The Santa Barbara City College Board of Trustees meeting on February 14 ended in disarray, not unlike several of their most recent meetings. At this meeting, the board was considering a resolution to add the Pledge of Allegiance to board agendas. The meeting was held at SBCC’s Wake Campus to accommodate the large number of individuals interested in the resolution. More than 60 public comment slips were submitted to speak on the subject of the pledge and about 250 people sat or stood in the audience. Two deputy sheriffs and campus security members were present at the meeting.
The pledge had not been recited at board meetings since at least 1959, according to the trustees' resolution. Then in July 2018, former City College instructor Celeste Barber requested that it be added to board meetings, which it was. However, in early January the pledge was removed by Board President Robert Miller claiming it is rooted in white nationalism. At the January 24 meeting, during public comment, Barber and two other women requested it be reinstated. At the same meeting, students were protesting the unaddressed racism on campus and incidents surrounding Vice President’s Lyndsay Maas’s use of the unabbreviated n-word. When Barber spoke in support of the pledge audience members heckled her and students began stomping, all of which was captured on campus video and was later picked up and rebroadcast by conservative national news outlets. Shortly after, the pledge was temporarily reinstated on January 29. The February 14 meeting was to determine whether the pledge would be permanently reinstated.
Just over 40 people spoke, most of whom were community members and not current students. They emphasized the importance of patriotism, quoted Martin Luther King Jr., and mentioned phrases from the pledge, particularly, “indivisible with liberty and justice for all.” One man said he understood people’s reluctance to recite the pledge but said, “We need not destroy the [pledge], only live up to it.” Several others speakers called for the resignation or firing of President Miller, and others requested that board members who refused to say the pledge should resign.
