Rad Grads

Photo courtesy of The Community Voice

Pomp and Circumstance: New programs may help socially responsible grads attain their goals.

Loans keep dreams of public service alive

By Robert Preer

THE MAY 25 commencement at Manchester College, a small liberal arts school near Fort Wayne, Ind., was much the same as commencement at colleges everywhere: awards, speeches, caps and gowns, and cheers from happy seniors and parents.

One thing was different, though. About half the graduates wore green ribbons pinned to their gowns. A note in the commencement program explained that these students had signed the following statement: “I pledge to investigate and take into account the social and environmental consequences of any job opportunity I consider.”

Troy E. Lucas, 21, was one of the hundred or so grads taking the college’s environmental and social pledge, now in its ninth year. “I think I can make a difference,” says Lucas, who plans to work in a mental health center.

In California, activists at Humboldt State in Arcata came up with the idea for a graduation pledge in 1987 as a way to promote social awareness and responsibility. A year later, Manchester students adopted the pledge, which is now a campus tradition.

“It seems like it has always been a part of the graduation ceremony,” says Kristi A. Zimmerman, 22, a leader of the Manchester pledge movement this year. She will begin grad studies next year in higher education counseling.

Humboldt State and Manchester College both have long traditions of social and environmental activism. Humboldt State grads taking the pledge wear multicolored ribbons pinned to their gowns. After they receive their diplomas, seniors walk to a nearby table and sign the pledge.

The idea has yet to catch on at Sonoma State University.

At Manchester College, students receive a wallet-sized card with the pledge on it. Students say the pledge helps them remember their ideals at a time when the pressures of getting ahead and making money are greatest.

Neil Wollman, a psychology professor at Manchester and the faculty coordinator of the national pledge program, says it is more than a consciousness-raising device. “Our hope is that if enough people do it, it’s not just symbolic. It can actually have an effect,” he says.

As it is worded, the pledge is non-ideological, and it could lead students with different beliefs to very different actions. “It is probably going to draw more people on the left than the right, but people can define it as they want,” Wollman says.

While many college grads attend the nation’s top law schools, medical schools, business schools, and other institutions to qualify for entry to high-paying careers, others undertake graduate studies to work in the public service sector. These graduates may face tens of thousands of dollars in loans, but want to accept relatively low-paying jobs of social commitment.

To help them, dozens of programs now offer what is known as “public service loan assistance.” Under such programs, grads who go to work for non-profit organizations or perform other public service receive help paying off their education loans. Some institutions simply “forgive” a portion of the debt, while others offer cash grants.

Stanford Business School, Harvard Law School, Yale School of Management, and Georgetown Law School all offer some form of public service loan aid. The help allows graduates who owe big school loans to accept low-paying jobs at legal aid agencies and with relief organizations, environmental groups, and domestic violence prevention programs.

Michael Alevy, 39, is a 1996 graduate of Vermont Law School who works as a public defender in New Haven, Conn. He says that in January the first of two $2,000 grants he will receive this year “arrived like manna from God.”

He has about $80,000 in school loans and makes about $30,000 a year in a temporary job with no benefits. His monthly loan obligations are about the same as a house payment. “It has meant the world to me,” Alevy says. “It has allowed me to do what I think is very important work.”

Pressure from students led to the establishment of public service loan aid, according to Francine Hahn, organizer for the National Association for Public Interest Law. “Most of them were started by student initiatives. Even if one has been established, students want to see how they can improve it,” Hahn says.

A year ago, law students at the University of Denver began raising money for grants to grads who go into public service with charity auctions and collecting donations. The students have raised $30,000 so far, with a goal of $100,000, which would be an endowment for a grant program.

The movement to promote public service has spread to business schools, which a decade ago were known simply as places where students went to learn how to make money. Several business schools now offer public service loan aid. Last year, nearly all Stanford business students pledged 2 percent of their summer earnings to support fellow students doing volunteer work for non-profit organizations.

“A lot of MBA students are contradicting the image of MBAs in the ’80s and do have broader concerns than just making a lot of money,” says Nancy Katz, executive director of San Francisco­based Students for Responsible Business, a 3-year-old organization that now has 1,100 business student and alumni members.

Are today’s college graduates more committed to social and environmental causes than previous graduates? Robert L. Sigmon, senior associate for the Council of Independent Colleges, believes activism on campuses comes in cycles. He points to the founding of the Peace Corps and Volunteers in Service to America in the 1960s, public service programs during the Great Depression of the 1930s, and missionary movements in the early 1900s.

“Every 30 years or so, it sort of pops up, this call to public service,” says Sigmon, an adviser on student community service to the council, an organization of 425 private liberal arts schools. “What’s new now is this relationship to higher education.”

According to Sigmon, colleges and universities now are actively supporting public service for students and graduates, and not simply out of altruism. Institutions also view public service as an important learning experience, he said.

Jonathan Hutson, 32, of Keene, N.H., has long wanted a career helping abused and neglected children. The New York University Law School graduate has $90,000 in education loans, which he has to start paying soon.

If all goes well, Hutson expects to get a job that would pay him $28,000 a year. With $9,000 in annual public service aid from New York University, Hutson thinks he can get by financially. Meanwhile, many of his classmates are making $85,000 a year or more on Wall Street. “The money doesn’t impress me. It’s not what I’m interested in,” says Hutson. “I work only for causes I believe in and with people I trust.

“How many corporate attorneys can say that?”

From the June 5-11, 1997 issue of the Sonoma County Independent

This page was designed and created by the Boulevards team.
© 1997 Metrosa, Inc.

Up for Review

Happier Times: Ayling Wu, first-born daughter Karolyn (now 5), and Kuan Kao.

Law enforcement balks, but social justice advocates say recent spate of police shootings shows need for civilian police review boards

By Citizen Review Boards.

Police Resistance

IN RECENT WEEKS, Kao’s death has fueled a move to create civilian police review boards to scrutinize the actions of local law enforcement agencies.

“It seems like there are more instances [of police brutality],” says Jeff Ott of the Santa Rosa­based Copwatch. “Now is the right time [for independent review of police actions].”

Local members of the American Civil Liberties Union already are laying the groundwork for civilian police review boards. “In my opinion, 90 percent of police officers are doing an excellent job–they’re laying their life on the line for you,” says Rene Lopez of the Rohnert Park­based National Latino Police Officers Association. “But there are a few that we need to control, because those people have got the authority to draw a weapon and kill you.

“We need somebody to oversee them because the police departments are not going to go out and conduct an investigation to find themselves guilty. We need someone else to look into matters.”

Lopez, an ex-state Department of Motor Vehicles investigator and Novato resident, heads the civilian police review board in his hometown, the only such organization in the North Bay. He also is chairman of a local ACLU subcommittee studying the issue.

“If you run a solid police department and do everything by the numbers, why would you object to a police review board?” he asks. “You should be glad to have a police review board take a look at what your department is doing. But if you’re always trying to hide things and something goes awry, then you don’t want people to look at it.”

But the concept is running into stiff resistance locally. Acting Sheriff Jim Piccinini points out that there already are several ways to review police conduct, including internal departmental review and investigations by the District Attorney’s Office, the Sonoma County grand jury, and the state Attorney General’s Office.

“You have to decide if there are sufficient review procedures in place,” Piccinini adds, “or if one more would slow the process.”

Bucking the Trend

THROUGHOUT the United States, there has been a sharp rise in the number of citizen review boards in the last five to 10 years, according to John Crew, director of the Police Practices Project for the ACLU of Northern California. “Of the 50 largest U.S. cities, more than three quarters now have some form of civilian review board. University of Nebraska Professor Sam Walker has documented an enormous growth in suburban- and medium-sized communities creating civilian review boards,” Crew says.

“That growth is occurring at the same time there’s a nationwide trend toward community policing,” he adds. “The police want to work in partnership with the community, but it makes no sense to extend their hand in partnership and then withdraw their hand to take part in an internal affairs system where they police themselves in secret.”

The increasing concern about financial claims filed against police departments and a desire to make sure that cities are not wasting tax dollars on expensive public safety programs is another reason for the growth of civilian review boards.

Additionally, civilian review of law enforcement agencies is better understood now than it was in the ’70s, Crew explains, when it was seen as an anti-cop thing. “Now it’s more about good government than bad cops. Police have unique powers, can directly deprive someone of their freedom, can arrest them, can use excessive force, can even use deadly force. We need some independent method of checks and balances. Even San Diego County–a very conservative area–has recognized this.”

Indeed, the concept has matured and been professional in recent years, he adds, so that it’s become difficult for law enforcement agencies to claim that civilian review is a boogeyman that’s going to destroy law enforcement.

“Sonoma County is a holdout and bucking the trend,” Crew concludes. “Sure, the FBI will investigate the death of Kao. But the FBI operates totally differently than a civilian review board. The FBI will have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the officer is guilty of a crime. That’s really hard to do. The FBI won’t look at issues such as: How did the officer get himself into that position? What mistakes may have been made? Did the officer comply with policy? Should the policy be changed?”

Closed Society

“AS A YOUNG POLICE OFFICER, I had a problem with any kind of interference in the police department,” says John Parker, an ex-Oakland police officer who now heads the San Diego County Citizen’s Law Enforcement Review Board. “My opinion changed as I became more sensitive to what the community needs–more accountability. I saw damage being done by the code of silence employed by many police officers, and I couldn’t abide by it.

“It made me an outcast, just as much as someone who had complained about the police from the outside.”

In San Diego County, the civilian police review board won overwhelming public support as a ballot measure in 1991; the city of San Diego had a review process for several years. Yet, local sheriff’s deputies are still fighting against being brought before the board and having to testify, Parker says.

“Law enforcement is a closed society, they want to police themselves,” he observes. “They want to believe that no one understands policing other than trained law enforcement professionals, but any intelligent adult can read and comprehend written police procedures and rules and regulations, and know or learn what officers are supposed to do in given situations.”

The bottom line, he adds, is that police officers are public employees who work for the citizens, and those citizens have a right to ensure that the police are accountable.

Secrecy and deception are built into the policing system, Rene Lopez says. “If you are a line officer and something goes wrong, you’re not going to snitch yourself out to your superiors,” he points out. “Is the sergeant going to snitch himself out? Is the lieutenant going to say, I knew the sergeant and the line officer were screwing up under my supervision? Hell, no! So the top guy often doesn’t know what’s going on in the ranks because nobody tells him anything. People just aren’t going to come forward to say, I screwed up–fire me. The system is that we hide everything we do wrong, from the line officers right up to the top.

“If you’re the chief of a law enforcement agency and are confident that everybody is doing everything by the numbers, you should welcome an independent review.”

Some form of independent review is needed in a situation like the Kao case to prevent bias among investigators and shore up public confidence in police agencies, says ex-cop Parker. “Police officers will try to support one another and cover for each other. That was my experience as a police officer–some officers will manipulate [the circumstances] and cover [for their peers].”

From the May 29-June 4, 1997 issue of the Sonoma County Independent

This page was designed and created by the Boulevards team.
© 1997 Metrosa, Inc.