Hartnell's Dustin Lance Black honored by California Community College System

Dustin Lance Black, who attended Hartnell College before transferring to UCLA, was recently selected by the Community College League of California as a distinguished alumnus of the California Community College System. He will be honored at the League’s annual convention in November 2013.

Black credits his experience at Hartnell College and with The Western Stage as helping him to find his voice and his passion, according to Hartnell's Spokeswoman Terri Pyer. After Hartnell, Black attended UCLA and graduated with honors from the School of Theater, Film, and Television, and he has gone on to write influential plays and screenplays.

Black received an Academy Award for best original screenplay in 2009 for “Milk,” about the late civil rights activist Harvey Milk. Black also wrote the screenplay for the film “J. Edgar.” In July of 2012, he was the guest of honor at Hartnell College for the showing of "8," his play about the federal court case that successfully challenged the constitutionality of California’s Proposition 8, an amendment that had curtailed the rights of same-sex couples to marry. In June, the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in the case cleared the way for marriage equality in the state.