Brett Robertson, former director of student development, said he was placed on administrative leave after his refusal to accept a demotion following a contentious series of events related to the spring 2019 ASO election.

Robertson said college president Dr. Kindred Murillo placed him on leave when he refused a reassignment to the student employment office. He said the punishment was not fair, that he had good evaluations and was not named in an extensive investigation of the ASO debacle.

Investigators hired by the college named Assistant Professor of Biology Trishana Norquist and Student Activities Coordinator Richard Eberheart as employees guilty of misconduct related to a racially-tinged ASO controversy. Robertson and former Dean of Student Affairs Dr. Malia Flood were not blamed or criticized in the report, but were demoted.

Robertson opted for an open hearing where Ricardo Ochoa, an attorney for the management union, argued that Robertson was being unfairly scapegoated. Ochoa accused Murillo of treating Robertson unfairly, violating college human resources processes and succumbing to racial politics.

“If you had two white subordinates who engaged in willful misconduct and you had two African American supervisors and the white subordinates who engaged in misconduct get a verbal reprimand and the African American supervisors get demoted or face termination there would be an uproar in this campus and you rightly should,” he said. “And our situation mirrors the opposite…And the district decides it’s easiest to go after the two white supervisors.”

District documents cited unsatisfactory job performance by Robertson related to the ASO Elections in 2019 and allegations of past performance issues. Ochoa said the district cannot use allegations of past performance shortcomings because the California Education Code dictates that such allegations must be shared with the employee and placed in the employee’s personnel file in a timely manner. Ochoa said the college did not complete any of these steps and did not give Robertson the opportunity to rebut those charges.

“There is a provision of the Education Code that requires that if you are going to use information against an employee in regards to their employment, that you have to provide it to them ahead of time, around the time you learned from it and give them an opportunity to gather evidence to rebut those charges,” he said.

Ochoa said the only potential allegation the college could use against Robertson was the ASO election issue and that the investigation cleared him of any wrongdoing.

“(Robertson) is not the frontline person who is responsible for that,” said Ochoa. “There is an employee of this district, Richard Eberheart, whose responsibility it is to work with the ASO and oversee the election.”

Ochoa said Eberheart had conducted ASO elections four times previously and knew how to perform all required tasks. Eberheart engaged in “willful misconduct,” according to the investigation, a fact Ochoa presented to the board.

Murillo and board president Nora Vargas declined comment, calling it a personnel matter.

SC Public Information Officer Lillian Leopold later issued the following statement: “The board did not decide the matter tonight. The specifics of the board’s discussion and deliberation in deciding not to act tonight is confidential. However, the board can continue to consider the matter at a future meeting. Any reportable action taken at any future meeting would then be announced.”