The problem with opening one door is that it opens others.

CSU’s trustees must fire Harlan Sands and Lee Fisher for managing a law school that encourages anti-American law breaking anarchism in students

The law breaking associated with the attack on Chief Justice John Marshall's name should alarm Clevelanders that law students are not being taught a respect for laws at a law school where they're studying to become future judges and prosecutors

CLEVELAND, OH – Attorney Lee Fisher is the dean of the John Marshall College of Law.   He is not a member of the Cleveland State University board of trustees.  He oversees a department of a state-funded university organized under Ohio’s constitution and general laws found in Title 3344 of the Revised Code and the Ohio Administrative Code.  It’s where the easy to read laws and rules for managing state universities are found.

For the purposes of his official role Fisher’s the chief academic and administrative officer of a college of law we know has mis-educated some of this area’s non-reading, incompetent and civil rights abusing attorneys, prosecutors and judges. What is the ratio of CSU law school graduates being stripped of law licenses in contrast to other law schools?  How many innocent Americans are imprisioned because of lawyer, prosecutor and judicial misconduct learned under deans like Fisher and campus presidents like Harlan Sands, Michael Schwartz and others at what is now a Jewish controlled state university?

The agreements they’ve entered with the Communist Chinese government to operate a Confucius Institute from inside the state university are not lawful.  Their discussions with the foreign government officials violate the Logan and Espionage Act.

Exhibit 1: Dean Lee Fisher admits he acted, immediately, to an “online petition” to remove United States Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall’s name from the Cleveland State University law school instead of directing disruptive students to follow the process authorized by law for introducing proposals to the board of trustees.

According to the law school’s “Meet C/M Law” page on the Cleveland State University website, Fisher learned “in the summer of 2020″ about a petition “urging CSU Cleveland-Marshall and UIC John Marshall Law School to remove any reference to Chief Justice John Marshall in our law schools’ names because of Chief Justice Marshall’s association with slavery.”  The next sentence reads as follows:

Dean Fisher immediately formed a Law School Name Committee consisting of faculty, staff, students, and alumni to seek wide input, develop findings and options, and make a recommendation for consideration about whether “Marshall,” named after Chief Justice John Marshall, should be removed from our Law School’s name, and if so, a recommendation about the new name of our Law School.

The online petition was created by a Palestinian immigrant named Mousa Hanna Kassis who claimed to have been “from Youngstown.”  Fisher took the request from an immigrant whose Palestinian countrymen owned slaves until 1948 seriously.  It didn’t matter that the duplicitous source of Kassis’ information about Chief Justice Marshall came from the president of a Jewish college named for the slave trafficking “Gratz” family of Kentucky and Pennsylvania.   Paul Finkelman.

Exhibit 2: The above state law Behavior Policies apply to the two anarchist students whose online petition was not a lawfully authorized process for introducing proposals to the board of trustees.  

Fisher, who is also Jewish, has thus far taken no action to publicly call out Finkelman on his hypocrisy.  Kassis’ anarchist partner in drama, Emily Elizabeth Forsee, has ignorantly condemned EJBNEWS for publicly exposing the double standard of the attack on Marshall’s name; while nothing is said about the “Levin” surname associated with Maxine Goodman Levin Isaac and Jacob Levin were prolific ship-owning purchasers of African men, women and children like my kidnapped and enslaved for life ancestors.   If Marshall’s name must go because he owned slaves then so must Levin’s because they kidnapped and purchased African men, women and children from Africa and sold them to men like Marshall around the world.

For “Dean Fisher” to “immediately” form a “law school name committee” in the summer of 2020 he needed the legal authority to do so in the form of a resolution of approval from the “board of trustees.”  Rule 3344-1-05(D) of the Ohio Administrative Code, under the heading “Miscellaneous,” is an unsuspended state general law giving the “board of trustees” exclusive authority to “name university buildings and structures.”

Naming of buildings.  The board of trustees shall name university buildings and structures pursuant to the rules and regulations promulgated by the board.”

You’ve now just read that the “dean” of Cleveland State University’s law school is not identified in a general law as an official authorized to engage himself in the “naming of buildings.”  Neither is the campus president … Sands.

Exhibit 3: The online petition ex-student Mousa Hanna Kassis created to smear the name of Chief Justice Thomas Marshall.  It is not the letter a “student” was authorized to write to the Secretary of the board of trustees to review his proposal.

The board of trustees could have given Sands and/or Fisher the authority to create a “naming committee” and to “make recommendations” to them under its rules.  But each administrative bureaucrat had to seek and receive publicly-approved permission during a public and recorded meeting that was noticed with an agenda.  No unsuspended state general law gave either campus bureaucrat, Sands or Fisher, the authority to bypass the board of trustees.  Their acts, together, operate in conspiracy under the color of law to obstruct the university’s official business by violating the constitutional rights of its officers.

There is a procedure for Fisher to have received approval for his “naming committee” found in Rule 3344-1-05(G) of the Ohio Administrative Code.  It lets someone “other than a board member or president” submit a request to the board of trustee’s secretary 7 days prior to a meeting.  Fisher still needed a board of trustee member to introduce his written request in writing to the other members before the meeting.  The unsuspended state general law reads as follows:

Business to be considered at meetings. Any proposed action, which is to be introduced by a board member or the president of the university that will substantially affect the university, shall be timely presented to the other board members in writing prior to the meeting at which the matter is to be considered by the board. Any matters coming to the board, other than from a board member or from the president of the university, shall be presented in writing to the secretary of the board at least seven days prior to the meeting at which it is to be considered by the board.”

What the minutes reveal in the 6 meetings the board of trustees scheduled for 2020 is that Fisher made no requests to them in the manner spelled out by law for “any proposed action.”  Fisher’s name doesn’t appear in the minutes as being present for any meeting in 2020.  The minutes don’t show Sands referencing his committee in his president’s report.   The absence of a formal request to the board tells me Fisher exceeded the authority of his “unclassified” public employment as a dean.  It affirms that he obstructed the official business of the board of trustees.  It serves as evidence that he engaged in “theft  in office” with public funds to aid “disruptive” students in smearing Chief Justice Marshall’s name.

Paul Finkelman is the author of a book attacking the character of a man who’s been dead for 187 years.  He’s also the president of Gratz College in Pennsylvania that’s named after the slave trafficking Gratz family of Kentucky.  Gratz College must be renamed. 

Since I served for four years as East Cleveland’s mayor, I have read and applied the Supreme Court of Ohio case the city fought against the Frisbie Company in 1918.  Frisbie company had installed water and sewer lines in the Doan allotment in the Doan and Hayden area in East Cleveland.  The village council failed to follow public bidding laws in awarding Frisbie Company the contract.

A population increase to 10,000 qualified East Cleveland to be a city so the new mayor and council voted not to pay Frisbie because village officials violated public bidding laws.  It was decided on May 14, 1918.  120 N.E. 309 (Ohio 1918) 98 Ohio St. 266 The Frisbie Company v. The City Of East Cleveland.  Our state’s highest court set forth the following instructions to individuals dealing with public officials when Frisbie Company officials learned they had a duty to know their receipt of the contract was unlawful.

“It is incumbent upon persons dealing with public officers to ascertain whether their proposed action falls within the scope of their authority, and whether the requirements of law affecting a contract proposed to be entered into have been complied with.”

What I’ve done is what I believe Chief Justice Marshall would have done.  I read the state statutes that Fisher and 29 legal minds on his naming committee appear to have ignored to learn if naming the university was within his unclassified public job’s statutory authority.  That includes the municipal court, court of common pleas and court of appeals judges who appear to have joined his team without question.  It includes the non-reading college of law students for whom Fisher is responsible for setting academic standards; and who he appears to be miseducating.  A non-reading law student today is a non-reading and civil rights violating attorney, prosecutor and judge tomorrow.

Cleveland Marshall College of Law anarchist and student Emily Elizabeth Forsee should be charged with “disruption” for her attempt to influence Cleveland State University’s board using a process that exists far outside unsuspended state general laws she has not read.  A review of the Students Against Marshall Instagram page exposes how she hides evidence.  Only the “favorable” press coverage is included on the SAM Instagram page.  Press that doesn’t support her view is labeled “bigoted and hateful.”  These are the traits of a future civil rights violating lawyer, prosecutor and judge Forsee’s learning at Cleveland State University.

From everything I’ve read in the local media about the topic of removing Marshall’s name, no member of the committee or member of the board of trustees raised the question of Fisher’s authority to create a naming committee.  Reporters didn’t ask.  They just jumped on board or accepted and promoted his misconduct without question.

What’s pathetic is Fisher was once Ohio’s Attorney General and the overseer of legal opinions; and he’s engaged in anarchism as he aids student anarchists.  The 2020 meeting minutes don’t show the board of trustees asking any questions about the public drama.

The criticism of Chief Justice Marshall – who’s been dead for 187 years – is that he read and strictly obeyed laws as they were written whether they favored one side or the other on the subject of slavery.  His critics claim he misused his public office to benefit his interests.  They say he was a hypocrite.   If the standards being applied to Marshall are applied to Fisher and his 29-member naming committee, both he and they should face criminal charges for violating two Ohio Revised Code statutes.  So should Sands.

Section 2921.31 “Obstructing official business.”  (A) No person, without privilege to do so and with purpose to prevent, obstruct, or delay the performance by a public official of any authorized act within the public official’s official capacity, shall do any act that hampers or impedes a public official in the performance of the public official’s lawful duties.(B) Whoever violates this section is guilty of obstructing official business. Except as otherwise provided in this division, obstructing official business is a misdemeanor of the second degree. If a violation of this section creates a risk of physical harm to any person, obstructing official business is a felony of the fifth degree.

Section 2921.44(E) “Dereliction of duty.”  (E) No public servant shall recklessly fail to perform a duty expressly imposed by law with respect to the public servant’s office, or recklessly do any act expressly forbidden by law with respect to the public servant’s office.

The Cleveland State University board of trustees gave Harlan Sands a 20 percent bonus in 2020; but they didn’t vote on a resolution in any public meeting to give him permission to assign Dean Lee Fisher to create a 29-member naming committee to study renaming John Marshall College of Law. 

It appears from the “Students Against Marshall” Instagram page that Fisher had a conversation with Cleveland State University’s president, Sands, and proceeded.  Sands is a board of trustees’ employee with no vote or authority to assign himself the legislative body’s duties.  Section 3344-01-05(L) as it sets forth the rules for “standing committees” reads as follows:

“Member and committee authority. No trustee or committee shall have authority to commit the board of the university to any policy, action or agreement unless specifically granted such authority by the full board.”

There’s also no evidence in the 2020 minutes that Sands took the matter of the naming committee to the board of trustees; and asked for permission  to proceed with his “alleged” instructions to Fisher.  The Fisher committee is not even referenced in Sands’ final draft of the CSU 2.0 Task Force report.  There’s a reference to “branding” but nothing that specifically addresses Fisher and his naming committee.

What’s left is the conclusion that “the dean” of the Jewish controlled Cleveland State University’s law school acted without statutory authority when he decided to immediately respond to a Palestinian immigrant’s online petition.  If Palestinian voices are so powerful then it makes no sense that they’re being slaughtered out of the homes they own in Palestine by members of Fisher’s faith in Israel.

Fisher’s duty-exceeding acts raise two possibilities.  One is that Fisher failed to consult with the statutes.  Two is that Fisher did read the state’s unsuspended general laws and recklessly ignored them.

There are two Mousa Hanna Kassis’ who live in the Youngstown area; but whose origins are to the Gaza in Palestine. To the left is the former disruptive John Marshall College of Law student who is now a practicing attorney for the late David Brennan’s law firm. On the right is his Youngstown State University business development center father.

Fisher is the dean of a law school named for a Supreme Court Chief Justice who scholars acknowledge made reading laws and understanding their intent before ruling a fundamental requirement of statutory construction.  The idea that Fisher did not read or first seek board of trustee approval before he acted should be viewed as curve-graded offensive for a law school dean.  He’s setting a horrible example for law school students and demeaning Chief Justice Marshall’s legacy of establishing high reading standards for jurists.  Failing to read and exceeding the duties of a public office is worse for Fisher since he was once the elected state attorney general. He knows better.

The committee Fisher created acted without authority so it makes the 29-members co-conspirators in his “color of law” obstruction since all had a duty to verify the validity of Fisher’s authority before accepting an appointment.  A retired judge who did not read the board of trustees’ 2020 minutes to learn if Fisher’s committee was authorized and approved in the manner spelled out in laws is just as derelict and obstructive as Fisher.  Again.  A Marshall standard those criticizing him failed to meet.

Let’s look at the full effect of Fisher’s insubordinate and obstructive behavior on the two anarchist students.  Kassis and Forsee.   The two students called themselves grieving the law college’s name; but they did so far outside the “statutorily authorized” process identified in Section 3344-83 of the Ohio Administrative Code.  The state general laws I’ve just referenced exist as their “student code of conduct.”

Had Chief Justice Marshall been alive, I am 1000 percent confident he would have read, like I did, Title 3344.01 of the Ohio Revised Code to learn that state lawmakers put two students on the board of trustees.  Referring back to Rule 3344-1-05(G) of the Ohio Administrative Code, it gave both Kassis and Forsee the authority to propose an action through either of the two student trustees.

Exhibit 4: Future non-reading lawyers created a disruptive Instagram page instead of writing a letter to the secretary of the board of trustees to propose a change in the name of the law school.

They were required, had they read and obeyed the Student Code of Conduct, to submit their “name change request” in writing to the secretary of the board at least seven days prior to the meeting they wanted it considered by the board.  Their two student board of trustee representatives were then empowered to timely present Kassis and Forsee’s request to the other board members in writing prior to the meeting they wanted it considered by the board.  Read Section 3344.01 of the Ohio Revised Code.

Two of the trustees shall be students at the Cleveland state university, and their selection and terms shall be in accordance with division (B) of this section. Except for the student members, terms of office shall be for nine years, commencing on the second day of May and ending on the first day of May. (B) The student members of the board of trustees of the Cleveland state university have no voting power on the board. Student members shall not be considered as members of the board in determining whether a quorum is present. Student members shall not be entitled to attend executive sessions of the board. The student members of the board shall be appointed by the governor, with the advice and consent of the senate, from a group of five candidates selected pursuant to a procedure adopted by the university’s student governments and approved by the university’s board of trustees. The initial term of office of one of the student members shall commence on May 2, 1988 and shall expire on May 1, 1989, and the initial term of office of the other student member shall commence on May 2, 1988 and expire on May 1, 1990. Thereafter, terms of office of student members shall be for two years, each term ending on the same day of the same month of the year as the term it succeeds. In the event that a student member cannot fulfill a two-year term, a replacement shall be selected to fill the unexpired term in the same manner used to make the original selection.

In exchange for admission to Cleveland State University, both agreed to abide by Ohio’s general laws whether they’ve read them or not.  Section 3344-83 of the Ohio Administrative Code and the Student Code of Conduct are identical in language.  The following language is what both Kassis and Forsee certified to reading with their signatures.

Students accept the rights and obligations set forth in this chapter and other university rules, regulations, and policies when they are admitted to the university. Students are also subject to the laws of the state of Ohio and the regulations, codes of honor and conduct and academic standards of any unit within the university to which the student belongs.

Instead of responding to their unofficial “online petition” Fisher should have directed the two non-reading students to their two student board of trustee members and to Rule (A) of 3344-83-01 of the Ohio Administrative Code.  The online petition should have been seen as a rule violation instead of as a trigger for his obstruction of official business.

“Disruption” – interrupting or disrupting an authorized university function or academic activity that impedes the normal continuation of that activity; or interfering with the freedom of movement of any member of the university community, guest, or visitor of the university or impeding or interfering with the rights of any person to enter, use or leave any university facility, or authorized university function or impeding or interfering with right of any university official to perform normal functions and duties.

If his actions are viewed in the most compliant light, Fisher criminally encouraged students to ignore unsuspended state general laws in their use of an orchestrated smear campaign to pressure the board of trustees into cancelling the name of Chief Justice Marshall.  Every unsuspended state general law Sands, Fisher, Kassis and Forsee ignored was available free and online for them to review before they negligently and recklessly ignored them.   Their “state of  mind” was not on honoring their respective “oaths.”

Cleveland Councilman Kevin Conwell did no homework and asked for no hearings before introducing an emergency resolution to remove John Marshall’s name from a high school outside the ward he serves.  I’m willing to bet Conwell failed to discuss it with Brian Kazy.  Conwell’s lack of studiousness has been my greatest disappointment in him as a supporter of his first two campaigns for the job.  He doesn’t even know the section of Ohio’s general laws that explain why his “emergency resolution” is unlawful and reviewable by a court.

That’s how I believe Chief Justice Marshall would read the laws and evidence before him to describe them all as guilty of exceeding the authority of their public positions.  The horror to Clevelanders is that it’s a law school’s leadership and faculty that’s encouraging and engaging in organized criminal activity.  It explains the lack of real justice in our courts and identifies the source of the law and civil rights violators as the academics.

Strictly enforcing laws as they are written would find Fisher facing a termination hearing before the board of trustees.  Let him explain his misconduct in executive session; but Fisher must be terminated for his insubordinate and disruptive acts.

Read Article 1, Section 18 of the Constitution of Ohio. The heading is “Suspension of laws.”

No power of suspending laws shall ever be exercised, except by the general assembly.

If there’s justice there must be criminal charges filed against Kassis, Forsee, Fisher and Sands.  Fisher and Sands must be terminated.  That would be the “Marshall standard” if laws written in plain and unambiguous English are to be obeyed as written.  A forensic public records request will reveal much.

There is no ambiguity in the unsuspended state general laws I’ve shared.   This is John Marshall 101.  You cannot correctly judge a man 187 years after he’s dead.

[All photos fairly used for educational purposes].

Eric Jonathan Brewer

Cleveland's most influential journalist and East Cleveland's most successful mayor is an East Saint Louis, Illinois native whose father led the city's petition drive in 1969 to elect the first black mayor in 1971. Eric is an old-school investigative reporter whose 40-year body of editorial work has been demonstrably effective. No local journalist is feared or respected more.

Trained in newspaper publishing by the legendary Call & Post Publisher William Otis Walker in 1978 when it was the nation's 5th largest Black-owned publication, Eric has published and edited 13 local, regional and statewide publications across Ohio. Adding to his publishing and reporting resume is Eric's career in government. Eric served as the city's highest paid part-time Special Assistant to ex-Cleveland Mayor Michael R. White. He served as Chief of Staff to ex-East Cleveland Mayor Emmanuel Onunwor; and Chief of Communications to the late George James in his capacity as the Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority's first Black executive director. Eric was appointed to serve as a member of the state's Financial Planning & Supervision Commission to guide the East Cleveland school district out of fiscal emergency and $20 million deficit. Former U.S. HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson told Eric in his D.C. office he was the only mayor in the nation simultaneously-managing a municipal block grant program. Eric wrote the city's $2.2 million Neighborhood Stabilization Program grant application. A HUD Inspector General audit of his management of the block grant program resulted in "zero" audit findings.

As a newspaper publisher, Eric has used his insider's detailed knowledge of government and his publications to lead the FBI and state prosecutors to investigations that resulted in criminal prosecutions of well-known elected officials in Ohio; and have helped realign Cleveland's political landscape with the defeat of candidates and issues he's exposed. Eric's stories led to the indictments of the late Governor George Voinovich's brother, Paul Voinovich of the V Group, and four associates. He asked the FBI to investigate the mayor he'd served as chief of staff for public corruption; and testified in three federal trials for the prosecution. He forced former Cuyahoga County Coroner Dr. Elizabeth Balraj to admit her investigations of police killings were fraudulent; and to issue notices to local police that her investigators would control police killing investigations. Eric's current work has resulted in Cuyahoga County Judge John Russo accepting the criminal complaint he guided an activist to file against 24 civil rights-violating police officers in the city he once led for operating without valid peace officer credentials. USA Today reporters picked up on Eric's police credentials reporting from his social media page and made it national.

Eric is the author of of his first book, "Fight Police License Plate Spying," which examines the FBI and local police misuse of the National Crime Information Center criminal records history database. An accomplished trumpet player and singer whose friendship with Duke Fakir of the Four Tops resulted in his singing the show's closing song, "Can't Help Myself": Curtis Sliwa of New York's Guardian Angels counts Eric among his founding chapter leaders from the early 1980's role as an Ohio organizer of over 300 volunteer crime fighters in Cleveland, Columbus and Youngstown, Ohio. For his work as a young man Eric was recognized by Cleveland's Urban League as it's 1983 Young Man of the Year.

Known in Cleveland for his encyclopedic knowledge of government and history, and intimately-connected with the region's players, every local major media outlet in Cleveland has picked up on one of Eric's stories since 1979. There is no mainstream newspaper, television or radio outlet in Cleveland that does not include an interview with Eric Jonathan Brewer in its archives over the past 40 years.

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