Palisades Charter High School’s student newspaper, Tideline, was missing an important element last Thursday: half of the front page and an article about a school sexual-harassment lawsuit printed on the reverse side. Late that night, the article’s noticeable omission made the evening television news. And the lawsuit it discussed, which at first glance seems narrow in scope, might now have significant legal implications for the viability of charter schools statewide. After pressure from the school’s administration and accused teacher, Ronald Cummings, not to run the story, student journalists ripped the article from virtually all 2,000 copies of the semimonthly newspaper before distribution Thursday afternoon. Although the staff of the award-winning newspaper recognized their legal right to publish the article, which was based on public records, they feared that not complying with administration’s demands might have delayed distribution of the paper. Almost every copy of the paper had been held in Principal Gloria Martinez’s office since Tuesday that week. And editors were uncertain whether the school would try to pose legal challenges to the paper’s distribution. PaliHi Executive Director Amy Held said she knew of no plans to delay distribution if students had not complied with the school’s request. ‘Our lawyer at the Student Press Law Center said the administration and Mr. Cummings had no legal basis for removing that article,’ said Donovan Malloy, one of the editors-in-chief. ‘But we had a commitment to our advertisers to distribute the paper on schedule.’ Impromptu flyers circulated the campus that afternoon, alerting students to the article’s omission and directing them to a Web site that described the lawsuit against the popular and unconventional teacher. Ron Cummings has taught history at PaliHi for 17 years, and many of his students speak fondly of his class as well as his ‘racy jokes and provocative humor.’ But the same characteristics that have endeared the teacher to many AP European History students were also the source of emotional trauma to an eighth-grade, parochial student. In February 2004, a 13-year-old female student visited PaliHi and attended classes for a day in expectation of enrolling the following year. But after her visit to Cummings’ class became charged with sexual innuendo, at times directed at her, she no longer felt comfortable enrolling there. Among other complaints, the girl alleged that Cummings commented on her breasts, humiliated her religious background and unnecessarily peppered a class lecture on the 19th century with sexual language. Immediately following the incident, Dr. Thomas Knapp wrote to then-Principal Linda Hosford on behalf of his daughter asking for an investigation of the incident and the dismissal of the teacher. Knapp’s lawyer, Ed Carney, also wrote to Hosford on multiple occasions and warned of possible legal action. Following a school investigation in May 2004, Hosford admonished Cummings for his classroom behavior in a letter of reprimand. ‘I have concluded that, on the day in question, there was sufficient evidence to support a finding that you either fostered inappropriate classroom discussion or at least allowed such classroom conversation to exceed the boundaries for acceptable discussions,’ Hosford wrote. Hosford also wrote that the teacher’s use of sexual language was ‘unnecessary’ and ‘an attempt to gain favor with your class by using surprising/shocking language.’ For Thomas Knapp, Hosford’s letter to Cummings did little to address his daughter’s complaints. In June 2004, he sought further action in a lawsuit filed with L.A. County against Palisades Charter High School and the Los Angeles Unified School District. Knapp’s lawsuit alleged that his daughter’s traumatic experience excluded the possibility of sending her to PaliHi. And Knapp demanded that the school pay for the cost of four years of private high school, estimated at no less than $125,000. That lawsuit and the appeal that followed were dismissed on technical grounds in July 2005 and July 2006, respectively. And those decisions have produced unexpected consequences for the legal autonomy of California charter schools. An L.A. Superior Court and the Second Appellate District Court of Appeal ruled that Knapp did not follow the demands of the Government Claims Act, which requires that public agencies be given advanced written notice of a legal claim. Interestingly, the courts also determined that Palisades High is not a public agency independent of LAUSD. Despite the school’s charter, they ruled that the school is ‘operationally rather than legally independent’ from the District. The significance of that ruling has created an unexpected alliance. Sensing the threat of this decision to the legal rights of charter schools, the California Charter Schools Association (CCSA) filed a petition in support of Knapp’s request for a rehearing. In other words, the state’s chief charter school organization supported overturning two court victories for Palisades Charter High. Why? The CCSA fears that if the courts’ rulings stand and charter schools are not considered legally independent, then severe legal and economic consequences could follow. It believes that without legal autonomy, charter schools might have difficulty borrowing funds. And it anticipates that school districts will not want to create new charter schools if those districts must be held legally responsible for the debts and obligations of charter schools. The CCSA’s support was decisive for Knapp’s successful bid for rehearing of the case, said Carney. The case will be reheard November 30. In January 2005 following a complaint from Thomas Knapp, the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing issued a ‘public reproval’ of Cummings. The Commission did not revoke his teaching credential, and he teaches part-time at PaliHi. It is unknown whether his part-time status at the school is the result of disciplinary action. Cummings would not return a request for an interview with the Palisadian-Post.

Peter Csato still has a scar on his forearm where the bullet from a Russian machine gun tore through his skin during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. Peter was only 12 at the time, although he was a breaststroke swimmer and large for his age. The uprising of young Hungarian students against their Communist government and occupying Soviet forces had begun a couple of days earlier, on October 23. ‘It was a slow process,’ says Csato, who owns Le Studio hair salon on Via de la Paz. ‘When you’re under Russian occupation, it’s not easy to organize something of that caliber.’ Imre Nagy, a Communist reformer, led the nation for most of the 10 days of the revolution, during which Soviet troops retreated. But the Red Army returned in huge numbers on November 4, killing more than 2,000 Hungarians. This year marks the 50th anniversary of Hungary’s fight for freedom. ‘It was an exciting 10 days because we actually thought Hungary would be free,’ recalls Csato, who was living with his family in Eger, northeast of Budapest. ‘We were sure that the Americans were going to come and help us because the Hungarian people were so pro-American.’ But the Americans did not come. And Hungary remained under Soviet control until 1989. ‘It was a really depressed society,’ Csato says about Communist Hungary in the 1950s. ‘Being a sportsman, I had a pretty good life. Sport was everything for the Communist regime because that was showing the world that we could do anything.’ The day the revolution broke out, Csato remembers that officials closed schools. ‘I woke up in the morning and the news on the radio was that the revolution broke out in Budapest,’ he says. ‘I could hear on the radio the machine guns going off and the tanks out on the streets.’ During the next few days, Csato and his friends joined other young men in the streets armed with Molotov cocktails, crude incendiary weapons that consisted of a glass bottle filled with flammable liquid such as gasoline and a gasoline-soaked rag that was lit on fire. Csato was throwing Molotov cocktails at Russian tanks the day he was hit by machine-gun fire from one of the tanks. ‘I didn’t even feel I was hit,’ says Csato, who was wearing a long-sleeved shirt that hid the wound. ‘Then I saw blood running down my fingers and almost fainted from that. I went to the hospital and they sewed me up to stop the bleeding.’ At the time, Csato’s father was mayor of Eger, working, unwillingly, under a Communist government. ‘There was a lot of hassling at his work,’ Csato says. ‘He was hassled by our neighbor, a guy who was an anti-Communist and called [my father] a traitor.’ Csato worried about his father’s safety, especially after witnessing the deaths of people on both sides’Hungarian revolutionaries, members of AVO (the Soviet-backed secret police) and Russian soldiers. ‘It was sad because, later, we talked to the Russians’they were really nice young guys,’ Csato says. ‘They said, ‘You know, we’re here because our government sent us here. We understand that the Hungarian people want to be free, and we agree with you.’ You find yourself relating to the guys you were trying to kill. It was a weird feeling.’ Csato remembers that when the Russian troops started pulling out, his father drove him on the back of a motorcycle to watch the caravan of tanks going back to Russia on the main road. ‘It was a happy moment because we thought we were going to be free,’ he says. But when the Americans didn’t come, ‘we were disenchanted for quite a few years. We just hated Eisenhower. Not America, just the president.’ Some 200,000 Hungarians fled to the West, but others, like Csato’s family, remained in their homeland. ‘By the time my family realized the Americans were not coming, it was too late to leave,’ Csato says. ‘[The Russians] secured the border. People could leave but it was a lot more dangerous.’ Csato left Hungary eight years later in 1964, when he was 20. ‘I left with the Hungarian water polo team,’ he says. ‘I went to the ’64 Olympics [in Tokyo] and I ‘forgot’ to go back. I defected.’ The Hungarians won the gold medal that year but Csato wasn’t interested in returning home to celebrate. The government sentenced him to seven years in jail for defecting. Csato lived in Vienna for three years before moving to the United States. It wasn’t until 1970 that he was able to arrange a visit to see his mother in Vienna, where he introduced her to his wife, Alexia, a Frenchwoman he had met and married in California. His parents later visited them twice in the U.S. Csato and Alexia, both hairstylists, opened Peter Csato Coiffeurs in Santa Monica Canyon in 1969, and were there for 2-1/2 years before moving up to the Palisades, where they lived for many years. Their daughter, Celeste, is a singer/songwriter who teaches vocal lessons here. Hungary was still under Communist rule when Csato returned for the first time in 1972. Not yet an American citizen, he worried that he would not be able to leave his home country once officials knew he was there. ‘It was a horrible experience going through the border,’ he remembers. ‘I said to myself, ‘Why am I going back to the cage?’ Because who knows, they could just keep me.’ At the border, officials recognized his name, took his papers to a separate room ‘for what felt like an eternity’ and then waved him through the gate. ‘I thought for sure they were following me,’ he says. ‘I really wanted to know that I could leave again with the papers, legally. I had nightmares for days; it was really uncomfortable. It’s amazing what your mind can do.’ Csato crossed back over the border to Austria after just one week in his home and discovered, much to his relief, that leaving was a simple process. ‘There were several gates’those heavy, metal gates, and no-man’s land, just minefields,’ he says. ‘When we passed the last gate into Austria, I said, ‘I’m free again.” Csato’s parents have since passed away, but his sister still lives in Eger, where they own a house together and a winery. ‘It’s like the West now,’ he says, ‘it’s like going to Vienna or Paris. Most of the buildings are restored. It’s such a good feeling to go back.’ The 50-year anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution caused Csato to reflect on the power of ‘this little country rising up against a huge country like the Soviet Union.’ ‘It was unbelievable,’ he says, ‘what the desperation to be free does to people.’

Laurie David and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., two active environmentalists and leaders in educating the public about global warming, spoke last week at the Bellarmine Forum on Environmental Responsibility at Loyola Marymount University. They both talked about what we can do as individuals. David, a Pacific Palisades resident and producer of Al Gore’s ‘An Inconvenient Truth,’ suggested that we should act like global warming activists and shift our attitude and behavior. ‘It’s about change,’ she said, and she gave attendees some good examples: 1) Change incandescent light bulbs for compact fluorescents (cfls). David stated that if everyone changed five light bulbs, that would be the same as taking eight million cars off the road for a year. (Note: you can buy cfls at Norris Hardware, Home Depot, and IKEA. You’ll save money too, because they use less electricity and last longer.) 2) Unplug your cell phone charger when it’s not in use; 3) Replace your toilet paper and paper towels with environmentally friendly products. Save the trees that filter CO2. (You can buy these products at Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s). 4) Don’t use paper napkins made from virgin timber. Save the trees. (You can buy alternatives at Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s or use cloth napkins.) 5) Buy hybrid cars. 6) Turn off the lights if you are not in the room. David said that 60 percent of our energy is from coal, which is the leading cause of global warming. 7) Bring your own coffee cup to Starbucks. 8) Reduce your carbon footprint. (You can Google that or read an upcoming article here.) 9) Bring your own garment bag to the dry cleaner. Bring a canvas bag to the grocery store. David stated that Americans use 100 billion plastic bags per year and less than one percent are recycled. 10) Get off catalogue lists. Americans receive 17 billion of them per year. (Two ways to get off these lists: call the number on the catalogue, or write to Mailing Preference Service, Direct Marketing Association, P.O. Box 643, Carmel, NY 15012-0643.) 11) Support an environmental group. 12) Become an environmental activist. The solution is YOU! Kennedy, a noted environmental lawyer and author (‘Crimes Against Nature,’ ‘The Riverkeepers’) said we need to protect the environment because nature enriches us, is the infrastructure of our community, and the source of our values. He discussed how pollution from coal-burning plants results in asthma of the local residents and mercury contamination in fish. He called on the attendees to protect the environment for our own sakes, reminding everyone that we are the emissaries for future generations. One thing you, the reader, can do is to sign up for ‘green power’ today at ladwp.com. If you have a business, consider how you can be more sustainable. Remember, we all can be environmentalists! (Suggestions for the Save Our Earth column can be sent to senior editor Libby Motika at lifestyle@palipost.com)

Assembly candidate Julia Brownley and Congressman Henry Waxman rode a swell of national Democratic support to landslide victories Tuesday night. Waxman swamped Republican candidate David Nelson Jones with 71.4 percent or 130,787 votes. Jones earned 26.5 percent or 48,614 votes. Waxman has represented Pacific Palisades and West L.A. in Congress since 1974, and he has not earned less than 70 percent of the vote for the past several elections. Democratic victory in the House of Representatives means a powerful new role for the popular Congressman. Waxman is expected to become the chair of the Government Reform Committee, which oversees nearly every nook of the government. Waxman told the Palisadian-Post last month that he would use his new position to investigate the fraud and abuse of taxpayer money by the Bush Administration. He said that investigating the government’s contracts in Iraq and post-Katrina New Orleans with contractors like Halliburton and Bechtel could lead his agenda. Brownley’s race ends a $2 million campaign to replace termed-out Assemblywoman Fran Pavley (D-Agoura Hills). She won with 62.6 percent or 65,133 votes. Republican challenger Tony Dolz earned 34.3 percent or 35,765 votes. ‘I want to start making California a better place for working families,’ said Brownley at an election-night party in Santa Monica. ‘I also want to do something big for education.’ Her success in the general election was not a surprise in the overwhelming Democratic district, which stretches from Santa Monica to Oxnard and includes Agoura Hills, Calabasas and Woodland Hills. Brownley won an expensive and competitive Democratic primary against four competitors last June. The support of environmental groups, labor unions and almost every local Democratic club help her secure a surpsingly decisive victory. But voters in the general election, which pit anti-illegal immigration activist Dolz against education-advocate Brownley, saw virtually no serious campaigning. Dolz campaigned exclusively against illegal immigration and he thought that the issue would draw massive crossover support from the district’s Democrats. Brownley’s campaign focused on increasing education funding, strengthening environmental laws and expanding mass transportation. When the liberal Democrat assumes office in January, fulfilling her campaign pledges will require the cooperation of overwhelmingly reelected Governor Schwarzenegger, a Republican. Outgoing Assemblymember Fran Pavley endorsed Brownley and is planning to run for the state senate in 2008.