Conservative teachers and students sue California community colleges — and win

At California community colleges, conservative professors and students are making their voices heard — not just in the classroom, but in court. Their lawsuits have already caused community colleges to pay millions in settlements and legal fees.

CalMatters has identified at least seven cases filed since 2020 in which teachers or students have sued their community college districts over free speech issues. Most of the cases are still pending and are located in California’s Central Valley, in counties where Republicans often outnumber Democrats. Although separate, many of these lawsuits include similar allegations: that programs that promote diversity, equity, and inclusion restrict First Amendment rights to free speech. The University of California system is facing a similar case in Santa Cruz.

In a state with 73 community college districts and 116 community colleges, such lawsuits are rare. However, President-elect Donald Trump has used similar cases as fodder for national policy, such as a executive order 2019 he signed on to free speech on college campuses, which he justified by pointing to some conservative and religious students who claimed colleges had restricted their rights. Throughout his campaign for this year’s election, Trump vowed to continue that focus if re-elected.

“The time has come to reclaim our once great educational institutions from the radical left,” he said in a campaign video last year, later adding that he would protect free speech and remove “all Marxist bureaucrats of diversity, equity and inclusion” from college campuses.

Even when these lawsuits are dismissed, community colleges may still pay a price. In a Riverside County processMoreno Valley College professor Eric Thompson claimed the community college violated his right to free speech when it fired him. The lawsuit alleges that his termination was the result of various student complaints, all stemming from opinions that Thompson presented in class or via email with the wider college community. He argued, for example, that homosexuality is the result of social factors, not genetics, and that conversion therapy should be allowed. Thompson lost the case, but public records show the district still paid nearly $900,000 in legal costs to fight it.

For Daniel Ortner, a lawyer who recently helped students and faculty file three separate lawsuits against community college districts, these cases are part of a larger trend to restrict controversial speech and force “conformity to a certain point view,” especially on topics of race. . Ortner works for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a nonprofit that focuses on free speech issues.

The community college system, the California State University system, and the UC Office of the President all have policies that promote diversity, equity, and inclusion on their campuses, although each system has taken a different approach.

Ortner said the policies at the community college level are the strictest and therefore prompt more pushback from faculty. According to the state Rulemaking passed in 2022, each community college district in the state must develop a policy for evaluating staff based on their ability to promote diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility.

“Students need to experience the campus and classroom cultures that they I feel like I can belongwhere they can thrive and succeed,” Eloy Ortiz Oakley, then chancellor of the community college system, said in a 2022 presentation on the new regulations. Of the more than 2 million students who enrolled at one of the state’s community colleges last year, most are with low incomesincluding some students who were youth in foster care or were incarcerated. Most students identify as black, Hispanic, or Asian.

California’s community college system has “the most diverse student population in the country,” Ortiz Oakley said, later adding that neither CSU nor the UC system have similar regulations in place. “We should be proud to be at the top.”

Nationally, many college systems have taken the opposite approach. A total of 25 states have proposed or signed legislation that limits how colleges support diversity, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Lawsuits for pronouns, posters and alleged censorship

Many of the lawsuits in California follow the same general outlines.

According to the details of a caseDavid Richardson, a professor at Madera Community College, began using the pronouns “Do, Re, Mi” while attending a 2021 presentation on personal gender pronouns. When the facilitator later confronted Richardson about his choice of pronouns — calling his actions “harmful to trans people” — Richardson doubled down, arguing that his choice of pronouns was part of his right to free speech. After the college disciplined him, Richardson sued the State Center Community College District, which oversees Madera Community College. The case is still pending in federal court.

Another process at Bakersfield College dates back to 2019, when two professors, Matthew Garrett and Erin Miller, came together a campus discussion on “free speech” and “campus censorship.” During the discussion, Garrett and Miller criticized the school for supporting Kern Sol News, a nonprofit news site, and criticized certain professors at the school’s Institute for Social Justice. Bakersfield College administrators then wrote a memo in their personnel files criticizing Garrett and Miller for “unprofessional conduct,” effectively “chilling” their First Amendment rights, according to the lawsuit.

The Kern Community College District settled with Garrett this summer, paying him 2.4 million dollars provided he waives all his legal claims against the district. It’s less than 1 percent of the district’s annual budget, but for a faculty member, many of whom make around $100,000 a year, it’s a significant amount. Miller continues with the case.

In the settlement, both Garrett and the district deny any wrongdoing. “The settlement is in the best interest of the district and allows us to focus on the future and continue to provide quality higher education for Kern County students without further legal distractions,” said Norma Rojas, spokeswoman for the Kern Community College District. , in a written statement. “To be clear, the dispute with Matthew Garrett was a disciplinary matter because of his disruptive actions on campus, none of which were about free speech.”

Miller and Garrett declined multiple requests for comment.

Another Central Valley case stems from an incident in 2021. At the time, Juliette Colunga was a student at Clovis Community College and part of the leadership team for her college’s chapter of the Young America Foundation, a national conservative organization with local affiliates in over 2,000 colleagues. campuses. She and two other students placed a set of posters on campus criticizing communism, which the college later removed after other students complained. Later, Colunga and her colleagues asked to put up pro-life posters, but school leaders said they could only be placed in a different location, away from where they usually posted their content. With the help of Ortner and the Young America Foundation, she and the other student leaders suedclaiming that the school district’s actions violated their First Amendment Rights.

This summer, the State Center Community College District, which oversees Clovis Community College, agreed to pay her, the other student leaders, her attorneys and the Young America’s Foundation. $330,000 as part of a legal agreement. The district as well he agreed implement a new campus poster policy and provide “First Amendment training” to all of its managers.

“It was never about making money,” Colunga said. “It wasn’t just about making change, it was about making sure the change stays for future students.”

Kristen Kuenzli Corey, general counsel for the State Center Community College District, declined to comment on Colunga’s lawsuit, Richardson’s lawsuit and another similar lawsuit. She pointed to the pleadings in the cases as evidence of the district’s position.

Do public employees, students have the right to freedom of speech?

Generally, the free speech provision of the First Amendment governs the relationship between the people and the government. Faculty and students at a public college have a right to free speech under the First Amendment, but in a slightly more limited way, said David Snyder, executive director of the First Amendment Coalition. Various courts have found that public institutions can limit the free speech rights of its employees—in this case, faculty—if an employee’s behavior runs counter to the institution’s mission. Schools also have the right to restrict student speech, but only if it disrupts education. The most famous example is “The Tinker Test”, where the US Supreme Court said that students had a right to free speech under the First Amendment as long as their behavior did not “materially and substantially interfere” with education.

“What matters is what the school policies say,” Snyder said. Regardless of constitutional questions, a teacher or student can sue if they believe the school’s actions violate its policies.

In addition to its diversity, equity, and inclusion policy, the California community college system also has a policy on academic freedom, which states that faculty, staff, and students should have “the opportunity to express their opinions on a campus-wide basis.”

The diversity, equity and inclusion regulations do not conflict with the academic freedom policy or otherwise “censor or impose speech,” said Paul Feist, a spokesman for the community college system, and pointed to a lawsuit filed by the Bakersfield professor Daymon Johnson College. as evidence. Johnson disagrees with the college’s principles of diversity, equity and inclusion and claims being forced to adhere to them would violate his rights, according to the case. A recent judge dismissed Johnson’s claims, though he has appealed the ruling. Neither the district nor Johnson responded to requests for comment.

Of the seven lawsuits identified by CalMatters, most took years to resolve.

Colunga’s lawsuit was settled this summer — nearly three years after she and other student leaders first put up posters at Clovis Community College. By the time the case was settled, she had already graduated and transferred to The Master’s University, a private four-year Christian college near Los Angeles.

She said the school does not have an official Young America Foundation chapter, but is trying to start one.