Emily Kelley / Roundup
A Los Angeles City College (LACC) student has filed a lawsuit against Los Angeles Community College District (LACCD) after his teacher refused to let him complete a speech on Christianity, according to court documents.
Jonathan Lopez filed a lawsuit Feb. 11 in U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals against the members of the LACCD board of trustees; Jamillah Moore, LACC president; Allison Jones, LACC dean of Academic Affairs; Gene Little, the director of the district Office of Diversity Programs; Cristy Passman, LACC compliance officer and John Matteson, Lopez’s speech teacher.
Both Matteson and Camilla Goulet, of the LACCD general council, were unavailable for comment at the time of publication.
“This isn’t just about Jonathan’s right to free speech, this is about every student’s right,” said David Hacker, one of the lawyers representing Lopez, in a phone interview from his office in Folsom.
Hacker works for the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian organization that “defends religious liberty,” according to their Web site.
No university speech code has ever been struck down, according to Hacker, but Lopez is still hoping to accomplish his goal of free speech for all. Lopez declined to be interviewed.
“The issue of free speech is very emotional and a right in your face topic these days,” said Robert Garber, Pierce College president.
Pierce faced a similar situation last semester when a man came on campus and began a religious demonstration. He carried a sign with Bible verses and claimed that “sex perverts, murderers and mouthy women” among others, were going to Hell. No action was taken since he was protesting inside the free speech zone.
According to court documents, Lopez began to present a persuasive speech on Nov. 24, 2008 to his Speech 101 class about his belief in Christianity. During the speech, he gave the dictionary definition of marriage and then read two Bible passages.
At this point, Matteson stopped Lopez’s speech, calling him a “fascist bastard” and refused to let him finish his presentation, according to the lawsuit.
Matteson told the class if they were offended they were free to leave, and when no one left, he formally dismissed the class.
Lopez found his speech’s evaluation sheet on his backpack after the class, with the words “Ask God what your grade is,” where his letter grade should have been. The evaluation was included in the legal documents.
He met with Jones the day after to describe Matteson’s actions, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit states that a week later, the professor embarrassed Lopez in front of the class when he came in late and interrupted another student’s speech. Even though Lopez apologized to the student and the rest of the class, Matteson commented that it “wasn’t very Christian of him.”
After that event, Lopez delivered a written statement to Jones and was confronted by Matteson, who threatened to get him expelled. Lopez then sent a letter through his ADF counsel demanding action be taken against his professor. The letter was included in the lawsuit.
Jones sent a letter to Lopez’s lawyers saying she had begun a “progressive discipline process” two days later. Two students from Lopez’s class, who were not named in the lawsuit, sent letters to the president as well. They stated that they didn’t think Lopez should be allowed to “spout hateful propaganda” or “preach hate speech.”
In his lawsuit, Lopez is seeking monetary, declaratory and injuctionary relief. In layman’s terms, he’s seeking an unspecified amount of money, part of which will cover his legal fees. He also wants a judge to declare that the defendants violated his first and 14th amendment rights, and he wants to stop them from doing it again. Lopez requested a trial by jury.
“Universities are supposed to be a marketplace for ideas, but they’ve become islands of isolation,” said Hacker.
According to Hacker, hundreds of universities have unconstitutional speech policies, forcing students to self-censor themselves.
The lawsuit cites that the district’s speech code is both vague and overboard and violates both of the above amendments. It states that the code limits speech in a public forum, and therefore violates constitutional rights.
The district’s policies are available online, and have sections on both discrimination and retaliation for any complaints about discrimination. It states that retaliation is not only against district policy, but is also against state and federal law.
The lawsuit isn’t citing the district’s discrimination policy however. According to Hacker, Lopez said that he felt that the sexual harassment policy was what was actually suppressing his speech.
The district’s sexual harassment policy prohibits any form of “offensive” speech, and does not define offensive. Hacker said that because of this it gives the schools too much leeway to restrict student’s speech.
The members of the board of trustees are responsible for making and enforcing district policies, according to California Education code 70902, which is why they are included in the lawsuit.
No trial date has been set as of press time.
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