I have 90 days to file. I may or may not need a lawyer on this. It is questionable if I can find one in Savannah based on known history of the deep pockets and tactics of The Savannah College of Art & Design when it comes to legalities in their 42-year history.
I have won the right to sue The Savannah College of Art and Design. My discussions were done in a proper manner and evidence supports that a private citizen of law novice expertise went up against arguments with a hired lawyer on The Savannah College of Art and Design side. The discussion of evidence was met with constant deflection, defamation and libel on their behalf while failing to address any of the issues set forth in discussion on the EEOC side and on the BBB side. With no justification on their behalf for their failure to maintain a safe work environment, they acted in total disregard to their own user manuals (employee and student handbooks) and against Federal laws when it comes to reporting parties and failure to not act in retaliation methods leading towards wrongful termination. Through failure of their own compliance departments, retaliation was had on their part from both months long of reporting to the swiftness of concluding an entire investigation in a single day. Those acts on both accounts were unlawful and requires education of what is and isn’t the law.
For months, I asked repeatedly to be transferred, applied for other positions within the organization and made ADA requests for transfer that went not acted on. As noted in The Savannah College of Art and Design’s reasoning for denying me Unemployment benefits, SCAD changed the reason for my termination 4 times officially and decided it was best to put in the hands of the State of GA that ‘bad attitudes’ was an accepted excuse for denying unemployment benefits. I’ve countered that in a glass door approach on why it is legally acceptable to put determination of unemployment benefits on my digital resumé in matter-of-fact approach of verbatim. In document after document provided of objective first-hand account, I have been privy to the slander and libel that was allowed to continue personally and professionally by The Savannah College of Art & Design and their employees. My charges of discrimination were gender based predominantly while also citing areas of question on if my discrimination was racial based as well. I approached this towards SCAD in all aspects of internal first to their inaction to through the EEOC where the escalation of lawyer vs. layman determines failure on their part to follow protocol where that argument should had been had with the head of HR representing SCAD in that manner. SCAD knowingly and willfully did not provide a safe work environment, retaliated against me personally and professionally while I cited elsewhere the possible theft of creative property.
With their lack of confidentiality protocol, SCAD was unable to provide my rights or distinguish the difference of such as an Student, as an Employee and as an Alumni. In insult to injury, SCAD also has stolen my accrued time-off during my wrongful termination in theft of an at-will wrongful termination. With incidents reported as early as April 2021, SCAD failed to provide a safe campus work environment and has gone against the standards of any college institution while failing to protect myself from my work place environment. I have made claims and charges on how they have failed to protect the entire student body while exploiting them into real-world scenarios of contract-to-hire ‘employment’ through the SCADpro system. That system, designed for real-world experience, teaches first hand before entering the workforce properly that corporations can and will exploit talent where as designed, at least by the end of my employment on Feb. 10, 2022, the students and their families were paying SCAD to allow corporations to rip them off of creative real-world applications without compensation to the student outside of their degree-seeking nature. In doing so SCAD has been pimping out the children of the 195 countries into corporate exploitation without compensation of their contributions to society going towards their benefit outside of a degree-seeking nature. That tactic goes into a relook at the age discrimination laws of The United States in revisit of sliding scales where those under 40 were being exploited and taken advantage of based on their lack-of-experience vs. those of industry standard expertise. Questions on the innovation of business tactics and lack of education provided in copyright/trademark/patents brings into question what innovation is being taught in their school based on the foundations of what was already occurring. As cited in examples on the BBB and EEOC side, proof exists that they are not acting on the best behalf of their student investors while maintaining a very healthy product of student innovators to the real-world corporate environment. That case and example challenged how their non-profit status is detrimental to the student investors while calling into question their own thoughts on copyright/trademark/patent protection.
I am a supporter and advocate to the student body and Alumni to The Savannah College of Art and Design. I am a supporter of the faculty and staff as any teacher will tell you the value of the responsibility they have towards student investors and career-building. Through the BBB, I have argued and successfully laid a ground argument for protection of the students, claims of current collegiate structure and possibly began laying the bricks down towards student loan forgiveness with a pathway towards a new make and model to the collegiate structures. Starting at a very concentrated location of every single country’s creative contributions in a single campus of need for protection from ‘pulling from the archives’ for ‘educational purposes’, it is essential the argument of who keeps the lights on and who actually has copyright claims vs. why the institution does not.
As a ‘Starving Artist’, I don’t have the funds for representation as my work elsewhere has been a 3.5 year discussion point. I see in special cases one can be provided by the US District Court. In what was more than enough information to support my claims, my final words to the EEOC officer on the phone was saddening and I apologized for stating that they failed to protect where it is now I, as a sole individual, am having to fight against an entity publicly and in places of possible harm or exposure possibly on my own when the evidence supported what was needed. On both the EEOC and BBB side, I copywrote my arguments and they cannot be incorporated into The Savannah College of Art & Design without my permission. Once again, questions remain on confidentiality and who was interacting with the SCAD lawyer within the institution. The same went for other’s listening in on compliance meetings in where SCAD’s privacy issue is about the lack of privacy of student/employee/alumni.
As much as I am a supporter to the SCAD dream and always an undergrad Alumni of The Savannah College of Art and Design as of 2005, it saddens me that almost a year of events that never needed to continue has to be had now. They had every opportunity to make this right internally while towards the end of my employment painting me as the problem, the aggravator when I was the victim, the one going by the book and went daily into hostile work environments that I repeatedly did everything I could to maintain professionalism while my Master’s education as a Graduate student was affected, ruined and ultimately cancelled. I am not the enemy, but I have to stand up for my rights as an Student, Employee and Alumni.
-Philip Arthur Bonneau
September 30, 2022
I imagine who knows from here. Help is there. I just have to find it.