☆ Why six CA'n community college profs are fighting back against DEI statements
Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) litigation fellow Jessie Appleby discusses Palsgaard v. Christian in this Opp Now exclusive: how local community colleges' required DEI statements force State-sanctioned speech, and why they should be challenged by folks of all political stripes.
Opportunity Now: A lot of professors in California, including the six FIRE is representing in Palsgaard v. Christian, are questioning the use of DEI statements in hiring. These professors claim the practice infringes on their First Amendment rights by compelling speech. Can you break this down for us?
Jessie Appleby: The state's DEI rules compel professors to endorse and teach the state's perspective on DEI through an array of overbroad, vague, and arbitrary requirements. It chills professors' classroom speech. Several of the plaintiffs teach subjects like philosophy, history, and English, where questions related to race, ethnicity, gender, etc., naturally arise. Whereas they once assigned readings that presented different perspectives on an issue like racism and invited classroom discussion and debate, they are now rethinking or altering their curriculum to avoid teaching perspectives contrary to the state-mandated viewpoints.
ON: And what are the ramifications for local community college students when their professors have been pre-screened for DEI ideology?
JA: By imposing a single state-mandated viewpoint, the state is depriving students of a core part of a college education: the opportunity to grapple with new, and sometimes uncomfortable, ideas. Students learn from classroom debate to engage with new ideas, think critically, and debate differing points of view in a respectful and constructive manner. They also learn that they are capable of doing so. But what we previously called an education California now calls "curricular trauma" and "weaponizing academic freedom."
ON: In an age where terms like “school choice” and “parental rights” have been twisted into Far-Right Extremist Codewords, it's no surprise that questioning DEI practices is labeled as a Right vs. Left battle. But this politicization feels reductive to us, no?
JA: Attempts to control professors' speech can and do come from all directions. Right now it's California's DEI mandates, but in Florida it was the Stop WOKE Act's restrictions on what concepts could be taught in college classrooms. The same First Amendment protections that prevent California from requiring college faculty to preach a single viewpoint on DEI also prevent Florida from barring the teaching of views it disfavors. By defending the principles of free expression even for the speech you don't like, you are also protecting the speech you do like.
Colleges and universities generate knowledge out of a multitude of voices and competing perspectives. Therefore, we all have a stake in preserving our colleges and universities as bastions of free expression where vigorous debate of contested issues is the norm.
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