CALIFORNIA — Welcome to Irvine Valley College, where the fightfor free speech by professors and students has been going on for more thantwo years.
Along with faculty members (see Professor),students are upset over what they say are violations of their First Amendmentrights that started when Raghu Mathur became president of the college.Some students have even decided to sue the school.
Irvine Valley students Diep Burbridge, Scott Stephansky and DorothyCaruso filed a lawsuit in August against the South Orange Community CollegeDistrict, saying that their rights to free expression were being violated.
“President Mathur, certain administrators and board of trustee memberswere strategically suppressing students and faculty and reducing us tosecond-class citizens,” Caruso said.
The students claim that the school is infringing on their rights byregulating where they can gather, post messages and pass out fliers.
“Suddenly, little glass boxes encased under lock and key showed up onour outside bulletin boards,” Caruso said. “Anyone wanting to post therehad to get permission, get their poster stamped, leave it there with studentservices who would go down, unlock the glass doors, place the flyer in,lock it up again, and in 14 days the person posting had to take down theirposter.”
But it is not only the wait they have to endure to post a sign thatangers students. Sometimes academic offices were moved just to quiet dissentingvoices on campus, Caruso said.
“The biology department had a front window, and in that window theydisplayed signs that said ‘Mathur must go’ and displayed grievances forstudents or anyone to read,” Caruso said. “In a word, free speech.”
Mathur threatened to take the signs down. The administration decidedto move the offices instead, according to Caruso.
“They evidently reorganized their strategy and somehow forced the biologydepartment to vacate their front office and placed them where they couldn’tbe seen or heard of by the outside public,” Caruso said.
A federal judge agreed with the students and issued a preliminary injunctionin September prohibiting the college from enforcing many of the restrictionsdescribed in the lawsuit. The judge removed a provision that preventedstudents from holding demonstrations or gatherings in all but a few designatedareas on campus. She also said students should be allowed to use microphonesor other amplification at rallies and demonstrations.
One of the students’ main complaints was that they were not allowedto demonstrate in front of the student services center — a major gatheringspot for students on campus. The judge ruled that students should be allowedto demonstrate in front of the center.
The community college district appealed the preliminary injunction ruling,according to the students’ attorney, Carol Sobel.
For now, however, the case has been put on hold because the districtsaid it intends to adopt a new policy that will address the concerns expressedby the judge, Sobel said.
Sobel said she is not optimistic about the new policy, adding that shedoes not think it will help the case for free speech at the college.
“It’s a broader policy that will restrict more speech, not just forthe students but everybody on campus, except the administration,” she said.
Cedric Sampson, chancellor of the district, and Mathur did not returnphone calls made to their offices by the Report.
After the new policy is published, Sobel said she expects the case willbe dropped, and students will have to file a new lawsuit to contest theconstitutionality of the new policy.
The district first said it expected to have the new policy enacted byFebruary, “but now they are saying April or May, and frankly I don’t thinkthey are going to have it by then,” Sobel said.
Sobel said she has dealt with many lawsuits against the district.
“This will be the fourth challenge to a student speech policy in thatdistrict,” she said.