A former Santa Monica Junior College instructor...

A former Santa Monica Junior College instructor fired from his post of 17 years for kissing a student lost his effort to have the California Supreme Court hear his case. Donald V. Cockburn argued in papers filed with the court that he should not have been fired for the “impulsive act of kissing a co-worker.” The court rejected without comment his request for a hearing. Cockburn was fired from his laboratory technician job in the college’s Physical Sciences Department in 1981 after he “grabbed and kissed” an 18-year-old student, Duria Suncar, while they were in a laboratory stockroom. Suncar had just been hired by Cockburn to work as a lab assistant.