hiring and training among other demands. The strike was broken by mid-June, with remaining strikers fired and made to leave their campus homes.
On Oct. 22, 2019, RAs presented a “list of needs” to RAD Services Director Sharon Goodman and others. Concerns centered on adequate compensation, food security, and transparency. At the time, RAs received a learning allotment of roughly $60 a week for a required 20 hours—in other words, $3 an hour. On top of that, RAs testified to working far more than the allotted timesheet since they effectively live at their jobs, with the needs document stating that “[RAs] feel too uncomfortable and unsafe to be able to say ‘no’ when asked to go above and beyond the job expectations.” Meal plans had also been reduced from Gold and Silver options to an allotment of 10 meals a week, just half of the 21 needed to have three meals a day, seven days a week. By the end of the Fall 2019 quarter, five of 17 RAs had quit and two were removed, leaving only 10 original staff after just three months. After that, the position of Resident Assistant was shifted from paid to volunteer. Compensation now consists of seven meals a week and $100 per quarter in dining bucks, in addition to covering the cost of campus housing.
These problems weren’t limited to RAs. One student facilities worker, speaking with Bahi’chi Castañeda for a December 2020 article in the Cooper Point Journal, stated that “[RAD] constantly held our jobs over our heads, saying that a professional custodial crew would be cheaper and that if WE didn’t get our ‘act together’ we would all be fired.” Further, “there would be whole meetings where [they] would drone on and on about how [Washington] is an ‘at will’ state and [how] we [were] disposable to [them].”
President Who?
On Feb. 25, 2020, former President Bridges announced in “one of the most exciting moments in [his] career” his retirement after five years at Evergreen. His last day was June 30 of this year, and he is teaching a course on criminal justice this quarter.
Bridges’ retirement was no surprise, after facing harsh criticism from students during the whole of his time at the College on everything from budget cuts to cops to the size of his salary. While in office, Evergreen faced a barrage of negative media attention directed not only at student protesters but at the College itself. This media response and other forms of fallout from the 2017 protests are widely recognized to have exacerbated existing problems at the College. It makes sense that the administration would like to move on.
What was surprising was the sudden decision of all three finalists to succeed Bridges to drop out of the running. Finalists were ambiguous about their reasons for withdrawing, citing personal reasons. If the administration and Board of Trustees have any further insight from the candidates, they haven’t shared it.
For now, former Vice President of Finance and Operations John Carmichael has been named Interim President and University of Puget Sound professor Dexter Gordon has been named Executive Vice President. Carmichael will be serving for at least two years, per a June 10 Board of Trustees meeting. Trustee Monica Alexander referred to the pair as a “dynamic duo I believe will bring great things to our college.”
Whether confidence in Carmichael and Gordon is genuine or not, it’s clear that Evergreen is in a precarious position. The presidential flop came after a $5.3 million round of additional budget cuts resulting in the elimination of 26 staff positions, as reported by The Olympian last July. This follows continued enrollment stagnation, the challenges of the pandemic, and every issue discussed prior.
Getting to the Point
“I’m not someone who says ‘if you have nothing to fear, you have nothing to hide,’” Vogel said when interviewed. “But when you’re doing it with taxpayer money, then I think we all have a right to transparency and accountability—especially when it’s not a moral question about whether an act was right or wrong, but whether an act was in accordance with the school’s own policies.”
Vogel’s lawsuit over a batch of public records requests from two years ago may seem like hue and cry over nothing at first glance. Recent history reveals it to relate to a fundamental tension at Evergreen between its behaviour and character as an institution on the one hand and its stated ideals on the other.
“The school likes to make a lot of claims about its relationship to broad ideas like justice and accountability. I think, beyond the obvious legal transgressions in this lawsuit, Evergreen should be very excited to respond to public records requests in a timely manner. I don’t know how one can espouse those virtues without transparency,” Vogel continued. “It’s nice to have an Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. But without giving members of the community the right to actually audit the school’s approach to these issues, we don’t know whether those policies are effective.”
When asked his feelings about Interim President Carmichael, Vogel concluded, “A good way to endear Carmichael to the student body would be to settle both these lawsuits immediately and apologize to the campus. Not just for these transgressions, but for many of the actions taken under George Bridges’ tenure, which includes the underhanded purchase of assault weapons for Police Services. I think Evergreen has a lot of historical mistakes that if I were an interim president coming into a college that desperately needs a change in culture, I would try and mark the beginning of a new era by acknowledging and apologizing for.”
John Carmichael was not available for comment prior to publication.
