San Diego City College’s first bachelor’s degree didn’t come easy. It took over a year of work and fighting past objections from the California State University system before the cyber defense and analysis degree was finally approved in January. The school and proponents saw that as a big win for community colleges.
But nearly a year later, the program is in another fight, and this time, it’s internal.
Despite City College going to battle for the degree, some faculty and students felt a potential association with federal agencies clashed with the school’s values. That caused one faculty member to draft a resolution that named the fledgling program and reaffirmed the college’s commitment to being a sanctuary campus for undocumented immigrants. But even after City’s Academic Senate narrowly passed the resolution earlier this month, it’s not clear what effect it may have on the baccalaureate program.
The dispute: What, if any, connection does the cyber program have with the Department of Homeland Security, and specifically the immigration enforcement agencies it oversees. The cyber program’s chair says there is no connection, but some professors and students weren’t so sure.
Justin Akers Chacón, chair of City’s Chicana and Chicano studies department, had misgivings about the cyber program when it was first proposed. He worried that this degree could funnel students into military careers. Given that military technology has been adapted to immigration enforcement and surveillance, the possible funnel was at odds with City’s longstanding purported identity as a social justice-oriented college and its commitment to not cooperate with immigration enforcement authorities.
“There is a history of our students having been made very vulnerable by immigration enforcement, so there is a culture of wanting to protect them,” Chacón said. He said he’d seen multiple of his own students drop out of college because they, or their family members, had been deported.
But two new developments also caught Chacón’s eye: A “Cyber Security Month” event hosted at City College in October was partly sponsored by the DHS and that DHS representatives served on a team that developed a curricular framework used by City’s bachelor’s program.
So, he authored the resolution that reaffirms a previous San Diego Community College District resolution that pledged the district would not cooperate with federal immigration authorities like ICE and CBP barring legal requirements to do so.
In the leadup to the meeting, David Kennemer, the chair of City’s cyber program, caught wind of the resolution. In a series of emails, he attempted to defend his program and dispel what he called a “false narrative” surrounding his program.
“We don’t have immigration control content in our cybersecurity classes. It doesn’t apply, it’s not even reasonable to think it might apply,” Kennemer said.
But what really concerned Kennemer is the resolution’s invoking of DHS as a whole. Because while both CBP and ICE are overseen by DHS, the department oversees nearly two dozen agencies. Those include agencies like the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the Transportation Security Administration and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
“That resolution says we can’t use guidance from the DHS or any of its agents or agencies to create curriculum,” Kennemer said. “When you start saying that you can’t develop curriculum, you can’t teach stuff based off of those things, that becomes a big problem because it’s a big part of cybersecurity,” he said.
Ultimately, the emails didn’t leave the pair seeing eye to eye. A week later, the Academic Senate meeting rolled around.
All the seats in the room were filled, and the public comment for and against the resolution was impassioned. Some faculty and members from M.E.Ch.A., a Chicano student activist group, repeatedly advocated for its passage.
“If truly there is no intention of collaboration with these entities, then why not support it?” asked Norell Martinez, a Chicana and Chicano Studies professor. “Social justice is not raising flags and heritage months,” she said. A statement supporting the resolution by City’s President, Ricky Shabazz, was also read aloud.
Kennemer and other faculty members warned of the resolution’s potential to stifle the program’s success by disallowing guidance from non-immigration enforcement DHS agencies.
“While we don’t have a relationship with the DHS, and while we would never have anyone from (ICE) or (CBP) in to talk about cybersecurity or anything else, for that matter, by restricting … what we can talk about and do in the classroom, that’s where the problem comes in,” Kennemer said.
The faculty wrung their hands for over an hour, voting twice to stall a final vote on the resolution. Then, another motion to postpone voting on the resolution till the next meeting failed, forcing the Academic Senate to decide then and there. The resolution passed narrowly, by a vote of 13 to 11, with five abstentions. A cheer erupted from the students gathered around the perimeter of the room.
“I feel so relieved that at least we have some of these protections in place on campus,” Chacón said of the resolution’s passage. He was especially relieved because of the increasingly radical immigration plans of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, and the campaign’s increasing strength.
Still, he said he was disappointed the resolution was being framed as doing anything other than renewing the campus’ sanctuary status in light of the development of a new program he felt could blur the lines. In his mind, if the cyber program wanted to take guidance from non-immigration enforcement agencies within DHS, like FEMA for example, that would be allowed because existing policy and the new resolution “refer to non-collaboration with immigration enforcement agencies.”
Kennemer sees it differently. While he said he fully supports protecting students, he believes the resolution is overbroad and doesn’t simply reaffirm past commitments to sanctuary campus status, but potentially throws new academic roadblocks in front of students of his program.
“If you can’t teach certain things … our students aren’t getting the quality education that we’re promising. And that goes against social justice, and it goes against equity,” Kennemer said.
The district, for its part, wrote in a statement that that it remains fully committed to the degree, which is set to launch in fall of 2024. But it also sought to assuage any worries about the infiltration of immigration forces on its campuses.
“No aspect of any program offered at the district or any colleges will aid immigration law enforcement that could harm undocumented individuals. The district is reviewing its policies and procedures to ensure organizations we engage with are aligned with our mission, vision, and values,” San Diego Community College Communications Director Jack Beresford wrote.
What We’re Writing
Over the last 15 years, the number of Black students in San Diego County schools has decreased by 44 percent That amounts to about 15,000 fewer Black students countywide. But the drop can’t simply be explained by the larger picture of public-school enrollment decline. During the same period, the county’s total number of students only shrunk by about four percent.