Stay of execution

City College gets an extension

The biggest community college in California will not have to shut its doors this year. All of that work in preparing a schedule of classes for fall 2014 was not in vain. As announced this week, the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges is promulgating a rule change that will grant the City College of San Francisco a two-year extension in its efforts to resolve the deficiencies identified in the college's most recent accreditation reviews. The San Francisco Chronicle hailed the news with a front-page headline and a detailed article by Nanette Asimov, who has been closely documenting the years-long story.

The innocent bystander may be unaware that the arguments in the City College controversy were as much about the deficiencies of the accrediting agency as they were about the college itself. Make no mistake: City College had plenty to answer for. The ACCJC found that City College was deficient in its planning, accounting, and management processes. The institution's teaching mission was threatened by its inability to track its assets, collect student fees, and address developing needs. Furthermore, CCSF had been warned about its shortcomings in a previous accreditation process but had not bothered to correct them. The college was begging to be disciplined.

Unfortunately for everyone, including itself, the ACCJC proceeded to demonstrate its own inability to manage a difficult case. It imposed the death penalty on CCSF and then stubbornly refused to cooperate with the attempts to implement an emergency rescue of the institution. Nothing underscored this more clearly than the ACCJC's insistence it could not grant an extension even after the federal Department of Education released a stated confirming that it could. As Asimov reported

Last month, [commission President Barbara] Beno and commission Chairwoman Sherrill Amador and Vice Chairman Steven Kinsella refused to extend the revocation deadline despite public assurances from Lynn Mahaffie, a senior accrediting director with the Department of Education, that federal regulations permitted doing so. Nevertheless, the full commission, which meets just twice a year, changed its policy during its meeting June 4-6 in Sacramento. The agency is private and details about its internal decision-making aren't known.

Despite the Chronicle headline, “victory” is too sanguine a conclusion. City College has a lot of work to do before it can be considered fully compliant with ACCJC accreditation standards which other community colleges (like my own) are required to meet. At least the reprieve gives it the opportunity to continue the process under the new leadership that took over in the midst of the debacle. I also expect a painstaking internal review by the ACCJC of its punitive practices. At least, I hope so. If the ACCJC fails to do so, it is merely mirroring the failings of the institution over which it sat in judgment. Anyway, the internal review is necessary in terms of self-defense. Rigorous external review will be imposed by California's state legislature and the Department of Education, so the ACCJC had better get ready.

It ain't necessarily so

Miraculous logic

Everyone keeps waiting for the Supreme Court to unburden itself of its ruling on California's Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage in 2008. Trembling with trepidation that their labors will have been for naught, the Catholic clergy and laymen who struggled so hard on Proposition 8's behalf have been sharing their fears via print and broadcast media.

On Sunday, June 16, the San Francisco Chronicle published Joe Garofoli's interview with Salvatore Cordileone, the current archbishop of the San Francisco diocese. According to the article, Cordileone struck an alliance with evangelical Protestants and the Mormon Church to promote Proposition 8, with the archbishop digging up $1.5 million to support the effort. That's a lot of collection baskets! (I'm guessing that most of that money came from sources other than the members of his local congregations. San Francisco is not a happy hunting ground for anti-gay contributions, even among its Catholics.)

The Catholic hierarchy appears to be stuck on the campaign theme that worked so well in the 2008 campaign, which I heard directly from my mother's mouth when she explained why she had to vote for Proposition 8: “It's to protect the children!” This was indeed Cordileone's theme as he pitched his position to the Chronicle reporter:

With piercing blue eyes and a propensity for speaking in complete sentences, Cordileone explains that his view of marriage is based on how he believes it affects children.

Legalizing gay marriage, he said, “would result in the law teaching that children do not need an institution that connects them” to their biological parents and their parents to each other.

“Too many children are being hurt by our culture's strange and increasing inability to appreciate how important it is to bring together mothers and fathers for children in one loving home,” he said.

Let that sink in for a minute. His Excellency the archbishop is arguing that permitting same-sex couples to wed would undermine the connection between children and their parents. Even more than that, it would “teach” children that they really don't need those connections.

Is Cordileone an idiot? Or just a liar? (Can't it be both?) The archbishop is laying down a thick layer of illogical crap, and he does it as smoothly as can be. Allowing same-sex couples to wed says nothing to anyone about the parental needs of children. It would do nothing to prevent opposite-sex couples to wed and instantiate the conventional ideal of the nuclear family. Gay marriage would merely (merely!) extend marriage rights to people who are currently denied them. Wouldn't Cordileone's supposedly pro-kid mission be better accomplished with a campaign to require mothers to marry the fathers of their children? That would connect them up, all right! He might even be able to get the Mormons on board with that, since it would necessitate a return to plural marriage. But it's for the children!

As I mentioned, this “think of the children!” blather appears to be the Church's official line on the horrors of same-sex marriage. On Monday, June 17, Immaculate Heart Radio broadcast an installment of “The Bishop's Radio Hour”, during which host Bob Dunning interviewed William B. May, the president of Catholics for the Common Good. Bill May was relentless in the repetition of his mantra, which decried the possible “elimination of the only institution that unites kids with moms and dads.” Yes, he really said this. Elimination!

On the marriage issue, we have to start asking people that question. Okay, you're for redefining marriage. That eliminates the only institution that unites kids with their moms and dads. How can you justify that? If you're proposing to do that you need to address that problem. How are we going to promote men and women marrying before having children if it becomes illegal to do so?

Illegal! This short excerpt cannot do justice to May's mindless repetition of his “elimination” claim. In a short ten-minute block of time, he repeated the absurdity five or six times (I can't be sure because the on-line archive clipped the final minute of the interview). Interviewer Bob Dunning, who is a legitimate newsman and reporter for all that he views the world through Vatican-tinted glasses, embarrassingly mumbled agreement with his guest throughout the entire segment. However, at one point Dunning offered an extremely pertinent observation that May had carefully avoided mentioning:

May: The voters of California have spoken clearly on this twice. There's no doubt where they stand.

Dunning: It tends to be an age demographic; that's what we're fighting.

Bob has it right. Time is not on your side, Bill. In 2000, California voters enacted marriage-defining Proposition 22 with the support of 61.4% of those casting ballots. In 2008, they added the one-man/one-woman definition to the state constitution when 52.5% of the voters supported Proposition 8. A simple straight-line projection shows that the “traditional marriage” gang loses more than one percentage point each year. By this measure, the projection for 2013 is 46.9% in favor of Proposition 8 and similar measures. The reality, however, is even worse for Cordileone and his allies. According to recent a Los Angeles Times poll, same-sex marriage opposition has fallen to 36%. Support has risen to 58%. Suck on that, Your Excellency.

Dunning sees the writing on the wall and is worried that quashing the tide in favor of same-sex marriage is a now-or-never crisis.

Here's a hint: it won't be “now.”