ARTICLES

How USD Tried to "Emancipate" My Daughter

SCHOOL PRESIDENT HAYES DENIED INVOLVEMENT

The author, Lesley Payne, is a single mother with two children (Jennifer, 15, and Christopher, 9) and a long-time San Diego resident. She began writing for News Notes in 1993. Last year she moved to Monterey, California.

The scheme was sprung on me in April 1997. For two or three weeks my daughter Jennifer, then 14, had been uncharacteristically rebellious, talking back to me and staying out late. I later found out the beginning of this behavior coincided with the day my mother, Linda, took her to the office of Lee Meyer, director of the Children's Emancipation Clinic at the University of San Diego. According to Jenny, Meyer told her she didn't have to obey me and that he would "emancipate" her.

The big issue with my mother is homeschooling. She had taken me to court three times, trying to get custody of Jennifer over religious disagreements. (My mother is an atheist and an anti-Catholic. I thought my children would nonetheless benefit from a relationship with their grandmother.) For Jennifer, the issue was different: she wanted to go to the public school attended by her latest "crush." I had agreed to put Jennifer in high school the following year for ninth grade, but she wasn't satisifed with the choices we were exploring -- Horizon Christian School, Sierra Madre Academy (Catholic), and Scripps Ranch (one of the few public schools where she could continue her Japanese studies).

At a Girl Scout camp-out in late March, Jenny met a troop leader named Debbie Tierman who put my mother in touch with USD's emancipation clinic. For the next couple of weeks, my mother apparently worked hard on Jennifer to get her to sign the necessary documents. Since Jenny would live with my mother, she was under the impression that she would be allowed to date, see R-rated movies, wear mini-skirts and high heels, and other things I would not allow.

On April 20, I covered a Natural Family Planning conference at Our Lady of Grace parish in El Cajon for News Notes. The kids had been at my mother's. When I returned to her house she was angry and asked where had I been so long. She suggested that I go home and she would bring the kids home later, since she had already started dinner for them. Jennifer said she wanted to come with me so she could see her neighborhood friend Holly. My mother said she had to stay. I should have suspected she was up to something.

I drove home and as I walked through the parking lot of my condominium complex a man in a white Honda Del Sol stopped, got out, and asked if I was Lesley Payne. I smiled at him and said yes, thinking he had something to do with the abortionist Dr. Edward Allred, since I had been in Orange County a few days before looking through malpractice cases against him. Instead the man handed me legal papers for Jenny's emancipation. When I read the complaint, I thought I was going to die.

A hearing was held at nine the next morning downtown at Family Court to consider granting guardianship of Jenny to my mother. This was apparently the first step in filing for emancipation, since the USD lawyer knew the guardianship would be denied. Jennifer's declaration to the court had statements about wanting to go to school and claiming she couldn't do multiplication tables (not true), but Meyer had added to her complaint that I was emotionally and physically abusive. I say Meyer added it because Jenny claims she never said those things and didn't see them on the form when she signed it.

Before the hearing I called Rick Vattuone, a local attorney who does a lot of pro-life work. Even though family law wasn't his area, he said he would appear with me. Just before the hearing, I contacted Jerry Jessop, a family lawyer who had represented me in the past against my mother. He was going to be at the same court session, so he said he would also appear with me.

When the hearing started, Meyer said he was from the University of San Diego Children's Emancipation Clinic, representing Jennifer Payne, who desired that her grandmother be made her guardian. At mention of USD -- the first I had heard at this point -- Rick and I glanced at each other. Rick's a Catholic and a USD Law School graduate.

The judge, Thomas Mitchell, denied the request for guardianship. He questioned whether a court case was the appropriate first step in a family dispute: "[T]hese two ladies ought to go to a mutually acceptable counselor and mediator...not standing at 15 yards, blazing away at each other with legal fire power," he said, according to the hearing transcript. Meyer replied that if the guardianship was refused he would seek to emancipate Jennifer.

"I've raised four children," responded the judge, "and to empower a 14-year-old child to make all their own decisions -- I could give you some analogies that might make your hair turn gray, but that it would be a cold day before I would do that. It's insanity." Mitchell told Meyer that if he insisted on pursing the action, a hearing date for permanent guardianship could be arranged (since this was an emergency temporary guardianship hearing), but Meyer would have to go through the proper procedures, including evaluation by a psychologist at the Family Court. Meyer never pursued this case.

In the hallway after the hearing, Meyer met with Jennifer again and advised her to refuse to return home with me and to remain at Linda's house. I drove straight to the diocesan pastoral center and demanded to see Bishop Brom. It's probably a good thing he wasn't there. I wagged my finger and shouted at the bishop's assistant, Rod Valdivia, that when I had gone to Rome the month before, I had made lots of friends, and if the bishop didn't close down USD's "anti-Fourth Commandment clinic" I would call some of the cardinals I had met, blah, blah, blah. I followed up with an angry letter that same day, threatening civil and canonical lawsuits, with copies sent to four dicasteries in Rome and the papal nuncio.

My outburst resulted in a meeting a couple weeks later with diocesan civil attorney Vince Whelan and canon lawyer Ed Peters. Whelan offered fatherly advice about Jenny, and we agreed that, so long as I didn't write about the situation in News Notes, Bishop Brom would do what he could to get the USD board of directors to investigate the Child Advocacy Institute (of which the Emancipation Clinic is a part) and see if any of its actions are contrary to Church teaching. I spoke with Whelan several times subsequently, but the diocese never took any effective action.

I called Juvenile Court and obtained the name of the judge -- Elizabeth Kutzner -- who grants emancipations. I wrote a four-page letter to her describing the problem, including my suspicion that Jennifer was being manipulated by her grandmother, and faxed it to her office. I didn't know if the court notified parents in these cases, and I wanted to cut them off at the pass. The day after I sent the letter, Jennifer called, apparently feeling guilty. She told me an arrangement with Judge Kutzner was one of the first actions Linda had taken, and that the judge was planning on approving the emancipation at the request of Debbie Tierman, the Girl Scout leader.

I then sent a second fax to Kutzner relaying what Jennifer said and, for good measure, I contacted Assemblyman Steve Baldwin, who called the head judge at Superior Court. The head judge told Baldwin it's illegal to emancipate a minor without notifying the parents. Early the next morning, someone who didn't identify himself left a message on my home phone voice mail that there would be a hearing the next day before Judge Kutzner.

At the hearing, Judge Kutzner waved a thick file, apparently from the School Attendance Review Board hearing my mother had instigated two years prior, and accused me of illegal homeschooling. I tried to interrupt and say, "Hey, I won that case!" but she wouldn't let me. One of Jerry Jessop's partners was with me and I think he figured we should shut up and let her rant. It turned out Meyer had never filed a formal emancipation request with the court. At the hearing he handed the papers to Kutzner who said she would consider it an "official" filing. When I went back to the file, I found those papers were dated the day previous, April 24. I had a heck of a time getting the court reporter to transcribe the hearing. I left five or six messages on her voice mail and sent a letter.

Kutzner said she would like to approve the emancipation, but couldn't until the pending guardianship action was finished. She instructed the court social worker to call the Child Abuse Hotline to come investigate (and presumably take) Jennifer's younger brother Christopher because of the homeschooling issue. The judge said she herself would call the Poway Unified School District to report me for homeschooling. But I was legal as far as homeschooling goes, and the Poway school district is very favorable toward homeschoolers. I never saw or heard from the Child Protective Services.

Jennifer now tells me that she met with Lee Meyer once, when my mother took her to his office, and spoke with him only at the two hearings. All other communication went through her grandmother, who would hand her documents to sign. Jenny says that, when she saw how much damage she had done by the emancipation request, she attempted to stop the process, but was told by Meyer that once a legal action is started it cannot be stopped. She says he also told her, when she wanted to visit her uncle in Japan over the summer, that participants in lawsuits are not allowed to leave the country until their suits are decided. Jennifer also disavows all Meyer's assertions, in documents and in court, that she wanted to move out because she disagrees with me about abortion and does not wish to practice Catholicism. She says she never discussed those issues with him.

When I started investigating USD Law School's Children's Advocacy Institute, I found it is part of a large "children's rights" lobbying network, along the lines of the Children's Defense Fund. They lobby for a child's "right" to abortion without parental consent, the "right" to free birth control in schools, the "right" to not be disciplined, and the "right" to divorce parents. The USD Children's Advocacy Institute publicizes these lobbying activities in its own publications. It networks with the likes of Planned Parenthood, the California Abortion Rights Action League, and the National Organization for Women (see sidebar, this page). In its literature, the institute praises the overturning of the parental consent law in California and makes no reference to USD's affiliation with the Catholic Church.

Since Jennifer refused to come home, I enrolled her for the last five weeks of eighth grade at De Portola Middle School near my mother's house in Tierrasanta. I provided Serra High School with court documents to show that Jennifer was a runaway and requested that Linda not be allowed to enroll Jenny for ninth grade. Serra ignored my request. The school's dean of students told me they had "received a legal opinion from the University of San Diego Law School" instructing them to enroll her.

It occurred to me at one point to appeal to USD President Alice Hayes directly, thinking perhaps she was unaware of the Child Advocacy Institute's actions. "Surely, as a mother, you understand what is going on here," I wrote her on September 2. "And, as a Catholic, you must understand the parents' role in raising their children. USD's desire to take the job of raising children away from their parents...is contrary to Catholic teaching on the family and not a suitable activity for a Catholic school."

I told her about claims Jennifer had made that Meyer had changed documents and about manipulation from her grandmother: "Sometimes she calls me, crying that she wants to come home. Other times, she refuses to speak to me for weeks on end." I told Dr. Hayes how the law school had intervened to get Serra High School to enroll Jennifer. "Once again," I said, "your Catholic school has interfered with my parental rights and duties, and all because the school's representatives are offended by my religious beliefs."

I included copies of documentation about the Children's Advocacy Institute. "In addition to the Children's Emancipation Clinic," I wrote, "the CAI does a great deal of lobbying (including bills that would make abortion more easily available to teenagers). One of USD's CAI 'offices' listed in literature obtained from USD turns out to be a 'Maternal and Child Health Advocacy Project' in Los Angeles which refers for and pays for women (and especially undocumented immigrants) to have abortions. I contacted this office, and the lady said they had just dissociated officially from USD, although they still have all the same board members in common with CAI. She said she had no idea that USD was a Catholic school, and noted the fact that her office provided abortions. I also believe further investigation will reveal USD's involvement in fighting recent legislation to mandate parental consent before abortions are done on minors...

"I was also interested to see that supporters of the CAI include foundations and individuals who are very active in the push to have school-based birth control clinics, including Sol Price and the Irvine Foundation. And many of the groups affiliated with CAI are more open about their demand that children be given the 'right' to have sex. One advocacy group's [the California Wellness Foundation's] web page includes an article crowing about how it 'freed' a 15-year-old Asian immigrant girl from her parents because they wouldn't let her pursue the kind of social life she wanted. They helped her get 'services' from a local clinic she visited to cure the results of her promiscuity (the article did not specify whether the services were abortion, treatment for sexually-transmitted disease, or something else -- but that clinic provided all those services)."

In her September 22 response, Dr. Hayes said Meyer was a non-USD employee who "assists on a limited basis in an emancipation clinic involving a number of students through the work of the Law School's Children's Advocacy Institute." (In all his correspondence regarding Jennifer's case, Meyer refers to himself as "director" or "supervising attorney" of the clinic). Hayes stated that Jennifer's case was a private one, not related to the Emancipation Clinic at all. She also denied that any USD-related office had instructed any San Diego school to enroll Jennifer.

"Although the Children's Advocacy Institute is not involved in your case," she wrote, "you have been misinformed about CAI, and about the Maternal and Child Health Access Foundation. CAI has not lobbied on abortion, nor on parental consent. We do not know which 'affiliated groups' you are referring to regarding the encouragement of child sex. The Maternal and Child Health Foundation Board includes Professor Fellmeth and one person on the CAI advisory board. While connected with USD, and to our knowledge thereafter, MCH's work has not involved medical services, but access to prenatal care and early baby medical treatment for pregnant women who are having babies."

I tried again on October 4, sending Dr. Hayes a copy of the transcript from the guardianship hearing before Judge Mitchell in which Meyer identified himself as a representative of USD. I clarified that, while Meyer was hired by my mother to pursue the guardianship, the emancipation aspect of the case was being handled by USD's Children's Emancipation Clinic. I included documentation from CAI's own publication, and pages downloaded from the Internet, supporting my claims about the clinic's activities.

"Clearly, this is a case of a vendetta of your institution against me because I dare to have different theological and moral views," I replied. "Mr. Meyer could barely control his rage when speaking of my work as a writer for News Notes. Although he claims to represent children's best interests, he has taken the unsupported word of a...woman with a history of frivolous lawsuits against me and has used this to break up my relationship with my daughter...by putting all the weight and financial resources of USD Law School behind his efforts. If you are not moved as a mother by my plight, if you are not moved as a Christian by the injustice of the situation, then I hope you are moved as a university administrator by the illegality and unethicality of your institution's behavior."

Responding once again on November 4, Hayes conceded that Meyer "is employed on a part-time adjunct faculty basis by the School of Law to supervise USD law students who staff the Child Advocacy Clinic's Emancipation Clinic." She once again denied that there was an emancipation case involved. (I had neither the request for emancipation nor the transcript of the April 25 hearing before Judge Kutzner available to send to Hayes at that time). "Your description of the Children's Advocacy Institute is generally inaccurate," said Hayes. "For example, the Packard Foundation has not provided funds for the Children's Advocacy Institute." (The Packard Foundation is a major contributor to the California Wellness Foundation, which in turn funds CAI.)

Jennifer returned home in November of 1997, after my mother threw her out of the house for refusing to get up to go to school one morning. In the interim I had moved to Monterey with my 9-year-old, Christopher, because of Judge Kutzner's threats to take him away.

On March 9 this year, I finally obtained a copy of the letter Meyer sent, on University of San Diego Children's Advocacy Institute letterhead, to Serra High School. In it he asked the school to enroll Jennifer based on a "Caregiver's Authorization Affidavit" in which my mother stated she was the full-time caregiver of Jennifer "with no objection" from the legal guardian. In spite of school officials knowing this statement to be false (from the letters and legal documents I provided them), they enrolled Jennifer. The registrar at Serra -- ignoring state laws giving parents access to their children's school records -- refused to give me a copy of the letter in question, saying my mother told her not to let me see Jenny's file. I obtained the letter elsewhere. On that same day -- March 9 -- I sent Dr. Hayes a copy of Meyer's letter. As yet I have received no response from her.

On another front, the San Diego district attorney's office has been pursing me for "child support," although I never lost custody of Jenny and was never ordered to pay child support. Ignoring numerous letters and phone calls from me explaining the situation, the DA has continued the case, even after Jennifer returned home and Meyer abandoned his crusade.

On March 7, I received notification that the county had registered a lien against me with the assessor's office for nonpayment of child support. The county is also currently taking steps to have my driver's license revoked, a measure available to the government to force "deadbeat dads" to pay up.

The county's actions were set into motion when my mother enrolled Jennifer for Medi-Cal benefits after she (Linda) lost her job at Kaiser Permanente. Medi-Cal enrolled Jennifer in spite of the fact that I had health insurance to cover her. I sent the Medi-Cal worker a copy of my health insurance policy and called the district attorney's office. Even after Jennifer returned home and Linda took her name off the Medi-Cal rolls, the county pursued the case. After running up legal bills to fight the guardianship and emancipation, I have not been able to pay an attorney to fight the county over this issue.

Upon returning home, Jennifer insisted on being homeschooled again. Because she wasn't eating properly, I recently took Jennifer to see a psychiatrist who specializes in eating disorders. The doctor said Jennifer is suffering from depression and probably has been for some time, which could account for her unhappiness last year and her allowing herself to get caught up in my mother's emancipation scheme.