national lawyers guild guilty?

An open letter to the National Lawyers Guild
in Support of Riva Enteen
from the Midnight Special Law Collective

The current Executive Board of the Bay Area Guild
Chapter is trying to fire Riva Enteen, our Program
Director. The process has been undemocratic; the
politics are suspect. This has severe and
long-reaching implications. The Board has been
operating in secret and has put a gag order on Riva,
preventing members from knowing what is happening and
making it impossible for Riva to present her case for
fear of immediate termination. We have been kept in
the dark for far too long.

As members of the Guild, we call on the membership to
demand a full explanation of events so that, as a
first step, this matter can be brought into the open.
Only through honest open communication can we
democratically resolve this crisis. This is a
political issue and a workers’ issue.

A Political Issue

When Midnight Special joined the Guild, we were
heartened to find that most Guild members show equal
respect to legal workers, and don’t dismiss outspoken
activists as illegitimate or disruptive. We were
excited to be a part of the Guild’s radical history.

But these opinions are not reflected by the Board.
Riva has been demeaned for being a non-lawyer and
called out for her activist leanings and connections.
Riva personifies the radical politics of the Guild.
This is critical especially at a time when our rights
and liberties are under unprecedented attack from all
sides and many progressive organizations are
politically backpedalling out of fear.

A Workers’ Issue

Riva has been at the heart of this chapter for 13
years as Program Director, but instead of supporting
her, the current Board has criticized, second-guessed,
demeaned, and silenced her. The Board has hit Riva
with a gag order, barring her from talking about the
situation. However, we have seen examples of the
Board's unfair and prejudicial treatment toward her
during recent Board meetings.

For Example, during the June 4th Board meeting, a
Board member (Matt Ross) speculated that Riva could be
guilty of “fraud”, and in the same breath accused her
of having a paranoid streak regarding the Board. The
Board has created a four-person committee specifically
to monitor Riva. When the Board talks about Riva
during its meetings, which are open to membership, it
goes into closed-door "executive session". Also, she
has been entirely excluded from the process of
reorganizing her own workplace – a reorganization that
might do away with her position.

We would like to provide more examples, but, as anyone
following the issue knows, these are closely guarded
secrets. What we do know is that this Board has made
Riva miserable for over a year. No worker should be
subjected to these employment conditions, much less a
union member like Riva employed by an organization
like the National Lawyers' Guild.

Riva's Dedication to the Guild

Apart from the secrecy and vitriol on the part of the
Board, what makes this situation even more bizarre is
that their target, Riva, is an exceptional Guild
member and employee. Riva lives and breathes the
Guild’s work.

In 1998, the SF Bay Guardian awarded the Chapter the
“Best Folks to Call if You’re Arrested for Civil
Disobedience Award.” While this is to the credit of
the many lawyer members of the Guild, Riva is the
person who actually connects them to arrested
protestors, making herself available twenty-four hours
a day. The Midnight Special Law Collective often
fields calls from arrested activists late at night,
but 9 times out of 10, we just call Riva, who does all
the follow-through to make sure those activists are
taken care of. Most recently, her skill and
dedication have been decisive factors in Legal Support
to Stop the War's successful ongoing defense of nearly
3000 people arrested throughout the Bay Area while
opposing the US war on Iraq.

In addition to amazing demonstrations support, after
September 11th she started, obtained funding for, and
staffed a legal hotline for immigrants and dissenters
from across the nation who have been contacted by the
FBI and INS. Instead of being intimidated or defeated
in these difficult times, Riva has been successfully
organizing throughout them, even after being called by
the FBI herself.

Riva is a powerful speaker for the Guild about summary
deportations, the Patriot Act, and other threats we
are facing. She has built coalitions between the Guild
and Islamic and Arab organizations to help us fight
back against the current administration's racist
attacks. And she does it all while raising a family
on her modest salary.

The fact that the Board now seeks to fire Riva for
reasons they will not discuss is completely
unacceptable to us as members of the Guild and as
members of the social justice movement.

Act Now

San Francisco is the heart of dissent in America. In
March of this year, the rest of the country and much
of the world looked to the Bay Area's resistance
against the US war on Iraq. This culture of resistance
in the Bay Area is in no small part a result of the
Guild's organized defense of activists. Riva Enteen
has been central to that work, and has been a key
figure in the struggle against the current rise of
facism - we have never needed her more than we do now.

Fellow Guild members, the Executive Board must be held
accountable for how it treats our employees.
Ultimately, it's our responsibility to make sure it
does what's right. Please contact Board members and
ask them what actions they're taking on our behalf.
Attend the monthly Executive Board meetings (the next
one is 8/6) and the annual Membership Meeting in
October. Ignoring these undemocratic actions not only
weakens the Guild, but also undermines the radical
politics of our community. It’s our right and our
responsibility to be informed and involved!


Yours in struggle,

Midnight Special Law Collective
mslc [at] midnightspecial.net


If you want to write statements of support for Riva
from yourself or your organization, you can email them
to supportriva [at] midnightspecial.net.