“This is different issue,” he said in an interview.
Torres, Ind.-Saipan, said his resolution is only asking the secretary of the U.S. Department of Education and the Western Association of Schools and Colleges to “intervene.”
House Resolution 17-17, which remains pending in the House of Representatives, states that the recent report of WASC’s Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior and Colleges “appears biased and self-serving” as it indicates WASC president Dr. Barbara A. Beno’s “support for the terminated former NMC President Carmen Fernandez.”
He said the report accusing the governor and the Legislature of meddling in NMC’s affairs is “misleading and vindictive.”
According to Torres, Beno is overstepping her authority.
Instead of assisting NMC, he added, she is “harassing and threatening us.”
His resolution stated that NMC “survived over the years with the support of both the governor’s office and the Legislature by appropriations of taxpayer money and through generous and continuous acts of financial support such as the various scholarship programs and educational programs afforded to everyone.”
The resolution stated that the Legislature may seek legal remedy to support NMC and “to investigate Beno’s action and subject her to show-cause as to why she shouldn’t be terminated.”
Torres said he has enough documents to support his claims.
“The mission of the ACCJC has appeared to change from a mentoring and advisory commission to a vindictive and retaliatory commission with personal and harsh agendas, as supported by many other institutions in California that have suffered under-accreditation,” the resolution stated.
