1. 6/3/2016 Kasia Anderson: Dustin Lance Black Speaks: Pasadena City College Officials Created ‘Toxic and Dishonest’ Atmosphere - Truthdig
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/dustin_lance_black_blasts_pasadena_city_college_20140430 1/5
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AUDIO: Robert
Dustin Lance Black Speaks: Pasadena City
College Officials Created ‘Toxic and Dishonest’
Atmosphere Edit 37031
Posted on Apr 30, 2014
By Kasia Anderson
Screenwriter Dustin Lance Black arrives at USA Network and The Moth’s “A More Perfect
Union: Stories of Prejudice and Power” Characters Unite storytelling event in West Hollywood,
Calif., in 2012. AP/Matt Sayles
The president and board of trustees at Pasadena City College thrust their school into the
spotlight for all the wrong reasons recently with a political and public relations debacle
involving PCC alumnus and Oscarwinning screenwriter Dustin Lance Black.
A regrettable concoction of bad decisions, questionable motives and botched
communications began trickling down from PCC’s upper ranks last month, when a student
trustee designated by school officials to contact Black invited the “Milk” scribe to be this
year’s commencement speaker. But after key figures in the administration—notably PCC
SuperintendentPresident Dr. Mark Rocha, Assistant Superintendent Robert Bell and
board of trustees President Anthony Fellow—became aware of a gossip exposé from 2009
concerning the unauthorized release of explicit footage of Black engaged in consensual
sex with an exboyfriend, Black was unceremoniously dropped from the lineup for the May
9 graduation proceedings.
Fellow, according to the PCC Courier, pointed to “sex scandals we’ve had on campus this
year” as justification for disinviting Black. “We just didn’t want to give PCC a bad name,”
he added. Other implicated representatives suggested that Black hadn’t been formally
asked to give this year’s crop of graduates their sendoff, but Student Trustee Simon
Fraser insisted that he had followed protocol and that all required parties were aware of
the overture.
By noon Tuesday, it seemed Black’s
replacement, city of Pasadena Public
Health Department Director Dr. Eric
Walsh, had pulled out of the ceremony
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2. 6/3/2016 Kasia Anderson: Dustin Lance Black Speaks: Pasadena City College Officials Created ‘Toxic and Dishonest’ Atmosphere - Truthdig
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/dustin_lance_black_blasts_pasadena_city_college_20140430 2/5
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as well, citing “an unforeseen scheduling
conflict.” But not before Black, as well
as concerned students, did their
research on Walsh’s own background as
a Seventhday Adventist preacher with
some very particular views on
evolution and homosexuality that
would seem to complicate his
professional functions as a physician and
as a onetime member of the Presidential
Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS. His take
on Batman (emblematic of
“Luciferianism”), Superwoman (she
“lives on an island where there are no
men”) and Disney (“a dark empire … full
of witchcraft”) might also knit some
brows among newly trained products of PCC’s Cinema Program, but that’s another
matter entirely.
It all adds up to an unenviable mess for PCC’s top brass to sort out, regarding one
dismayed Class of ’94 graduateturnedHollywoodsuccessstory; outraged and organized
students and faculty members; an incriminating email trail from board members that
belies the official explanation they issued as a governing body; troubling whiffs of
institutionalized homophobia; the kind of media coverage that contemporary centers of
higher learning strain to avoid at all costs; and a conspicuous void in the commencement
program nine days before the big event.
And the dispute isn’t over for Black, who remains supportive of his alma mater and its
students but still awaits a direct apology and a thorough explanation about the actions
of Rocha and the board of trustees instead of vague claims about “errors in following
procedure.” He traced the connections between the instigating events, detailed in this Los
Angeles Times piece by Robin Abcarian, read between the lines, and on April 17 he
released a statement (posted in full here on Out) in the form of a letter to PCC students,
describing how the school’s management is “punishing the victim” and asking them to
“speak out.”
On Tuesday, Black spoke up from his current parttime home in London for an interview
with Truthdig.
* * *
Kasia Anderson: Can you bring us up to speed about what’s happening now with the
graduation invitation debacle and your alma mater?
Dustin Lance Black: Now what’s happening is I’m having students from Pasadena City
College and reporters starting to send me email exchanges that they had with Dr. Walsh.
There’s a professor who’s sort of the film guy there who’s at the head of the board—
Anthony Fellow—I’ve been receiving a lot of letters, correspondence between students
and administrators and Dr. Fellow, and, you know, it is blatantly homophobic.
Then today I just became curious about well, who is this person who is speaking [Walsh]?
And I felt badly, I thought, well, they didn’t ask for this, and what is it that they must be
feeling right now? And I’m sort of surprised that they haven’t reached out or said
anything, and now it’s starting to make sense, because there are these speeches online of
his—“evolutionists are Satanists”—and there’s a speech online where he makes fun of
trans people. Then all of a sudden—and this is not a speaker who was approved by the
committee that approves speakers—he was picked by Mark Rocha, the president of the
school, and Dr. Fellow.
And all of a sudden it has become clearer and clearer why [Walsh] was chosen, and why
he hasn’t reached out, and it seems that they have a president of a school and a board
president who want this to be the message to the PCC campus. It flies in the face of what
the students say they want. [The administrators] deny their own proceedings; they’ve
broken their own procedures in order to ensure that this is the person who will be
speaking at their commencement. And I start to wonder if that’s even legal to even run a
school that way.
KA: Lip service was paid to the replacement speaker being dynamic. …
DLB: Yes, and the person who made that comment was Dr. Rocha, I believe.
KA: Does PCC take any ideological positions or adopt any particular ethos you picked up
on while you were there?
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![6/3/2016 Kasia Anderson: Dustin Lance Black Speaks: Pasadena City College Officials Created ‘Toxic and Dishonest’ Atmosphere - Truthdig
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/dustin_lance_black_blasts_pasadena_city_college_20140430 2/5
AUDIO: Robert
Scheer Speaks
With Nomi Prins
About the
Connection
Between
Washington and
Wall Street
A N I M A T I O N
Trump News
Tonight! (Video)
A R T S & C U L T U R E
You May Also Like
By Lisa Zeiden
Powerful Exhibits on
Both Coasts Explore
Borders and the
Plight of Refugees
By Liesl Bradner
Crimeless Indian
Village Suggests
People Can Live
Without Even Basic
Security Measures
Groucho: The
Comedy of Existence
By Allen Barra
Eminem: The Real
Slim Shady (Hip
Hop in America)
Marcia Alesan Dawkins
$32.01
Living on a Dollar a
Day
$49.95
Women’s TShirt
$20
as well, citing “an unforeseen scheduling
conflict.” But not before Black, as well
as concerned students, did their
research on Walsh’s own background as
a Seventhday Adventist preacher with
some very particular views on
evolution and homosexuality that
would seem to complicate his
professional functions as a physician and
as a onetime member of the Presidential
Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS. His take
on Batman (emblematic of
“Luciferianism”), Superwoman (she
“lives on an island where there are no
men”) and Disney (“a dark empire … full
of witchcraft”) might also knit some
brows among newly trained products of PCC’s Cinema Program, but that’s another
matter entirely.
It all adds up to an unenviable mess for PCC’s top brass to sort out, regarding one
dismayed Class of ’94 graduateturnedHollywoodsuccessstory; outraged and organized
students and faculty members; an incriminating email trail from board members that
belies the official explanation they issued as a governing body; troubling whiffs of
institutionalized homophobia; the kind of media coverage that contemporary centers of
higher learning strain to avoid at all costs; and a conspicuous void in the commencement
program nine days before the big event.
And the dispute isn’t over for Black, who remains supportive of his alma mater and its
students but still awaits a direct apology and a thorough explanation about the actions
of Rocha and the board of trustees instead of vague claims about “errors in following
procedure.” He traced the connections between the instigating events, detailed in this Los
Angeles Times piece by Robin Abcarian, read between the lines, and on April 17 he
released a statement (posted in full here on Out) in the form of a letter to PCC students,
describing how the school’s management is “punishing the victim” and asking them to
“speak out.”
On Tuesday, Black spoke up from his current parttime home in London for an interview
with Truthdig.
* * *
Kasia Anderson: Can you bring us up to speed about what’s happening now with the
graduation invitation debacle and your alma mater?
Dustin Lance Black: Now what’s happening is I’m having students from Pasadena City
College and reporters starting to send me email exchanges that they had with Dr. Walsh.
There’s a professor who’s sort of the film guy there who’s at the head of the board—
Anthony Fellow—I’ve been receiving a lot of letters, correspondence between students
and administrators and Dr. Fellow, and, you know, it is blatantly homophobic.
Then today I just became curious about well, who is this person who is speaking [Walsh]?
And I felt badly, I thought, well, they didn’t ask for this, and what is it that they must be
feeling right now? And I’m sort of surprised that they haven’t reached out or said
anything, and now it’s starting to make sense, because there are these speeches online of
his—“evolutionists are Satanists”—and there’s a speech online where he makes fun of
trans people. Then all of a sudden—and this is not a speaker who was approved by the
committee that approves speakers—he was picked by Mark Rocha, the president of the
school, and Dr. Fellow.
And all of a sudden it has become clearer and clearer why [Walsh] was chosen, and why
he hasn’t reached out, and it seems that they have a president of a school and a board
president who want this to be the message to the PCC campus. It flies in the face of what
the students say they want. [The administrators] deny their own proceedings; they’ve
broken their own procedures in order to ensure that this is the person who will be
speaking at their commencement. And I start to wonder if that’s even legal to even run a
school that way.
KA: Lip service was paid to the replacement speaker being dynamic. …
DLB: Yes, and the person who made that comment was Dr. Rocha, I believe.
KA: Does PCC take any ideological positions or adopt any particular ethos you picked up
on while you were there?
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Marriott's Ko Olina Beach Club
From $267
Save 47% *
Save 39% *
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