Censorship watch: SFSU and CA Community Colleges make 2024's Top 10 free speech silencers list
Tereus in the act of cutting out Philomela's tongue. Image by the University of Vermont.
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) “names and shames” this year's lineup of America's worst offenders for squelching free speech. And sadly, San Francisco State University (whose students held speaker Riley Gaines hostage last spring) and California Community Colleges (currently being sued for its dogmatic DEI statement hiring requirement) just joined the hall of shame. More info, and litigation updates, from FIRE below.
San Francisco State University
While San Francisco State investigates history professor for teaching history, its students make speaker flee for her safety for talking about womanhood.
Protesters chased down Riley Gaines after her campus speech at San Francisco State University.
San Francisco State University administrators were busy investigating a history professor for displaying a historical image in a history lesson when all hell broke loose during a speaking event on campus, ending in protesters shouting, chasing down, and cornering an Olympic athlete.
Last spring, SFSU’s censors dove headfirst into a months-long investigation of professor Mazair Behrooz after he displayed an image of the Prophet Muhammad in a class lesson about the history of the Islamic world between 500 and 1700. FIRE wrote to SFSU warning that its chilling investigation ran afoul of the school’s constitutional obligations.
While administrators were tied up violating Behrooz’s academic freedom rights, students took censorship into their own hands when former Olympic swimmer Riley Gaines came to campus to share her opinions about women’s sports and gender identities. Students and protesters screamed, chanted, stomped, and interrupted her speech, then accosted her as police officers attempted to escort her out. The officers were unable to do so safely until hours later. …
California Community Colleges
California Community Colleges stamp out racism by … labeling everyone racist.
Image by Martin Jambin
No one can rightly force another person to pledge allegiance to the flag, but in California, community college professors are required to profess allegiance to state-mandated views on “diversity, equity, and inclusion.”
In April, California Community Colleges imposed draconian regulations forcing more than 54,000 professors to teach and promote politicized conceptions of DEI. The mandated view includes the “anti-racist” opinion that “persons that say they are ‘not a racist’ are in denial” or that “color-blindness” — that is, “treating individuals as equally as possible, without regard to race, culture, or ethnicity” — only “perpetuates existing racial inequities and denies systematic racism.”
Professors, who once assigned readings presenting different perspectives on racial issues to invite classroom discussion and debate are now altering their curriculum to avoid perspectives contrary to the state-mandated viewpoint. Other professors are left wondering how to incorporate DEI concepts into their chemistry curriculum to comply with the new rules.
Whether professors satisfy the state’s ideological requirements has real career consequences. Faculty performance and tenure are now evaluated based on professors’ demonstrated commitment to and promotion of the state of California’s “official” views.
This article originally appeared in the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. Read the whole thing here.
Related:
Held-for-ransom SFSU speaker: Left wants to “silence” diverging viewpoints
Legal expert sees big free speech threats from CA Community College bureaucracy
Book reviews: How the Left “cancels” dissenting opinions—and what it'll take to stop the trend
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