Academic Senate does not allow tape recorders

By Wes Woods II
Summer Forty-Niner

The Cal State Long Beach Academic Senate, which helps to decide curriculum for faculty members, also has a policy of not allowing journalists to bring their tape recorders to meetings.

The policy is legal because the Senate is exempted from the Bagley-Keene Open Meeting Act, which states that "every state board, or commission, or similar multimember body of the state" is required to keep its meetings open.

According to an Academic Senate memorandum in 1989, the senate advises the campus president and not the California State University Board of Trustees, which would fall under the definition of a state body. Due to this technicality, the senate is exempt from the open-meetings act.

"The rule was based upon speaking," said Simeon J. Crowther, Academic Senate Chair and economics professor. "It was a battle at that time about whether or not the senate meetings were subject to the Brown Act. They are not subject to the Brown Act. [The meetings are] opened under business matters except during personnel matters. Technically the meetings don't have to be opened."

Crowther said there are speaking limitations and people can be denied a chance to speak. "But on controversial issues, all have spoken," he said, mentioning recent faculty issues.

Some campus leaders, however, seemed unaware of the tape recording rule.

"I didn't even know there was such a rule," said Robert Maxson, CSULB president. "I have no idea" why tape recorders aren't allowed in the meetings.

Robert Garcia, Associated Students Inc. president, also said he didn't know about the rule.

If students are caught with a tape recorder at a meeting, they will be asked to turn off the machine or told to leave, said Dot Goldish, secretary of the Academic Senate and chemistry and biochemistry professor. "The chair's responsible" for students caught with tape recorders.

"No one will be searched" while going inside the Academic Senate, she said. The senate is trying to "not make things confrontational."

Crowther said: "We never test reporters [if the tape recorder is] on or off. It hasn't been an issue."

Goldish said the problem "has happened a couple of times," with the latest incident occurring several years ago. While problems have arisen from time to time, the "Forty-Niner has been more responsible in recent years," she said.

Other campuses, however, do not have the same policy.

"I've watched reporters use tape recorders in the front row at meetings," said Sandy Horowitz, an administrative assistant at Cal State Northridge.

Margaret Camuso, an administrative analyst at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo for 15 years, said "Yes, [reporters] can use tape recorders."

"At UC Davis, we don't prohibit that practice," said Maril Stratton, the university's director of public communications since 1986. "At least not to my recollection."

At Cal State L.A., Eileen Roberts, the assistant to the Academic Senate Chair, said that school barred tape recorders from 1971 to 1987. The university has not had problems since then, and "she's attended all the meetings."

At CSULB, to approve a new motion to allow tape recorders in meetings, a two-thirds vote is needed by the Senate.

"The rules of the Senate can change," Crowther said. [The rule] goes back a number of years, but we have the ability [to change it]."

Although recorders are prohibited, photographers are allowed to take photos at the senate meetings.

"Nobody has ever stopped that," Goldish said. "There's no rule against it (taking photos) as long as it's not interfering with the meeting," she said.