Unwanted From the Start

In the fall of 1989, Los Angeles Middle College High School opened up with 67 sophomores, four teachers and a principal. Almost immediately, this new high school was a source of contention on the LA Southwest College campus. Many of the students had dropped out or been kicked out of other high schools.

Without any external discipline, many of these “at-risk” teenagers became less rebellious. Some even got serious about their education. But most of them, at least initially, seized the opportunity to run amuck—they tagged-up the college, blazed in stairwells and bathrooms, and copulated in remote (and not-so-remote) parts of the campus.

Some members of the LASC faculty circulated a petition to have the high school removed.

College President Laikin rejected the idea but did ask the principal, Dr. Douroux, to modify their student “selection” process for the next year.

Douroux refused. As long as she was principal she would follow the stated mission of Middle College High School and take in students without prejudice or condition. Marilyn Douroux was a part time boxing promoter who, during that first year, brought former heavyweight champion Archie Moore to the school to give boxing clinics to the students and perhaps give them a structure and a discipline into which they could channel their anger and impulsiveness. There were plenty of fights that first semester – with and without Archie Moore. Fists flew, guns were drawn; sometimes in plain sight. Students went to jail and never returned. Others were shot, got patched up, and did return. Others vanished for reasons known and unknown.

Amidst all this tumult, many kids found a home at Middle College HS. They enrolled in and attended college classes and earned passing grades.

But the college administration remained wary. President Laikin threatened to close the school if Douroux didn’t promise to screen incoming students for the next school year.

Douroux believed he was bluffing. With $150,000 of annual state grant money behind them, Middle College HS was—she believed—untouchable. The money was administered through Southwest College, which took half off the top to pay the salary of a “liaison”—an administrator working with the high school. To Marilyn Douroux that was embezzlement of funds intended for “underserved children of color.” She demanded that all the money be used directly for materials, field trips, equipment. She threatened to go to the newspapers if they did not immediately comply.

In January 1990, at the request of the LA Southwest College administration, Marilyn Douroux was reassigned to another school.

Her replacement was Natalie Battersbee, the principal from Duke Ellington Continuation School. Natalie had been the first choice to be principal at Middle College High School. She’d been recruited for the job two years earlier, had assembled a team and visited the original Middle College HS in New York. Then, mysteriously, she had been snubbed in favor or Douroux. Now, without explanation or apology, Bettersbee was back in as Middle College principal.