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Screenwriter Dustin Lance Black has accepted Pasadena Community College's re-invitation to speak at the school's commencement ceremony after initially being dumped in a gay panic non-controversy. To make matters worse for themselves, the replacement speaker tapped by PCC wound up being even more controversial when videos surfaced of Pasadena Public Health Director Eric Walsh sermonizing that Will & Grace was the work of Satan, among other terrible things. Walsh has since been put on leave.
PCC Superintendent-President Mark Rocha personally called Black on Saturday morning to apologize for the way his school handled the matter and extend the re-invite, according to a press release from the school. “All of us at PCC are so proud of Mr. Black and are delighted he is returning to his alma mater," said Rocha in the release.
"I look forward to the honor of returning to PCC to support the 2014 graduates of Pasadena City College," said Black of the commencement ceremony scheduled for this Friday. He was originally dumped from the ceremony when the school discovered that photos of him having unprotected sex with his boyfriend were on the Internet. The photos were leaked without his consent.
Black graduated from PCC in 1994, and won an Academy Award in 2009 for his screenplay of Gus Van Sant's Milk, a biopic about the gay politician Harvey Milk.