FRESNO, Calif.—After the approval of a preliminary injunction by a federal judge on Oct. 17, Clovis Community College has changed a poster policy that allegedly was used to suppress the freedom of speech of some conservative students, according to an attorney representing the college district.
“The flyer policy in question has already been replaced, and all campus clubs are able to post their materials without any of the prior concerns raised,” Anthony Demaria, the attorney representing Clovis Community College, told NTD, a sister media of The Epoch Times.
Jeff Zeman, one of the attorneys representing three student plaintiffs, told NTD, “The direct effect of this ruling by the court is that our students will be able to post their posters without fear that the administrators are going to take a look at them, not like them, and take the posters down.”
Following the ruling, one of the plaintiffs, Alejandro Flores, and other members of the Clovis Chapter of Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) were able to put up a mock Berlin Wall and sledgehammers to break it down. They were also able to put up flyers.
Flores told NTD that he and others continued taking part in Freedom Week to show “the Chapter’s still out there; we are not letting the school’s action deter us, because if that happens, then they win.”
The young Fresno resident never expected something like this to happen in a conservative place like his hometown.
In November 2021, Flores found that the flyers he and other club members had put up on an indoor board were taken down without a reasonable explanation. He thought it was a little bit “fishy,” since they had received approval from the college administration.
“For us, to have approval and spontaneously have it taken down with really no clarification, it’s kind of out of ordinary,” Flores said.
The administrators told the students that several people had complained that the flyers made them feel uncomfortable, citing a flyer policy that prohibited flyers “with inappropriate or [offensive] language or themes.”
The flyers were banished to an outdoor “Free Speech Kiosk,” a small box sitting in a remote part of campus.
In December 2021, before the first day the Supreme Court heard an oral argument in the Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case, the application of pro-life flyers from the same group of students was given a special review by administrators.
Flores and his fellow group members waited 26 hours, until the first day of the argument had finished. In the end, they got a “no” from administrative staff, who cited the same flyer policy.
“When that happened, we let the YAF know that we were kind of alerted by the school because of our previous incident the month before,” Flores said.
The plaintiffs and their legal team found that the administration had received complaints stating that the flyers made “several people uncomfortable,” and this had resulted in Clovis president Dr. Lori Bennet directing other staff to take down the flyers.
Bennet stated in an email: “If you need a reason, you can let them know that [we] agreed they aren’t club announcements.”
The case is still ongoing, and it is pending under the request of a jury trial. Prosecution is seeking a permanent injunction and to grant monetary damages for the students.
Alejandro Flores thinks the right to freedom of speech should not be suppressed, regardless of whether it is left-wing or right-wing.
“I think the only solution to bad ideas is more speech. I want people to hash out their ideas or beliefs, actually exchange, to have conversations. It’s the only way you can actually grow up as a person. You can figure out which ideology is better by actually communicating,” Flores said.
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