Brickbat: Free To Speak

A federal judge has ruled that California's Clovis Community College violated the First and 14th Amendment rights of three conservative students when it took down fliers they had posted with anti-communist and pro-life messages. Judge Jennifer Thurston of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California ordered the college to pay  Alejandro Flores, Juliette Colunga, and Daniel Flores $20,000 each, plus $250,000 in fees for their attorneys. Thurston also ordered the State Center Community College District to develop a policy to protect the First Amendment rights of students and ordered administrators to undergo First Amendment training for two years.

Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

...and ordered administrators to undergo First Amendment training for two years.

And exactly what educator are they going to find to teach that?

[Fetterman's Hump]

Out source that task to the Starmer regime in the UK. They know a thing or two about proper communication!

[Vernon Depner]

I'll do it.

[Sometimes a Great Notion]

Columbia's dean needs a job

[Longtobefree]

In what reality would it take TWO YEARS to teach the first amendment?

Oh, wait. California.

[Brandybuck]

To be fair, this is Clovis. Fresno's only suburb. They still have an annual RODEO. And it's a community college mostly attended by the lower classes who have to work for a living. This is NOT a haven for the Far Left.

But to be a professor or administrator this, you gotta be Far Left to even get considered for employment. The University bullshit has rolled downhill to community colleges.

[MatthewSlyfield]

Eugene Volokh?

https://reason.com/people/eugene-volokh/

[Longtobefree]

The victims get 20K, the lawyers get 250K.
Does that seem right to you?

[sarcasmic]

Lawyers always win.

[Rossami]

Well, sorta. The goal of a civil lawsuit is to make everyone whole. The students are probably not out all that much - the copying cost of some flyers and a few hours labor to staple them up. And some lost opportunity to get our their message but that's offset by the Streisand Effect of the college's own censorship attempt. $20k apiece might even be generous for their damages.

$250k in legal fees, on the other hand, translates to about 1000 hours of work. That's not obviously unreasonable to fight and win a constitutional challenge. I don't begrudge the lawyers their fees in this one. Civil lawsuits are supposed to be about setting things right, not winning a lottery.

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

The big money is in punitive damages. I guess the plaintiffs forgot to sue to put the college out of business.

[Rick James]

$250k in legal fees, on the other hand, translates to about 1000 hours of work.

Or five minutes reading the Bill of Rights.

[SRG2]

Quite right.

[Rick James]

Charles Oliver

Every time I see this name I think to myself, "I wonder how the campaign is going..."

[Rick James]

Alejandro Flores, Juliette Colunga, and Daniel Flores

Dios, Familia, Patria