The California Federation of Teachers has filed a federal complaint accusing the accreditor of community colleges in that state of shredding documents to thwart the scrutiny of the U.S. Department of Education.
In a letter sent to the Education Department on Monday, the union amended an earlier complaint against the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges with allegations that the regional accreditor had responded to the prospect of a federal investigation by adopting a policy of concealing its tracks and by discouraging former evaluation-team members from making incriminating statements.
In response, Barbara A. Beno, president of the accrediting commission, issued a written statement in which she said the policy in question “codifies longstanding practices of the ACCJC” and fits in with the commission’s existing practices for retaining records.
Her statement said the new policy’s purpose “is to ensure that the ACCJC maintains appropriate confidentiality in the conduct of its accreditation activities” and to remind members of the commission and its institutional evaluation teams “of the importance of careful records stewardship.”
The faculty union’s latest challenge to the regional accreditor’s actions comes just days before the commission is expected to announce whether it will strip accreditation from the City College of San Francisco, effectively shutting down the 85,000-student, multisite public community college.
The union has accused the commission, which is part of the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, of violating federal and state law and being biased by conflicts of interest in seeking to punish the City College of San Francisco and other community colleges in California.
‘Highly Confidential’
The union first challenged the commission’s actions in an April complaint, submitted to the commission and copied to the Education Department, that the union’s latest list of allegations seeks to amend. In both this week’s letter and in a formal complaint against the commission filed with the Education Department’s accreditation division on June 4, the union urged the federal agency to consider stripping the ACCJC of its federal recognition as an accrediting body.
The new accusations—that the accreditor is systematically concealing and destroying evidence of its wrongdoing—is based on a policy that the commission adopted at a meeting on June 7, just days after the union submitted its complaint to the Education Department. The policy says: “Commissioners, team and committee members should consider all documents pertaining to an institution as highly confidential, unless the documents are explicitly identified in writing to the contrary.”
The policy says they “may only discuss the contents of such documents with anyone required to have the information in connection with the matter under review.” When it is no longer necessary for the people affiliated with the commission to have such documents, the policy says, they should turn the documents over to the office of the commission’s president “or destroy them by having them shredded.”
The commission characterized the new policy as an internal “operational policy,” ostensibly removing the need for the policy to undergo multiple readings or public comment before passage.
The union’s latest letter challenges that designation, arguing that the policy is not internal because it applies to the evaluation of institutions. The letter also challenges as improper the commission’s decision to send former members of its visiting teams a letter instructing them to refer all questions about their activities to the commission’s law firm and not to speak to other lawyers or the news media.
The letter characterizes the commission’s actions as violating federal law and as apparently intended to thwart a federal investigation of the commission’s actions and any attempt to appeal the commission’s decision on the City College of San Francisco.