Gene Bluestein
Bad Old Times at California State University, Fresno

Fired!

There was a woman named Louise Nalbandian in the history department.

The history department was a notorius department. They had never hired any women. They were just an awful outfit. When Henry Madden was the head librarian, he used to give every department a certain amount of money to buy books. The history department never bought any books. So he gave it to the English department and we used their money.

But they hired this woman named Nalbandian. Immediatley, when she came here, she published a book with Stanford University Press, which is a very respectable press. They fired her. They never gave any reason but everybody knew she was the only one who had ever published anything and they were not about to have a woman in the department who was publishing. So, we took that up.

Earl handled this one and he was wonderful. He sent a letter to the history department and he said, "It has just come to my attention that you're planning to fire Nalbandian. I would like to let you know that if you fire her, the English department will hire her to teach Armenian literature." Her field was Armenian history. So we shamed them and they kept her on. Then unfortunately she got killed in a very bad car accident several years later.

Paul Kinzel was working in the French department and there was a monster there who was really after him. He retired not long ago. He was a killer. They decided to fire Paul. They didn't give him any reason. The head was very jealous of him. He also taught French. He just had it in for him. Paul was a very good friend of Earl's. Earl sent a letter to the French department saying, "It has come to our attention that you have fired Paul Kinsel. We would like you to know that if you do, we intend to hire him to teach linguistics." Paul's field, basically, was linguistics, even though he also had a French background.

That was the kind of thing that the English department, with the mafiosos constantly did. We saved endless numbers of people's jobs. Every one of them was worth saving. They had been treated unfairly. That was working up to be the reputation in the university for the Mafiosos in the chemistry department and the English department--trouble makers, and at that time there was a very big hassle.

First, things looked good because Dale Burtner, the main mafioso, was hired as the dean of The School of Arts and Sciences. He was the best dean we had ever had, who literally saved the lives of many people. He was very widely know as the red dean because most of the things that he instituted were incredibly far out. This was the point where we had an experimental college, where any student could submit an idea for a course and if it passed the committee, they would let it be taught for a semester. And if it was a good thing and was picked up by a department, it became a regular course.

 
l-r: Gene Bluestein, Robert Mezey, Peter Everwine, and Philip Levine
performed many benefits as the Fresno Folksong and Poetry quartet.

This was the result of the sixties, when the students were very active and were making many demands. And one of their demands was to have an experimental college. And we had that. I actually, with a black guy--John Stewart, started an Ethnic Studies Department. There was no such thing as Ethnic Studies. We started a black program and a Chicano program with terrific people in it and they were doing wonderful things.

The next thing that happened was somewhat complicated and there are several different points of view that deal with it. It was a question of hiring a guy to teach black studies and this guy was a very controversial figure. I forget his name, it was Marvin X or something. He went on to be a rather well known guy in his field, but very controversial. Dean Burtner supported hiring him and allowed the Black Studies department to hire him. But there were many complaints and they went to the president.

The president was a real chicken shit guy--Frederick Ness. When that issue really came down to a crunch, the president resigned because he didn't have the brains to support it and he also realized that there was going to be a crackdown here and he didn't want to be involved in it.

When he resigned, Reagan hired Karl Falk, a former political scientist who was at the time working for a bank. Reagan decided that this place was too far out and that it had to be wiped out. So he hired Falk to come in and do a hatchet job and fire everyone that he could. Falk came in and gave Dale Burtner three hours to get out of his office. They fired the chair of the English department who was Gene Zumwalt. The year was around 1969. They fired fully, everyone they could who didn't have tenure. The others were just out of their positions. So for example they couldn't fire Dale Burtner but they fired him as dean. They fired Gene Zumwalt as head of the English department. They fired the entire staffs of Black Studies and Chicano Studies. Some of those guys were absolutely terrific guys. They were doing such good work. But they were making a lot noise and complaining a lot and this was just not the kind of place that was going to take care of them. Everyone was fired because they didn't have tenure. Luis Valdez from Teatro Campesino was here. He was fired. Nathan Heard was fired. That was an awful story.

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