As California public universities attempt to steadiness campus security with college students’ proper to protest, neighborhood faculties are squaring off in courtroom with college students and employees who argue that the faculties are violating their freedom of speechexplains CalMatters neighborhood faculty reporter Adam Echelman.
Since 2020, there have been at the very least seven lawsuits filed by professors or college students that allege faculties’ efforts to advertise variety, fairness and inclusion violate their free speech rights.
In 2021, a Madera Group School professor sued the district when the faculty disciplined him for utilizing the pronouns “Do, Re, Mi” after he attended a presentation about gender pronouns. That very same yr, Juliette Colunga, then a scholar at Clovis Group School, sued after the varsity eliminated anti-communist posters put up by Colunga and different college students and restricted the show of their anti-abortion posters.
Battling these lawsuits can get expensive: The district overseeing Clovis School agreed to pay Colunga and others a complete of $330,000 in a settlement. And in one other lawsuit involving the firing of a Moreno Valley School professor who stated conversion remedy must be allowed, the district paid almost $900,000 in authorized prices despite the fact that the case was dismissed.
However for Colunga, who’s now at a personal, four-year Christian faculty in Santa Clarita, her lawsuit was “never about making money.”
- Colunga: “It was not only about making change, but also about ensuring that change remains for future students.”
Study extra about neighborhood faculties’ free speech battles in Adam’s story.
In different increased ed information: To keep away from shutting down Cal Maritime, California’s smallest public college, Cal State leaders are poised as we speak to approve merging it with Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, report CalMatters’ Mikhail Zinshteyn and Jeremy Garza.
Cal Maritime’s graduates lead industrial ships that transfer cargo or U.S. army provides world wide. However its enrollment has plummeted lately, from 1,107 in 2016-17 to 761 final fall.
Merging with extremely selective Cal Poly, which is 250 miles away, is anticipated to price at the very least $5 million a yr for the subsequent seven years, however that’s far lower than protecting Cal Maritime separate at its diminished dimension.
Learn extra in regards to the merger in Mikhail and Jeremy’s story.
