You have /5 articles left.
Sign up for a free account or log in.
A court order from a U.S. district judge, issued Friday, barred the State Center Community College District in California and its campuses from enforcing policies that discriminate against student groups based on their views.
The move comes after the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression sued Clovis Community College, a part of the State Center district, in 2022 on behalf of students from a campus chapter of Young Americans for Freedom, a conservative student organization. The students alleged they were ordered to take down fliers with conservative messaging, which infringed on their free speech rights. Administrators reportedly cited a posting policy that prevented “inappropriate or offensive” fliers. An appellate court sided with the students last summer.
The order permanently bars the State Center Community College District from “any unlawful viewpoint-discriminatory, overbroad, or vague regulation, or prior restraint, on the content of the speech of recognized student clubs, including but not limited to bans on ‘inappropriate’ or ‘offensive’ language.”
The students and the district also reached a settlement in which the district has to adopt a new posting policy, hold training sessions for district officials on the First Amendment and pay the three students $20,000 each in damages, plus $250,000 in attorney fees.
