To summarize the my life in words since March 29, 2018 would be impossible (at least for me). There's been countless news articles and videos of incidents since then to tell the story for me and chances are if you are on this GoFundMe page, you already know most of it. 

With some gentle prodding of friends that support me and love me and want to lessen my legal financial burden, I have opened (re-opened, actually) a GoFundMe account. It feels gratuitous to do so, but my friends are in agreement that this is one way people can help me through this. 

I have had continuous legal expenses in March of 2018, but most recently the biggest burden is because of my Department of Fair Employment & Housing mediation and settlement against my employer, Santa Barbara City College. This particular judgement surrounded me reporting another colleague watching porn in his office, easily viewable from the hallway, and the administration literally telling me (via email) they couldn't do anything about it. From there, others reported it and after a(nother) public blow up, the school "took care of it" by letting the man retire and leave quietly during finals week. 

My "settlement" included no money (not even lawyers fees), but the school did admit to wrong doing, so a number of procedural changes were agreed upon. Because the school dug their heels into the ground over "no financial award, not even lawyers fees," and because I just could not leave that mediation room without being done, I decided to cut my losses and just demand what may be "real change." (As an aside, to date, since the settlement, none of the settlement agreements have been met. Not one.) 

In addition to the months of legal representation I have been paying out of my own pocket, the single mediation day cost me over $11K. The bills were manageable up until my settlement and in addition to not feeling satisfied with the settlement from my Department of Fair Employment claim against SBCC, I got a hefty bill. 

Additionally, I am being sued, along with SBCC, by Celeste Barber. It's hard to wrap my head around that SBCC and I were on opposite sides of the legal table for so long now, and now were on the same side. They have emphatically stated again and again that they will not be supporting me nor representing me for the most recent case. As such, my legal feeswill continue to come.