Manuel Berriozábal has been honored by the White House, received the President's Distinguished Award from the University of Texas at San Antonio, and is one of UTSA's most revered professors for his work with PREP, a rigorous academic program that serves hundreds of middle and high school students in math, science, and engineering every summer.

And now Manuel Berriozáábal has been demoted, apparently without cause.

His supporters - including former PREP students, fellow professors, and state legislators - claim UTSA is railroading Berriozábal, pushing aside the man who founded - and for 25 years has led - one of the university's most successful academic programs.

As for UTSA - where the politics are thick and the bureaucracy is big - officials are saying very little, except to characterize Berriozábal reassignment as "a reorganization." Many of Berrioz�bal supporters, afraid of retribution, declined to comment on the record for this story. On advice from his attorney, Manuel Berrioz�bal could speak only briefly about the case.

Berriozábal was placed on administrative leave last November, when, according to his wife and a former city councilwoman, Maria Berriozábal, UTSA police told him he was the target of an investigation about alleged wrongdoing at the San Antonio Education Foundation. The investigation centers on missing funds.

The foundation, which serves Texas high school and college math and science teachers, operated out of the central office of the Alamo Community College District. Berriozábal served pro-bono as board treasurer for the ACCD, but was not involved in the foundation. (The District Attorney's office would neither confirm or deny whether an investigation exists, standard procedure for cases without an indictment.)

Berriozábal has never been charged in connection with the investigation. Nor has UTSA issued any findings nor accused him of any wrongdoing stemming from its own inquiry, which it undertook after the DA cleared Berriozábal.

"I put my whole heart and soul into making the [PREP] program as successful as it can be. It's become a part of my life," said Berriozabal, 72.

PREP's Success Over the past 25 years, more than 10,000 San Antonio students have graduated from PREP, a pre-college math, science, and engineering program held at college campuses. In 1986, the program expanded to include 14 additional Texas colleges, and is now known as TexPREP. NASA has awarded a $1 million grant to the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities to replicate the PREP program around the country. It is called Proyecto Access, and serves students in eight U.S. cities and Puerto Rico. PREP reports a 99 percent high school graduation rate among its participants. Of those that go onto higher education, 90 percent graduate from college. And 80 percent of the program's participants come from minority groups.

During PREP's early days, the original UTSA campus at Loop 1604 was the sole program site and still considered to be on the outskirts of town. For the first few days of classes, Berriozabal and his fellow instructors would park downtown and at Crossroads (then Wonderland) Mall to meet the inner-city students, then rode the buses with them until they were familiarized with the route and transfer system.

"I would put Dr. Berriozabal's contribution of building the TexPREP program above any bricks and mortar that any elected representative has put into development," said State Representative Mike Villarreal (D-San Antonio). "His program has graduated the young minds we need to take over and lead our community."

In a 17-page paper dated September 16, Maria Berriozabal chronicled "the 10-month saga" that began last November when a UTSA police officer read Berriozabal his Miranda rights and informed him he was a suspect in an investigation conducted by the District Attorney's office.

"It appears that the investigation by the District Attorney was done responsibly and was needed because it revealed that Manny's good name had been used and abused," Maria Berriozabal wrote. "For our purposes, as difficult as the legal aspects have been because it is such foreign territory, the heartbreak, gross disappointment, disillusionment, and sense of betrayal has been from our own UTSA because it appears that UTSA grossly overreacted to the ACCD/SAEF investigation - or simply used it as an excuse to get rid of Manny."

According to Maria Berriozabal, the university denied her husband access to his computer, paper files, electronic and postal mail, and later prohibited him from communicating with the PREP office and from introducing himself as being affiliated with PREP. Berriozabal's direct supervisor, Jude Valdez, claimed these actions are part of standard procedure when an employee is placed on administrative leave.

THE UTSA RUN-AROUND

Initially, Berriozabal didn't question UTSA's decision. According to Maria Berriozabal, UTSA administrators told her husband that he was placed on leave because of state and federal laws mandating that anyone under investigation must discontinue running any state- or federally-funded program.

UTSA reportedly assured Berriozabal that once his name was cleared, he would be reinstated. In March - five months after UTSA had placed him on leave - Berriozabal still had heard nothing about the investigation. Impatient, Maria Berriozabel asked State Representative Mike Villarreal about the Texas law that prohibited her husband from working. However, Villarreal told Berriozabal that no such laws exist, and universities are allowed to decide whether to place someone on leave.

"If this is a part of how things get done, we're going to fail to attract and retain the best faculty," said Villarreal about UTSA's actions. "Dr. Berriozabal has been treated with a lack of sensitivity, with no respect for the contributions he has made to this city. Ultimately, we're a community and can't treat each other in this way."

In March, while Berriozabal was waiting to hear about his job, UTSA hired John Romo, (no relation to University President Ricardo Romo) as interim director of PREP; his job was to prepare for the summer program. Romo resigned from this position after PREP's summer graduation.

And in April, although Berriozabal was stripped of his title as Principal Investigator of Proyecto Access, he was awarded the 2003 UTSA President's Distinguished Service Award, in what Maria Berriozabal called a "ceremony of irony," considering Ricardo Romo had not met with Berriozabal to discuss his job.

In May, Maria Berriozabal met with Senator Leticia Van de Putte and State Representatives Villarreal, Joaquin Castro, and Jose Menendez (a PREP graduate). Van de Putte looked into the case and reportedly told Maria Berriozabal that her husband was not a suspect in the investigation.

Although the District Attorney reportedly was no longer eyeing Berriozabal, in late June, UTSA told Berriozabal he could work for PREP again - but he had been demoted to PREP Development Director. His duties included writing grants and teaching classes. He would no longer manage a staff, nor be reinstated as director of PREP and Proyecto Access.

"It's unusual to have somebody who started a program like that not be the director if he is still capable of doing the job, in any organization," said Representative Joaquin Castro. "UTSA needs to let out the whole story. They really have to explain themselves."

	A University of Texas at San Antonio security officer orders Henry Rodriguez, director of community relations for LULAC, to leave UTSA's downtown campus following a protest and press conference. Rodriguez was on the campus with about 20 other demonstrators to protest the demotion of Manuel Berriozabal as the head of the university's popular PREP program. Photo by Mark Greenberg

Joleen Garcia, chairwoman of the PREP Support Committee and former PREP student, contended that Berriozabal's situation is part of a larger labor issue. "His responsibilities have been taken away, and he has been demoted with no apparent reason," she said, "It was an attempt to demoralize him. That's really troublesome and problematic."

UTSA spokesperson David Gabler said he cannot comment on personnel issues or ongoing investigations, but claimed Berriozabal's new position is merely part of a re-organization of PREP. "Actually, Dr. Berriozabal is currently still a director of the PREP program, so to use the term 'demotion' is probably not correct," said Gabler. "He is in charge of finding funds and resources at a time when it is becoming increasingly important for us to focus on finding extra funding for PREP."

"They can call it what they want, but they fired him from PREP," said Darwin Peek, a recently retired Trinity professor and former academic coordinator for PREP. "It's obvious to me they're forcing him to retire. They're trying to get rid of the program."

Peek said he became concerned about PREP in February when essential faculty planning meetings had not yet occurred. He wrote a letter to University President Ricardo Romo, warning that he had a "train wreck" headed his way without a proper leader for the program. Peek and other colleagues were specifically worried about the "watered down" educational and professional requirements listed in the job openings for PREP Director and Proyecto Access Director in the Express-News.

Berriozabal holds a doctorate in mathematics; the new position requires only a master's degree in math, science, or a related field.

The PREP support committee claims that the program has already suffered setbacks during Berriozabal's long absence, including the closing of three TexPREP sites in the past year. Gabler said he was unaware of any site closures and assured the program is "as strong as it ever has been." But the PREP office did confirm that the TexPREP sites in Brownsville, Amarillo, and Dallas didn't operate this summer, although those closures could not be attributed to Berriozabal's leave.

Garc�a said the PREP Support committee will continue to collect signatures and request meetings with Romo; although the committee has sent four letters to him, he has not yet agreed to meet with them. "This action on our part is also to stand up for those others that are anonymous, those others that have been harmed by institutional oppression or institutional efforts to undermine affirmative action and our community's success."

Yolanda Heinze, a teacher and mother of two recent PREP graduates, said she is outraged about Berriozabel's demotion. "I compare it to giving birth to a beautiful baby. You nurture it and work all your life for it," she said, coming close to tears, "And then once that child has grown and developed into this fantastically beautiful person, they just snatch it away from you. That's how I see this whole thing with Dr. Berriozabal. They're snatching his baby away from his hands, after he worked for so many years to grow and develop and protect it." �