By BETTY PLEASANT, Contributing Editor
An art teacher who gave his Los Angeles Trade-Technical College students a racially offensive classroom assignment received a slap on the wrist, but the president of the college may lose his job over it.
Bill Robles, a veteran courthouse illustrator and teacher in Trade-Tech’s Visual Communications Department, gave each of his students in his drawing class a picture of two caricatured Black men pulling a noose around their necks and, as homework, instructed them to draw the figure of the man on the left in the picture.
The class of 30 students was outraged by the assignment to the point that none of the students drew the picture and the five African-Americans in the class walked out on the spot.
Reyna Mendez, one of the offended students, said the picture was totally inappropriate and she asked Robles why he would present a picture like that for them to draw.
Mendez, who is writing a story about the incident for the college newspaper, said Robles told her he wanted to show the “gesture” depicted in that picture so the class could learn to draw gestures. Finding that to be an unsatisfactory reply, “I told him there are a lot of other pictures he could have used to show us how to draw gestures,” Mendez said.
Camelle Williams, a visual communications major who grew up in Long Beach but resides with her grandmother in South L.A., was so incensed by Robles’ picture that she spearheaded a protest against him which culminated in a confrontation with the Los Angeles Community College District Board of Trustees last week.
Robles, an elderly man believed to be in his 70s, was immediately challenged by Williams about his assignment when he gave it last month. “He began to unapologetically defend himself by saying, ‘In all the years I have been teaching, I never had one complaint about this assignment,” Williams said.
“Even after all the African-American students walked out in protest, it was the remaining students who had to explain to him how offensive this is to all races, not only to African-Americans.”
Williams reported Robles’ actions to the college administration, including the president, Roland Chapdelaine, who promised a thorough investigation of the matter and swift discipline to follow, if warranted. Robles’ offense occurred on Sept. 16 and by the end of the month, the investigation appeared complete and Chapdelaine informed Williams that he would recommend sensitivity training for Robles and he would put in his permanent file a reprimand for not having a syllabus for his class.
Williams found Chapdelaine’s recommended “discipline” to be unacceptable, since a reprimand for Robles’ failure to have a syllabus did, in no way, address his offense, so she marshaled her fellow students and took the issue over Chapdelaine’s head — to the board of trustees, which met at Pierce College Oct. 21.
The meeting hall was packed, as most of the people went to express to the board their concerns about a farm and an equestrian center at Pierce College. Williams and her “Robles’ picture” item was listed last on the agenda. But when she spoke, things changed.
First of all, when Jimmy DeVance and other Robles students, distributed Robles’ picture to the crowd gathered for the meeting, the people reacted with horror and stunned disbelief. Although they went there to support a farm and a horse facility, they immediately found something else to champion — the removal of whomever is responsible for this abomination they saw before them.
Williams spoke movingly to the board about what Robles had done and what Chapdelaine had failed to do. After she finished, the board turned to Chapdelaine — who was present because the board was scheduled to vote on the extension of his one-year contract to head Trade-Tech — and asked him to give an account of himself with respect to the Robles incident.
Chapdelaine said his investigation showed that the adverse student reaction to
Robles’ use of the picture was “split” and that, in affect, it didn’t seem to be that big of a deal. He said, however, he would have a full report on the matter on Monday.
When the time came later on in the afternoon for the board of trustees to vote on extending Chapdelaine’s contract, it voted “no.”
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