Inside Scoop Visit us online at smdp.com
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2009
3
Student sues L.A. college over anti-gay marriage speech BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Brandon Wise brandonw@smdp.com
LENDING A HAND: General Manager Mike Butler (center) helps out behind the oyster bar during the opening day of Santa Monica Seafood's Wilshire Boulevard store on Monday afternoon. Tuesday, Santa Monica Seafood will be donating crates of food and other products to the Los Angeles Regional Foodbank to help the needy.
And you can take that to the bank SM Seafood donating $10K worth of products to local foodbank BY ASHLEY ARCHIBALD Special to the Daily Press
DOWNTOWN When Jeremiah Higgins contemplated moving the Santa Monica Seafood Co.’s storefront from its Colorado Avenue address to the new Wilshire Boulevard location, there were a few kinks inherent in the transition. A big question was what he would do with almost $10,000 worth of product sitting in large panels in his storage facility. “I’ve brought in quite a few new prod-
ucts and I have other products I’m not going to carry anymore,” said Higgins, director of operations for Santa Monica Seafood Co. “I didn’t know what to do with it, to sell it at a lower price or what.” But Higgins had been hearing stories about troubles at the Los Angeles Regional Foodbank, an organization to which the Santa Monica Seafood Co. routinely donates unsold bread. This sparked an idea. The company is donating all $10,000 of food to the Los Angeles Regional Foodbank today as part of its transition to the new
space on 10th and Wilshire. Donations run the gamut from bread and cheese to gourmet sauces for seafood and cooking utensils. “I’ve seen quite a few stories about how it’s hard for them to keep their shelves full because of the tough economic times, so we wanted to help out,” Higgins said. Darren Hoffman, communications director for the foodbank, said that a donation of that size will go a long way toward SEE SEAFOOD PAGE 8
LOS ANGELES A community college student has filed a lawsuit claiming a public speaking professor berated him and refused to let him finish a speech opposing same-sex marriage. In the suit filed last week in a Los Angeles federal court, student Jonathan Lopez said that midway through his speech when he recited a dictionary definition of marriage and recited a pair of bible verses, professor John Matteson cut him off, called him a “fascist bastard” and would not allow him to finish. The suit says Matteson told students they could leave if they were offended, and when no one left he dismissed the class. A student evaluation form included with the lawsuit lacks a score for Lopez’s speech, and reads “ask God what your grade is.” Lopez and his attorneys are seeking financial damages and also seek to strike down a code at Los Angeles City College forbidding students from making statements deemed “offensive.” Lopez made the speech last November days after the passage of Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage in California. “He was expressing his faith during an open-ended assignment, but when the professor disagreed with some minor things he mentioned, the professor shut him down,” David J. Hacker, an attorney for the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian legal organization based in Scottsdale, Ariz. that is representing Lopez, told the Los Angeles Times. “Basically, colleges and universities should give Christian students the same rights to free expression as other students.” In a letter to Alliance, Dean Allison Jones said she had met with Lopez, considered his complaint “extremely serious in nature,” and had begun a disciplinary investigation. Jones said in the letter she could not elaborate because of concerns for Matteson’s privacy. Jones wrote that two students had been “deeply offended” by the speech, and one of them said that “this student should have to pay some price for preaching hate in the classroom.” The lawsuit names Matteson, the Los Angeles Community College District, its board of trustees and several administrators.
SMALL BUSINESS STARTUP? LET ME HELP YOU SUCCEED TAXES
•
BOOKKEEPING
•
STARTUPS
•
CORPS.
•
LLCS
(310) 395-9922 SAMUEL B. MOSES, CPA
1000 Wilshiree Blvd.,, Suitee 1800 Santaa Monicaa 90401