I went to jail for speaking truth to power at Cal Poly Humboldt

Earlier this month, I distributed the latest issue of my newspaper, Free Reading, titled ‘Cal Poly Coverup,’ on the Cal Poly Humboldt campus. I also made a statement to the University Senate about the administration’s repeated efforts to silence me. Minutes later, I was arrested the chief of the campus cops for no legitimate reason, and spent a harrowing week in jail.

Last fall I published an issue of Free Reading titled ‘Two Staples and the Truth,’ that detailed a lifetime of abuse by my biological father, Peter Lehman, a retired faculty member and research director, and, I understand, a major donor to Cal Poly Humboldt. That was when the cascade of retaliation from the university administration began, which you can read about in ‘Cal Poly Coverup,’ which is posted on this substack. You can also read ‘Two Staples,’ here, but since there are not really any staples in cyberspace, it's titled ‘The Truth of my Life.’

They administration has clearly been trying to silence me since I published ‘Two Staples,’ but I haven't actually done anything that they could justifiably punish me for, except that I posted, one time, “unauthorized” flyers on campus. I met with an associate dean, Ms. Honig, who issued me a warning about the flyers, and I said I wouldn’t do it again.

After the meeting, the disciplinary hold on my student account remained in place, making it impossible for me to register for classes. This hold has now been in place continually for the past seven months, although the Dean of Students office changed the effective date of the hold, from December ’24 to March ’25, without telling me. I have repeatedly asked Ms. Honig, in writing, why there is still a hold on my account, and have received only evasive answers.

After our meeting, Associate Dean Honig sent me an email ordering me not to distribute Free Reading on campus. After some consideration, I wrote back and explained that I could not able comply with the censorship order, because it was unAmerican. The press and speech freedoms gaurnteed to all by the First Amendment of the Constitution apply even, and especially, when publishing a report, and speaking out about abuse, that wealthy and powerful people would rather keep quiet.

I have distributed Free Reading on campus since I published the first issue in 2002, and it was never an issue before, not until I published ‘Two Staples and the Truth,’ which embarrassed my biological father, a wealthy university donor.

Despite the administration’s threats, I distributed the latest issue of Free Reading, ‘Cal Poly Coverup,’ on campus. They knew they couldn’t punish me directly for doing that, because of the press freedoms in the Constitution, so the administration found a backhanded way to go about the dirty work of retaliation.

I received a nice email from a faculty member, inviting me to the University Senate meeting, and asking me to make a public statement about my latest report, ‘Cal Poly Coverup.’ I did so, and you can read my statement here, reconstructed from my speaking notes:

After leaving the meeting, I think I may have been followed by someone in plain clothes. I walked my usual route across the footbridge and up G Street in Arcata. University Chief of Police Greg Allen, in uniform, popped out from behind the corner of the ramen shop, blocking my path on the sidewalk. He said my name.

I said, “Am I being detained?”

He said, “Yes.”

As he was handcuffing, frisking, and transporting me to county jail in Eureka, Allen explained to me that he arrested me because of a restraining order that my biological father has against me. He claimed that because my bio dad is a retired employee of the university, the entire campus counts as “his workplace,” and I had violated the order by attending the Senate meeting.

I was aware of the restraining order, but it did not concern me, and I did not contest it, because I have absolutely no desire to be in physical proximity to my biological father, and have been avoiding all contact with him for over a decade. Since 2012, the only times I have seen him have been by chance, in public, and on all those occasions I have avoided him.

I rematriculated at Humboldt in the Fall of 2023, and have not seen my biological father on campus since then. I have been attending classes, working on my degree, normally, just like anyone else. Nobody had any kind of problem with me being there until I published ‘Two Staples and the Truth.’

The absurd theory that Allen used to arrest me dissolved at the first touch of scrutiny. Writing from jail, with a pencil stub, on lined paper that I traded part of my horrible jail dinner to get, I sent a petition for a writ of habeas corpus to the judges of the Humboldt County Superior Court, explaining that my arrest was clearly retaliatory and a violation of Constitutional press and speech freedoms, and Allen’s charge was not filed by the DA's office.

I was also held on two other misdemeanor charges, stemming from a curious incident two and a half years ago. I am working on a report about that incident and may publish it soon: I think astute readers, particularly those interested in certain types of tactics, will find it quite interesting.

(I wish I had more time to write all of this, particularly because it takes a great deal of energy to address these subjects, especially when I am working quickly. It took me nine months to write ‘Two Staples and the Truth,’ waking up early every day to write a little more, filling up notebook after notebook.)

The old misdemeanor charges I was held on, I have been told by the District Attorney’s office, should have been ‘cite and release,’ meaning that Chief Allen should have given me a ticket with a court date on it, and let me go. But I was already in jail because of the absurd charge Chief Allen was not filed by the DA's office, and I remained in jail on the other charges.

(UPDATE - I was released from jail after one week, and the additional charges against me were dismissed by the Humboldt County Superior Court on June 6th.)

Last Friday (May 23rd) , I filed a formal grievance, within the university system, against Chief Allen, for retaliatory behavior, and for violating the speech and press freedoms of First Amendment. As a partial remedy for these violations, I have requested a formal, written apology from acting university president Michael Spagna.

Mr. Spagna was there at the University Senate meeting, while I described how his administration has tried to silence me for telling the truth about my biological father, a wealthy donor. I have to assume he knew full well that I was about to be ambushed with an unConstitutional arrest by his university police department, and jailed during graduation week. (If he didn’t know what Chief Allen was about to do to me, that’s a whole other kind of failure of leadership.)

Mr. Spagna, who is lauded on the university website as a cultivator of large donations, sat there, while I spoke about the pain his administration’s coverup has caused me, looking quite the university president, with his well-fed (at California taxpayer’s expense) cheeks, prim collar, and tousled, distinguished hair, and I don’t think he looked at me even once.

In time, I hope Mr. Spagna may learn it is unacceptable that his administration tried to silence my voice and violate my rights as an American.