Chabot College analysis: Free speech also protects ideas you dislike

Since reposting what’s been labeled an insensitive meme on his LinkedIn page this Sept., Chabot-Las Positas Community College District Trustee Luis Reynoso has faced threats of removal from the board. During the Oct. board meeting, then-board candidate for Hayward USD Tom Wong unpacked and applied First Amendment rights to contentious local situations like Chabot’s. Wong’s comments excerpted below.

(0:01-1:14)

… [T]he first Amendment allows everybody the right to speak. And we should not be censoring people. We should actually encourage dialogue. If this is what it means, to have only a one-sided conversation, that’s an argument. That’s not dialogue. We can’t come to an equitable conclusion. We can’t come to a medium understanding. We can’t come to any type of agreement. This is not right.

Our forefathers fought and died for us to be able to speak, and speak freely. To address our grievances. To work out our differences. And this is really wrong to actually punish a man for speaking based on his constitutional rights.

Everybody here said their piece; it was part of their constitutional rights. Part of the First Amendment, we get to address our government, and that’s what everybody’s doing. But what I see is a bunch of mental gymnastics trying to justify something that’s not there.

And therefore, if we punish Reynoso, then what are we saying? That the Constitution do [sic] not apply, do not apply to any of us? What message are we sending?

(2:06-2:28)

The person who filed the complaint did it maliciously because they’re running for office. That’s my belief. That’s my investigation side of me, speaking of twelve years of private investigation. I’ve worked in law enforcement, in financial crime, organized crime, narcotics. What I see is this is a political hit, just so that this person could get elected.

Watch the whole thing here.

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