California State University trustees want the co-founder of Black Lives Matter-Los Angeles, who is a Cal State Los Angeles professor, to appear at a deposition in her lawsuit alleging she was wrongfully removed with force by campus police from a 2022 mayoral debate.
Melinah Abdullah’s Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit alleges battery, assault and false imprisonment. The complaint states that Abdullah “does not take lightly to being a victim of unlawful and dehumanizing conduct endorsed by the institution that she serves, especially as a Black Muslim woman.”
But in court papers filed Friday with Judge Steven Ellis, attorneys for the trustees say they want to take Abdullah’s deposition and she has not cooperated. They want the judge to order Abdullah to be present for a deposition within a week of the scheduled June 28 hearing on the motion and they also want her to pay a $1,000 fine.
“Plaintiff has refused to sit for her deposition and has refused to provide any dates on which she is available to be deposed,” the trustees’ lawyers contend. “Plaintiff has not had good cause or substantial justification for her outright refusal to sit for her deposition.”
Abdullah’s “egregious and evasive behavior is prejudicial” to the trustees, whose attorneys have been prevented from preparing a dismissal motion as well as getting set for trial, which is currently scheduled for Oct. 28, the trustees’ lawyers further contend in their court papers.
Abdullah is a co-founder, core member and chief spokeswoman for BLM-Los Angeles and BLM Grassroots, where she is also the director. She has been a professor in the Department of Pan-African Studies at CSULA for more than 20 years.
A mayoral debate was held at the university on May 1, 2022. Abdullah did not have a ticket, but entered the Student Union Theater with a companion before the event started and when there were many seats available, the suit states.
They sat in the rear of the auditorium, and prior to the debate, Raphael Sonenshein, executive director of the university’s Edmund G. Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs, approached Abdullah and said, “This is a ticketed event,” the suit states.
Abdullah removed her coronavirus mask, smiled and said, “Hi, Raphe, it’s me,” according to the suit, which further states that the two were colleagues and friends for more than two decades.
Sonenshein allegedly called the campus police to have Abdullah removed and at least four officers “forcibly and aggressively carried her away, with an officer pulling at each of her limbs,” the suit filed last May 1 states.
“No event organizer or mayoral candidate on the stage — a few of whom Abdullah called by name — responded to assist,” according to the suit.
Onlookers outside the first floor of the building could see through the glass what was happening, but campus police allegedly locked the front door, preventing anyone from entering, the suit states.
The officers told Abdullah they were going to arrest her, but instead she was released because the crowd had gathered at the back door, the suit states.
But according to the trustees’ attorneys’ pleadings, Abdullah entered the event without authorization, so she was physically removed by uniformed public safety officers and escorted away. She filed her lawsuit in retaliation for her removal, the trustees’ lawyers further state.