UCLA Library Assistant Suspended
for Mass E-mailing Critical of U.S.
A library assistant at the University of California/Los Angeles was suspended without pay for one week, September 17–21, after sending a mass e-mail message criticizing American support for what he called apartheid policies in Israel and the bombing of Iraq. Jonnie Hargis, an assistant in reference and instructional services at the Young Research Library, told the Daily Bruin campus newspaper that he was simply responding to a patriotic mass mailing sent to him by a coworker.
Library administrators discovered the e-mail September 14 and sent Hargis a written reprimand signed by Lorraine Kram, head of the department. The letter said Hargis’s e-mail message “demonstrated a lack of sensitivity that went beyond incivility and became harassment,” the Bruin reported October 4. Administrators said the e-mail violated longstanding university policy against “widespread distribution of unsolicited electronic communications” and a new policy that prohibits mass e-mail messages containing political, religious, or patriotic messages.
An October 5 Bruin editorial asserted that the policies were applied to Hargis but not to Michelle Torre, an administrative assistant who sent the original message. “In a time of blind patriotism, critics of this country have an even more precarious, though important, role in providing additional and contradictory viewpoints to the public forum,” the editorial argued, calling for retraction of the new policy.
The Coalition of Union Employees, which represents library workers throughout UC, has filed a grievance with the university and planned to meet with the administration October 12.
Posted October 15, 2001.
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