When the U.S. Supreme Court endorsed a UC Hastings College of the Law decision to bar a Christian student group from receiving university funds last month, some free-speech advocates winced, saying the court's opinion would be used by colleges and universities to squelch offensive or unpopular speech.
It looks like they might be right.
The Los Angeles Community College District is trying to use the Hastings ruling to bolster its defense in a speech code case, in which a college professor mocked a student who was speaking about his Christian faith in class.
The Los Angeles case began in fall 2008 when Los Angeles City College student Jonathan Lopez gave an impassioned talk about his Christian beliefs during a Speech 101 class. He spoke about his opposition to gay marriage in the wake of the passage of the controversial Proposition 8, which banned gay marriage in the state.
According to the complaint, professor John Matteson interrupted Lopez, called him a "fascist bastard" and refused to let him finish his speech. Matteson left an evaluation form on Lopez's backpack that said "Ask God what your grade is."
Lopez sued, seeking financial damages and a ban on enforcing the sexual harassment code, which prohibited "hostile" and "offensive" remarks in and out of the classroom.
In a motion to dismiss, college district officials said they did not approve of Matteson's behavior and had put him through a disciplinary process. But Lopez's suit, they said, was a publicity stunt. The Speech 101 class was not a public forum and First Amendment rights could be limited in that setting, they argued.
In July 2009, U.S. District Judge George H. King granted a preliminary injunction barring the enforcement of the harassment code at the district, the Los Angeles Times reported. The college district appealed....
College in Mississippi Withdraws Penalties Against Student Who Swore (Chronicle of Higher Education)
A community college in Mississippi has dropped penalties against a student for using a profanity after learning he had received a poor grade on a tardy assignment. The student, Isaac Rosenbloom, said in an interview that Hinds Community College sent a letter on Tuesday stating that he would "not suffer any future consequences" related to the March 29 incident.
Mr. Rosenbloom and a few other students had remained after a speech class one day to discuss their grades with the instructor, Barbara Pyle. Upon seeing that he had received a score of 74 on the late assignment, Mr. Rosenbloom testified in a recorded disciplinary hearing that he turned to a classmate and said, "This grade is going to [expletive] up my entire GPA." He said the instructor had told him his language was unacceptable and ordered him to detention.
Hinds does not have detention, but it does punish students who use profanity through a system of fines and demerits, an arrangement that the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, a free-speech advocacy group known as FIRE, contends is unconstitutional.
Hinds found Mr. Rosenbloom guilty of "flagrant disrespect" and issued 12 demerits against him. The college also blocked him from finishing the course and placed a record of the incident in his student file, an action that FIRE says caused Mr. Rosenbloom to lose his student aid.
Mr. Rosenbloom, who works as an emergency medical technician and is pursuing paramedic training at Hinds, appealed the decision twice and lost both times. His lawyers, Robert B. McDuff and Sibyl C. Byrd, persuaded Hinds to reverse its decision, according to a statement by FIRE….
2 comments:
I'm probably more irritated with the self righteous Christian bores than anyone, but there are any number of better ways to deal with it in class than Matteson's approach.
May be grade system is correct. As it is applies on all the universities. Students must do little of the hard work to do the work.
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