‘I do not feel safe': City College of S.F. instructor shaken by union leader's verbal attack
An instructor at City College of San Francisco says she is concerned for her safety a week after a union leader ridiculed her Jewish name and called her a 'colonizer' during a 90-second, expletive-laden rant at a public board meeting as the school's trustees looked on.
'The trustees don't have my back,' Abigail Bornstein, a computer science instructor, told the Chronicle on Wednesday. 'I'm out here on my own.'
In addition to calling Bornstein a 'colonizer,' an apparent reference to Israel, Maria Salazar-Colon, president of the campus chapter of the Service Employees International Union Local 1021, mocked Bornstein's name, calling her 'Abigail Dumbstein.'
Bornstein reported the May 29 incident to the college's human resources department and, on Wednesday, to campus police Chief Mario Vazquez, saying in the email she shared with the Chronicle: 'I do not feel safe on campus.'
The union is powerful, she added: 'This is David vs. Goliath.'
By not halting the verbal attack, the board appeared to violate its own policy recommending that the trustees bar 'profanity, obscenity, and other offensive language' at meetings, Bornstein said in her police report.
City College is under a warning sanction for three accreditation violations by its trustees — including that they fail to follow their own policies.
Although the college is fully accredited, it has been unable to receive a seven-year extension of its accreditation since January 2024, when the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges slapped it with the warning, its mildest sanction.
College officials told the accreditors in February that they are addressing the trustees' violations, including by trying to hire a permanent chancellor to replace the interim chancellor who has held the position for the past year. The accreditors were meeting Thursday and Friday to determine whether to lift the sanction, extend it or add to it.
The accreditors told the Chronicle they are also looking carefully at City College's efforts to hire a chancellor, a process that has stalled just three weeks before the interim leader is expected to vacate the position.
Asked Wednesday why the college's Board of Trustees did not stop the verbal attack on the instructor, Anita Martinez, the board's president, told the Chronicle that she had referred the question to City College interim President Mitchell Bailey.
Bailey then shared a statement from Martinez and Luis Zamora, the board's vice president, supporting civility and apologizing 'to those who experienced such incivility.'
The incident happened shortly after 11 p.m. at the trustees' last board meeting, after Bornstein began speaking at hour 6:57:50 on the recording.
Bornstein, who frequently addresses the trustees about the college's precarious budget, spent her two-minute time slot opposing something that the SEIU — which represents hundreds of staff members — dearly wants: for the college to reopen its contract negotiations and provide a raise to match the 14% pay increase won by the faculty union over the past three years.
Basing salary decisions on the idea that 'if they get that, I get this — that is not how we should be budgeting,' Bornstein said, urging the board to instead adjust pay based on what the competition earns elsewhere.
After another speaker a few minutes later, Salazar-Colon, the union president, told the trustees that she was going to speak about 'that big mouth that's always in here.'
'I really wish that that colonizer, Abigail Dumbstein, would shut her damn mouth and not speak on SEIU items,' Salazar-Colon said, saying the instructor was 'dumber than a bag of rocks.'
Salazar-Colon said Bornstein shouldn't meddle in fiscal issues, which she called 'our damn business.' She then said Bornstein should 'shut the f— up. … I'm sick of her s—. Shut the f— up.'
One of the trustees, Aliya Chisti, interjected: 'President Martinez, we need to make sure that we're mindful of the comments that are being made.'
But Salazar-Colon was allowed to go on.
'I'm gonna make whatever comment I want because I'm tired of it,' she said, criticizing the trustees for allowing Bornstein to frequently address the board, and urging them to 'put her in her place.'
Bornstein later told the Chronicle that the 'attack on me was so vile. President Martinez should have hit her gavel within the first five seconds when Maria said 'that colonizer Abigail Dumbstein.' She did nothing.'
Salazar-Colon told the Chronicle she was referring questions to a spokesperson, who sent a response on behalf of the union leader:
'While the wording could have been different, the intention was not to disparage anyone's religion or culture but express an ongoing frustration with Ms. Bornstein, based on her repeated undermining of our union's efforts to lift up (college staff) of all religions, cultures, and backgrounds.'
Bornstein also reported to the police and to the trustees that she received a follow-up email from Salazar-Colon that she considered threatening for its aggressive tone and because it concluded: 'Good riddance.'
That email, which Bornstein shared with the Chronicle, demanded that Bornstein 'stop with your deranged, racist, elitist, horrible, filthy lies that come out of your spiteful mouth! It seems like you might be feeling a bit envious!'
The email said, in all capital letters, 'YOU LACK THE POWER TO STOP OR CONTROL SEIU, AND YOU NEVER WILL! ACCEPT THAT, COLONIZER!'
Bornstein later emailed the board, saying that she had not slept well since the meeting and the 'antisemitic, vile attack on me.'
Darlene Alioto, chair of the college's Department Chairpersons Council, criticized the board's tolerance of the attack in an email to the trustees that she shared with the Chronicle. The message was one of many calls and emails the board received condemning the attack.
'This behavior would not be allowed in my classroom; this behavior would not be allowed in my home. Why is it allowed at board meetings?' Alioto wrote, calling the board's acceptance of the rant 'disgusting' and Salazar-Colon's follow-up email to Bornstein 'antisemitic.'
In their apology, Martinez and Zamora acknowledged that the trustees 'did not do enough to uphold the standards of respect that our community deserves.' Going forward, they wrote, the board 'will no longer tolerate such behavior' and was 'committed to reinforcing the expectation that all voices can be heard without fear of intimidation or harm.'
The accrediting commission, which was meeting this week, has 30 days to issue its decision about the status of City College's sanction.
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