The current MATC administration under Dr. Cruz has become one of the most scandalous in the college's history, and accountability is needed to address these ongoing issues.
By H. Nelson Goodson
Hispanic News Network U.S.A.
March 6, 2026
Milwaukee, Wisconsin - In previous news reports, Hispanic News Network U.S.A. (HNNUSA) had identified the Milwaukee Area Technical College (MATC) Human Services Office led by Vice-President and Chief Human Resource Officer Laquitha Bonds-Jones as the epicenter of the alleged troublesome and scandalous internal acts perpetuated under Bonds-Jones that have affected part-time instructors and other employees.
Under Bonds-Jones, wages from part-time instructors were cut without them or the Local 212 (MATC union) knowing about it until employees discovered the wage discrepancy and the MATC union addressed the issue. MATC had to compensate cut wages to the part-time instructors in a timely manner. Then under Bonds-Jones, once again it was discovered that the Human Resources had decreased sick leave pay for part-time instructors without them knowing until it was discovered.
To date, the earned sick leave pay has not been fully restored to the MATC part-time instructors, according to sources. Also, Bonds-Jones was allegedly caught by Local 212 altering approved policies without any authorization from Dr. Anthony Cruz, President of MATC or the MATC Board of Trustees including the knowledge of Local 212, which affected MATC instructors and employees. (Article link: http://hispanicnewsnetwork.blogspot.com/2025/10/300-matc-part-time-instructors-win-back.html)
Another matter was also exposed when the MATC Board of Trustees heard public comment testimony in a meeting in 2024, that the Human Resources hired a non-bilingual (Spanish-English) instructor to teach an economics course advertised as a bilingual courses. To make it even worst, then MATC canceled an economic bilingual course in 2025 when students had already registered to take, in order for MATC not to hire or promote a part-time bilingual instructor to full-time instructor. (October 2024 video testimony: https://youtu.be/Lm_ImpZGXn4)
Under Dr. Cruz, MATC Board of Trustees and Bonds-Jones, four student services specialists from the Office of Multicultural Student Services were terminated when the student services were eliminated in August 2025 and replaced by the Office of Community Impact to comply with Trump's executive order to eliminate all race based programs under Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), which multiple federal courts ruled that Trump's directive was illegal and unconstitutional because it violated instructors free speech in their classrooms. (Article link: https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/department-of-education-backs-down-on-unlawful-directive-targeting-educational-equity)
On August 20, 2025, Bonds-Jones, the Vice-President of Human Resources at MATC in an email shared by sources with HNNUSA, she confirmed that four Student Service Specialist staff positions at the Office of Multicultural Services have been eliminated to comply with the U.S. Department of Education guidelines "that prohibits positions with duties that provide services exclusively to students based on race or ethnicity. The four student service specialist roles in question were designed solely to serve students of a specific race/ethnic group. Because those roles could not be restructured to comply with the guidance, the duties themselves were eliminated, and the positions tied to them no longer exist." (Article link: http://hispanicnewsnetwork.blogspot.com/2025/08/dr-cruz-and-matc-board-allegedly.html)
On February 24, 2026, the Multicultural Coalition to Reclaim MATC once again demanded for Dr. Cruz and the MATC Board of Trustees to restore the Multicultural Student Services, but to date, neither Dr. Cruz and the MATC Board of Trustees haven't publicly responded to the Coalition's demands, nor have they acted in good faith to restore transparency and accountability. (Article link: http://hispanicnewsnetwork.blogspot.com/2026/02/matc-board-of-trustees-continue-their.html)
Lastly, but not a conclusion yet, the Human Resources Office under Bonds-Jones has proliferated an ongoing hostile work environment for instructors and employees, blatant job discrimination and not promoting employees from part-time to full-time employees, harassment and retaliation tactics against employees and instructors that have filed complaints, eliminating positions to justify the termination of employees and the list goes on and on, which Dr. Cruz and the MATC Board of Trustees have failed to resolve.
It's a shame that MATC continues to receive donations from scholarship programs like the Ellen and Joe Checota, which the scholarship will provide $15M to support students pursuing trade and technical certificates, despite MATC eliminating the Multicultural Student Services disenfranchising the following communities of color, Latino/Hispanic, African-American, Asian-American and Native-American including students. Major donors should do the right thing and hold MATC accountable before donating to MATC when its internal Human Resources Office operation continues to foster plaguing employees related issues affecting instructors, staff and students alike.
In other words, MATC in social media and its so-called propaganda advertising has attempted to created a superficial (fake) image of success, when in fact its internal operations is plague with human resource failures to address and resolve years of employee related complaints and the lack of credible reform by the MATC administration.
A "No Confidence" sentiment continues to grow against the MATC administration and Dr. Cruz for their ongoing failure to reform and remedy the issues at hand.
The members of the MATC Board of Trustees are, Erica L. Case, Chairperson; Citlali Mendieta-Ramos, Vice-Chairperson; Dr. Waleed Najeeb, Secretary; Gail Pence, Treasurer; Lauren Baker; Mark F. Foley and Wisconsin State Representative Supreme Moore-Omokunde (D-Milw). (MATC Board of Directors | MATC https://share.google/JBtolZmTGaz4lo885)
