Professor paid $2.4M to settle First Amendment retaliation suit goes after HR chief's new contract

A month after Matthew Garrett secured a $2.4 million settlement from the Kern Community College District over termination proceedings for the "dishonesty" of disagreeing with colleagues on diversity issues and "unprofessional conduct" of questioning the data used to create a "racial climate task force," the former Bakersfield College tenured history professor isn't done yet. 

He has started a campaign to pressure the KCCD Board of Trustees to rescind a contract extension and pay boost for the human resources official who oversaw his proceedings, citing newly obtained sworn testimony of the colleague who he says sicced students on Garrett with racially charged complaints that were "ultimately found to be baseless" – and used class time to do it.

In Garrett's trial before California's Office of Administrative Hearings, a judicial branch that hears public faculty challenges to termination, KCCD put BC English professor Paula Parks on the stand "with maybe two dozen other witnesses" and Garrett's lawyer cross-examined her, producing much of the evidence he's now invoking, Garrett told Just the News.

"In my case, the district waited until the final day of trial and then offered terms I accepted, and we then stopped the hearing and never advanced to a ruling," he said.

KCCD endured "repeated legal troubles stemming from Human Resources debacles" under Vice Chancellor of Human Resources Ibrahim "Abe" Ali, "resulting in millions and millions of dollars in settlements" with him and others, Garrett wrote to the trustees, blind-copying Just the News.

He cited ongoing First Amendment retaliation lawsuits by his history colleagues Erin Miller and Daymon Johnson, who calls himself a "Person of Color," stemming from the three professors' involvement in the Renegade Institute for Liberty, a BC-recognized faculty think tank that has ruffled progressive feathers for years. Garrett is "aware of quite a few forthcoming suits." 

Vice President John Corkins even compared RIFL faculty to his livestock, saying "we have to continue to cull" them in a December 2022 board meeting, though he later apologized.

A federal court greenlit Johnson's suit last fall and blocked KCCD's enforcement of the state's diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility regulations against Johnson's speech, including his planned recommendation of Texas GOP Sen. Ted Cruz's book on defeating "cultural Marxism" – a phrase called "hate speech" in Garrett's termination notice.

Nondisclosure agreements "may have been used to address still other cases" under Ali, whose tenure is marked by "noticeable turnover in HR" and "low morale and widespread fear of administrative retaliation" as documented in the 2024 Workplace Culture Survey, "with some citing HR as a significant factor," Garrett wrote to the trustees.

Ali violated "California legal standards" by not consulting Garrett on allegations presented to the board in April 2023, which were "often disproven by unambiguous evidence," and the survey shows faculty concerns that Ali has turned a blind eye to "seemingly protected bad actors who seem to disrupt the workplace with impunity," as with the allegations against Garrett, he said.

To add insult to injury, Ali's new contract "exceeds the KCCD salary schedule maximum by $40,000," Garrett said.

Just the News asked KCCD for its response to Garrett's allegations and documents, including what bearing they might have on Ali's contract extension and Parks' status.

"Kern Community College District unequivocally supports the right for our students and faculty to share their views and opinions on campus and elsewhere," spokesperson Norma Rojas wrote in an email. "As a District, we create an environment that provides our diverse students and communities with the opportunity to professionally engage with new ideas."

KCCD "does not have further comment" on personnel matters, however, she said.

Garrett told Just the News he obtained Parks' testimony in his administrative trial from someone who filed a public records request for it specifically. He requested "all trial transcripts" but KCCD has yet to turn over any, he said.

Parks is the founder and coordinator of BC's affiliate of Umoja, whose stated mission is "enhancing the cultural and educational experiences of African American and other students."

Her affiliate, however, is secondarily named "African-American Success Through Excellence and Persistence," and unlike some other affiliates that explicitly state they are open to all students, BC's Umoja does not except in an image from Umoja on every affiliate's page.

The BC program "integrates academics, support services and African-American culture," it says. "African and African-American histories and voices are deliberately and intentionally acknowledged and are woven into the learning experience."

Parks testified that she told students about Garrett and RIFL because of its Facebook page, which he managed at the time. (The college subjected Johnson to a five-month investigation for his own management of the page, which he took over after Garrett's suspension.)

Some RIFL posts said "there are classes where white people couldn't be in the classes," which was accusing Parks and BC of "breaking the law" and "maligning the [Umoja] statewide organization," which thought she was violating Umoja's mission, Parks said. She emphasized a white man was one of the founders.

They also "misrepresented" its study space, known as a "village," as black-only, Parks said. Garrett had encouraged "white people to go to the space and see if they'll be turned away," which made it "not really a safe space" because visitors might "act on those lies."

Parks then invited the students to attend the regularly scheduled October 2022 meeting of the Equal Opportunity and Diversity Advisory Committee. RIFL members including Garrett had taken over the first-come, first-serve committee by signing up as soon as slots opened, then slowed down its work, twice upsetting progressive faculty.

She wanted them to see her propose the racial climate task force, which might usurp the committee's jurisdiction, and warned they might hear negative comments about it. Parks said she didn't tell students they might hear negative comments from Garrett or RIFL members.

While one committee member cursed when Parks entered with a group of students, the RIFL bloc simply grilled her about the rigor of her evidence and whether it justified her proposal, according to a surreptitious recording of the 79-minute meeting Just the News reviewed.

It seems to contradicted students' subsequent allegations against Garrett, particularly that he disparaged Parks, much less referred to her or her teaching or made racially directed comments. (Garrett included his full statement from the meeting in a cheat sheet on Parks' testimony.)

He did say that "safe spaces" can create more racial "animosity" than they resolve, which Parks apparently interpreted as a reference to the Umoja village. Parks agreed when asked whether students were made "uncomfortable or unsafe" by Garrett's comment in the meeting.

After the committee meeting, Parks convened an Umoja "porch" – an open discussion forum – at a student's request. She said "we spent at least an hour with them talking about the meeting," delaying her Umoja-tailored English class by an hour, "because they were so upset" by "the way people looked at them" in the meeting, which "made them feel uncomfortable and unsafe."

Students also discussed the meeting at the village, with similar sentiments about "how the environment was racist," Parks said. She agreed when asked whether she had students "write letters after this experience" – five or six did so – because "their minds were fresh."

Some letters were sent to the Academic Senate and trustees, and Parks admitted asking students to share their perspectives at both entities' meetings. She spoke to the trustees so they would know how RIFL was "impacting myself, the program, and especially my students." (Corkins made his "cull" comment at the end of that meeting.)

Parks said she gave interviews to two "print outlets" – one of them, the national Inside Higher Ed – and two local TV stations about Garrett and RIFL before Fox News reported on the controversy Jan. 17, 2023, but said they reached out to her.