California community college settles with professor who sued over DEI policy

 Dive Brief:

Bakersfield College and the California Community College system on Tuesday reached a settlement with professor Daymon Johnson, who sued over the system’s diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility requirements for faculty.
Under the agreement, Bakersfield cannot require Johnson to use DEIA principles in his teaching or scholarship. It can, however, require Johnson to take a mandatory DEI training as part of his role on a faculty screening committee.
The deal also awarded Johnson $150,000 to cover his lawyer fees, according to the nonprofit Institute for Free Speech, which represented him.

Dive Insight:

The California Community College system adopted rules in 2023 that said faculty should “employ teaching, learning, and professional practices that reflect DEIA and anti-racist principles.” The regulations also tied faculty evaluations to “DEIA-related competencies.”

Johnson quickly sued over the requirements, alleging they violate his First Amendment rights by potentially forcing him to express viewpoints he does not agree with. The Institute for Free Speech has described the DEIA regulations as “state-imposed wokeism.”

Tuesday’s settlement makes permanent a preliminary injunction handed down by U.S. District Judge Kirk Sherriff against Bakersfield in February. It only applies to Johnson and does not prohibit California’s community colleges from enforcing DEIA rules against other instructors.

Alan Gura, the nonprofit’s vice president for litigation and Johnson’s lead counsel, called the case “a straightforward First Amendment violation” on Tuesday.

“California cannot demand that community college professors conform their speech to an official government ideology — including so-called ‘DEI’ and anti-racist ideologies,” he said in a statement. “Professor Johnson spent years fighting for the First Amendment right that every American professor should take for granted: the right to teach honestly, think freely, and speak his mind without being forced to endorse a government-approved belief system.”

In his lawsuit, Johnson also alleged that college administrators “villainized” a “dissident” Bakersfield faculty group he leads called The Renegade Institute for Liberty.

The college-sanctioned organization is dedicated to free speech with the goal of advancing “American ideals within the broader Western tradition of meritocracy, individual agency, civic virtue, liberty of conscience and free markets,” according to its website