Non-Credit & Athletics

STAFF EDITORIAL

For a student to compete in a sport, both junior colleges and four-year schools set academic requirements for their student athletes.

Academics should be treated with just as much importance as sports for any athlete, at any college. If athletes aren’t there to work towards a degree, they have no business competing athletically for that university.

To play for a sports team at City College, a student must enroll in at least 12 units. To compete for a second year, a student athlete must maintain at least a 2.0 grade point average and have completed 24 units in their first year of eligibility.

When student athletes enroll in non-credit courses, they forfeit the opportunity to fulfill this requirement and essentially set themselves back in terms of transferring to a four-year school.

In past semesters, athletes like University of California, Berkeley linebacker Desmond Bishop, a former Ram All-American in 2004, have voiced the importance of athletes getting an education.

“Athletics and education go hand in hand. You can’t have one without the other,” Bishop said.

More athletes should focus on earning degrees, which can’t happen while taking non-credit classes. While enrolling in non-credit courses might be considered “taking classes,” the units aren’t actually being counted.

It’s equally as time consuming to take non-credit classes. Why not just earn the units?

e-mail: editorial@theguardsman.com

Lawsuit's Merit Questionable

BY ALEX DIXON
Editor

TESS DONOHOE / SPECIAL TO THE GUARDSMAN

A $10 million lawsuit was recently filed against City College regarding inadequate handicap access in Rosenberg Library. As part of the settlement, the school must pay $1.7 million in legal fees to local law firm Schneider and Wallace.

Is the real purpose of this lawsuit to help disabled students or to extort money from City College?

Schneider and Wallace’s website provides some clues. According to their mission statement, the firm “is dedicated to ensuring equal rights for all.”
What it fails to mention is that equal rights have a price: $600 per hour, to be exact.

The firm has won numerous disability lawsuits, including a $100 million case against the San Francisco Unified School District in 2004 that chalked up $6 million in legal fees for the firm. Why do Schneider and Wallace insist on suing institutions of learning that are in the midst of a budget crisis?

City College would be able to do so much with $1.7 million. But because of this lawsuit, the only thing the school can do now is pay up, instead of using the money toward keeping the library open on Sundays, for instance.

City College wants to accommodate all its students. Life in a wheelchair is hard enough. Nobody wants to aggravate that situation further by having inadequate facilities.

But when money is tight, small classroom doors, old elevators and other problems that disabled students encounter cannot be fixed each and every time. There’s simply not enough money to go around.

Now, because of this lawsuit, there’s even less of it.

e-mail: editorial@theguardsman.com

Chronicle Series Gets Spoiled: Case of mistaken identity discredits newspaper, media

BY TOMMY HOLMES
Staff Writer

Gov. Schwarzenegger introduced his proposed budget on Jan. 10. COURTESY OF KRT CAMPUS

Whether it's fashion magazines telling us how grossly fat we all are or annoyingly upbeat weather men telling us that it’s going to be the most miserable day ever, we listen to the media and believe what it says.

A couple of weeks ago, the San Francisco Chronicle ran a series of articles on police officers that use excessive force. Tragic, I know, but not quite as tragic as the error they made in the first part of the series.

After months of research and endless fact checking, the error emerged as a photograph mistaking an innocent citizen for a violent cop.

The man in the photo was actually a San Francisco taxi driver who had nothing to do with the story instead of Officer John Haggett, as the Chronicle asserted. The taxi driver had no idea his photo was taken at all, let alone plastered on the Sunday issue of a top national publication.

The Chronicle made a mistake with the photo, but they made an even bigger mistake in hiring an incompetent employee. Now the entire series is tarnished and without credibility.

The society we live in is illiterate in the sense that pictures leave a more lasting impression than words. If the mistake had been grammatical, a wrong quotation or even attribution, it would have been more acceptable.

This series is now known for its sloppy reporting instead of as an expose on police who abuse their power.

e-mail: tholmes@theguardsman.com

COMING IN

Faculty Poll

Is there adequate handicapped access on campus?

Yes: 50% (10 out of 20)
No: 45% (9 out of 20)
Don't know: 5% (1 out of 20)


“Yes. This campus is pretty good. I’d say about 98 percent on this campus. We do our best on every campus. There are special elevators and special ramps. Even the bungalows have ramps. City College is far from perfect but it is fairly accessible.”
-Dr. Blair, foreign language

“No. I'm handicapped myself, and have to come to school early because of the parking. The parking could definitely be improved. But I do think that the spirit of the law is applied.”
-Steven Smith, art

ON THE RECORD

Should City College be a smoke-free campus?

Claire Coppel

“Hell no."

Roxy Parra

“No, too many people smoke!"

Jeff Weston

“Yes, I think City College should be smoke free."

Claudia Wornum

“I am for smoking zones, but not the whole campus being smoke free.”

Antonio Echeuannia

“I don’t necessarily mind smoking areas, but I think smoke free is too much.”

Eli Koral

“No, I prefer smoking zones."