The Pima Community College administrator, David L. Kutzler, offered his side of the story in lawsuit file by nursing student Terri Bennett last week in an exclusive interview with the Daily Caller. Kutzler, the Arizona school’s nursing program director, denies Bennett’s charges that her rights were violated in his exclusive interview with Eric Owens.
According to Owens, Kutzler said that he has been “deluged with hate mail and violent voice mails” since the TheDC reported about the lawsuit last week. “Some of the hate mailers have actually apologized once they heard my side of the story,” he told Owens.
Kutzler, a retired 20-year veteran of the U.S. Air Force, wrote Owens explaining that the case was not as it appeared to be; no one violated Article 28 of Arizona’s state constitution which establishes English as the official language of the state. In an email exchange with TheDC, Kutzler wrote, “Terri came to me outraged because two classmates were having private conversations in class, to which she was not a party, in Spanish,” Kutzler explained to TheDC. “She demanded that I force students to speak only English to each other.”
Failed gubernatorial candidate, John Munger, of the Tucson based law firm of Munger & Chadwick is representing Bennett who was suspended according to Munger’s filing, for “merely” for asking that students speak English in her classroom and during student projects.
Bennett claims that after making this request, she received a nine-month suspension. Munger also claims that Bennett was also defamed and put in a false light when PCC officials called her a big a “bigot” and a “racist.” They claim Bennett was traumatized and harassed because PCC evicted her from the campus without notice and under threat of police escort.
Kutzler, a retired major, tells Owens that it was Bennett who was the source of acrimony. “Terri began to harass and intimidate other students. I had at least two students in my office in tears, wanting to quit the program because of Terri’s intimidation,” Kutzler alleged in an email to TheDC. “I have a duty to protect my students.”