California college cost taxpayers $330K for removing students’ anti-communist flyers

(The Center Square) - Clovis Community College in California reached a $330,000 settlement for taking down a student group’s anti-communist flyers and rejecting the group’s pro-life flyers. A related court order also prohibits the four-college community college district from censoring the speech of registered student clubs, even if such speech is “inappropriate” or “offensive.”

The college must also adopt a new poster policy protecting the First Amendment, hold annual First Amendment training sessions for administrators, and pay students damages for violation of their First Amendment rights.

In 2021, three students at Clovis Community College’s Young Americans for Freedom chapter received permission to hang flyers on bulletin boards inside the college’s buildings. The flyers, which listed death tolls of communist regimes and supported freedom, were ordered removed by the college president, who created a new rule — that posters must be of club announcements — to justify the decision. This justification was later used to stop the students from hanging up pro-life flyers, which the administrators ordered to be distributed only at the “free speech kiosk” in a remote part of campus.

“By relegating the flyers to a tiny kiosk, Clovis administrators tried to ensure that YAF’s opinions would never reach the rest of campus,” said attorney Jeff Zeman from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a First Amendment legal nonprofit that represented the students, when the lawsuit was filed.

As part of the settlement, Clovis students and YAF members Alejandro Flores, Daniel Flores, and Juliette Colunga each are receiving $20,000 settlements, while the YAF chapter will receive an additional $20,000. FIRE is receiving the remaining $250,000 in attorney’s fees for the case that has been ongoing since 2022.