Two California Colleges Pull Students Out of Spanish Study Program

MISSION VIEJO, Calif. (AP) __ Nearly a year after Spain pulled its troops out of Iraq, two California colleges say they´re pulling their students out of Spain.

Trustees of the South Orange County Community College District voted to end the 14-year-old summer program last week. One trustee says the school was keeping its students out of a country that had “abandoned” American fighting men and women. Spain pulled its 13-hundred troops out of Iraq last year after the Socialist government took power. The move also came after the deadly Madrid train bombings. The trustee, a former Republican Party leader, said the bombings also raised concerns about student safety, though students were allowed to visit Spain three months after the attack.

The professor who runs the program said it was hard to believe that a community college could put “this much politics into academics.”