Conservative student group wins injunction over ‘discriminatory treatment’ at Clovis college
A federal judge in Fresno sided with a group of politically conservative students at Clovis Community College, issuing a preliminary injunction that bars the college and its leaders from enforcing some provisions of a policy regulating posters and flyers on the campus.
The students and their organization, Young Americans for Freedom, filed a lawsuit against the college’s president, Lori Bennett, and other campus officials, alleging the college leaders violated their First Amendment rights to freedom of expression when they banned their flyers from college bulletin boards in late 2021.
U.S. District Judge Jennifer Thurston granted the students’ motion for a preliminary injunction over the college’s policy that requires college administrators and staff to prohibit flyers based on having “inappropriate or offensive language or themes” or requiring administrators’ preapproval for posting such flyers while the lawsuit is pending.
In her ruling issued Friday, Thurston wrote that the manner in which the policy was applied to the flyers was “arbitrary and discriminatory treatment” toward students Alejandro Flores, Daniel Flores and Juliette Colunga and their YAF-Clovis chapter.
The students and their organization are being represented in the case by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, or FIRE.
In addition to Bennett, other defendants named in the suit are vice president of student services Marco De La Garza, dean of student services Gurdeep Sihota Hebért, and senior student services program specialist Patrick Stumpf as defendants.
The students allege that in November, they received approval from Stumpf to post flyers promoting an anti-Communism theme on indoor bulletin boards inside two academic buildings on the Clovis campus at Willow and International avenues. Those posters were later ordered removed by Bennett and the other administrators after complaints that the posters reportedly “made ‘several people … very uncomfortable,’” according to email exchanges entered as evidence in the case.
In December, the college denied the group’s request to post a series of anti-abortion flyers on the indoor bulletin boards, instead relegating them to an outdoor free-speech kiosk on the campus.
Throughout her 32-page ruling, Thurston indicated that the students generally have the law on their side. “The Supreme Court has established that the government may not proscribe speech merely because it offends someone or because it contains an unpopular viewpoint,” she wrote.
Thurston added that the students and their attorneys, through their court briefings and in a Sept. 23 video hearing, “demonstrated a likelihood of success” in their lawsuit on several fronts, including that the flyer policy limits constitutionally protected speech or expression, that the policy’s prohibition of “inappropriate or offensive language” is overly broad and unconstitutionally vague.
In a statement provided by FIRE, YAF-Clovis co-founder Alejandro Flores said of their Freedom Week anti-communism flyers, “we wanted to criticize authoritarian governments, but we had no idea that our own college would try to stop us.”
“I’m glad we fought back because all students should be able to speak out at college,” Flores added.
A college representative previously indicated that neither the Clovis college nor the State Center Community College District would comment on pending litigation.
In her ruling, Thurston noted that attorneys for the college administrators argued that the students “did not have any First Amendment rights in connections with postings on College Bulletin Boards.” But, she added, “once (officials) opened the bulletin boards to (other) non-government speech, they do not have unbridled editorial discretion over the content of the student flyers.”
Thurston cited case law concerning limitations on material that can be posted on elementary and high school campuses, where administrators may legitimately exercise control over what is presented to children.
But “the general tenor of cases involving restrictions on college student speech strongly suggest that a ban on ‘offensive’ speech undermines the school’s own interest in fostering a diversity of viewpoints on campus, thus frustrating, rather than promoting, the College’s basic educational mission,” Thurston wrote.
While the preliminary injunction restricts college administrators from banning flyers based on inappropriate or offensive language, Thurston said it “will not prevent the college from crafting a new policy that … provides objectively reasonable standards for determining what is prohibited.”
It does not restrict “any policies the college may have, or may implement, that prohibit speech that is not protected under the First Amendment, such as language which incites violence or true threats,” the judge added.
The preliminary injunction is not the end of the case. In their lawsuit, in which the students are asking for a jury trial, they’re seeking not only a permanent injunction, as well as monetary and punitive damages and attorney fees to be determined at trial.
The next scheduled event in the case is a mandatory scheduling conference in June 2023.
Thurston has served as a magistrate judge in the U.S. District Court in Fresno since 2009. She was nominated by President Biden and confirmed by the U.S. Senate in September 2021 to fill a seat vacated by Judge Lawrence O’Neill.
This story was originally published October 18, 2022 at 3:31 PM with the headline "Conservative student group wins injunction over ‘discriminatory treatment’ at Clovis college."
