LAWSUIT: FIRE sues to stop California from forcing professors to teach DEI

Press release August 17, 2023 1 min read

Press release
Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression

Today, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression filed a lawsuit on behalf of six California community college professors to halt new, systemwide regulations forcing professors to espouse and teach politicized conceptions of “diversity, equity, and inclusion.” Each of the professors teach at one of three Fresno-area community colleges within the State Center Community College District. Under the new regulations, all of the more-than-54,000 professors who teach in the California Community Colleges system must incorporate “anti-racist” viewpoints into classroom teaching.

The regulations explicitly require professors to pledge allegiance to contested ideological viewpoints. Professors must “acknowledge” that “cultural and social identities are diverse, fluid, and intersectional,” and they must develop “knowledge of the intersectionality of social identities and the multiple axes of oppression that people from different racial, ethnic, and other minoritized groups face.” Faculty performance and tenure will be evaluated based on professors’ commitment to and promotion of the government’s viewpoints.

Click here for link to full article

Leave a comment

Comments will be approved before showing up.


Also in National Free Speech News & Commentary

Why Are Humanists So Bad at Defending the Humanities?
Why Are Humanists So Bad at Defending the Humanities?

N. Ángel Pinillos June 25, 2026 1 min read

I recently listened to Ross Douthat’s interview with the philosopher Jennifer Frey. She is a serious thinker and an unusually courageous academic entrepreneur. What she built at the University of Tulsa before it was dismantled is exactly the sort of thing more universities should be attempting. Yet almost every argument she offered for the humanities is, I think, completely unpersuasive to anyone not already on our side of the table.

Read More
Free Expression in a Climate of Self-Censorship: A National Survey of American Law Faculty
Free Expression in a Climate of Self-Censorship: A National Survey of American Law Faculty

FIRE June 25, 2026 1 min read

This report presents findings from a national survey of 1,959 law school faculty at 192 American Bar Association (ABA) approved law schools in the United States, conducted by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE). As one of the largest surveys of law faculty on free expression and professional norms, the data reveal a profession that strongly endorses free speech principles while struggling to live them out in practice. 

Read More
The Turley-Wolfson Debate on Institutional Neutrality in Higher Education
The Turley-Wolfson Debate on Institutional Neutrality in Higher Education

Jonathan Turley  June 25, 2026 1 min read

I just returned from the University of Wyoming, where I debated the President of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) Todd Wolfson over the need for colleges and universities to maintain institutional neutrality. The debate was organized by the Steamboat Institute and was live-streamed.

The formal question presented for debate was: “Is institutional neutrality necessary to preserve the university as a forum for open inquiry rather than an actor in political disputes?” I spoke in favor of institutional neutrality while Wolfson argued against it as a necessary component to higher education.

Read More