For immediate release: Wednesday, February 18, 2015

Judge reinforces ruling that the commission broke the law in dealing with CCSF

Statement from Jeff Freitas, Secretary Treasurer, California Federation of Teachers:

Yesterday, Superior Court Judge Curtis Karnow issued his final ruling in the People v. the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges, reinforcing his earlier tentative decision that the Commission broke the law in attempting to revoke City College of San Francisco’s accreditation.

This ruling is a vindication of the efforts made to defend City College against the Commission’s inconsistent and unfair actions in handling the school’s accreditation review, and it reaffirms that the ACCJC violated not only common law fair procedure, but federal regulations as well.

Significant in yesterday’s ruling is that if City College chooses to have the ACCJC reconsider its sanction against the college, the college would not be putting its accreditation status at risk. In addition, contrary to ACCJC’s usual secretive approach, the judge mandated a more transparent process for such a reconsideration. This is important, and helps to pave a path forward. This ruling is a victory for City College, the City of San Francisco and tens of thousands of students and people in the community who rely on the institution.

Taken together with the recent Board of Governors decision to strip the ACCJC of its monopoly accreditor authority, the judge’s ruling points to the need for the legislature to take up reform of the accreditation process and its oversight structures in the coming legislative session so that the type of damage inflicted by this rogue agency on CCSF would not be able to occur anywhere else.

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The CFT represents more than 25,000 faculty in thirty community colleges districts, and 120,000 educational employees at every level of the education system, from Head Start to UC. More information: cft.org.