Mayor Lee refuses to chime in on issues

Staff Editorial

With yet another lawsuit and new support from legislative officials, the pressure is building on the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges.

The Save CCSF Coalition, a group of City College students, faculty and staff, announced Nov. 7 that they would be filing a lawsuit against the commission.

This is the third lawsuit to be filed against the commission. City Attorney Dennis Herrera and the California Federation of Teachers both filed lawsuits earlier this year.

The lawsuits both said the commission had acted improperly during the process of making the decision to revoke City College’s accreditation in July 2014.

In addition to the announcement of the new lawsuit, a public forum was held on Nov. 7 hosted by Congresswoman Jackie Speier, Congresswoman Anna Eshoo and Sen. Jim Beall, further solidifying concerns regarding the commission’s actions.

With all of these actions taking place questioning the commission, and elected officials joining the fight against the commission, one question comes to mind.

When will San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee stand up for City College?

With City College being a vital part of the community, why has Lee been almost absent and slow to comment.

It seems that he has made it clear that City College needs to listen to the commission and speed up the reform process.

In an opinion piece written by Lee and California’s Community College’s Chancellor Brice Harris for the San Francisco Chronicle, they said, “For CCSF, the pace of reform needs to be much faster. We also believe that City College has reached the limit of what it can do on its own,” explaining the need for granting Special Trustee Robert Agrella sole decision-making power at the school.

It doesn’t seem plausible to strip City College’s elected officials of all power and place the school’s future into the hands of one man.

Now this one man rules over City College just as one commission rules California’s 112 community colleges.

Authority should be constantly questioned and the accrediting commission should be held accountable for their actions and decisions as well.

California’s community colleges shouldn’t be the only ones that have to follow rules.