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GUTTING FREE SPEECH IS A DANGEROUS IDEA

If it is true that those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it, our college may be doomed to repeat a major blunder from its recent past.

Brace yourselves for another attack on free speech.

College administrators are apparently considering explosive revisions to Policy 3900: Freedom of Expression, the 2011 document passed unanimously by the Academic Senate and the Governing Board in the wake of the autocratic Chopra/Alioto era. A current draft of the rewrite goes so far as to change the policy’s name from “Freedom of Expression” to “Speech: Time, Place and Manner.”

It is worse than it sounds.

Our evergreen top administrators cannot be blamed for not knowing everything about the colorful past of Southwestern College, but we are alarmed by how little effort they make to learn even basic elements of our history and culture. (As far as we know VPAA Isabel Sabor is the only college leader to visit the archives of The Sun and take some back issues to read.)

Here are the crib notes:

  1. Southwestern College has a history of corruption.
  2. Southwestern College has a history of abuse of power.
  3. Southwestern College has a history of squelching free speech.

This unholy trinity is inextricably linked.

We will be generous today and not assume malicious intent, but even at the most innocent level, our leadership is guilty of utter cluelessness. Gutting the Freedom of Expression policy on this campus is like erecting a National Guard monument at Kent State. It is ignorant and insensitive.

Cynical lawyers have defiled the elegant and philosophical 2011 policy crafted by former Academic Senate President Angelina Stuart and a team of faculty. It has been splattered with page after page of red ink and strike-throughs.

It is a document any dictator could love. It returns the much-hated “free speech area” of the Chopra Times and puts a clock on it. The First Amendment may soon only apply M-F 8 a.m. – 5 p.m. in an approved spot somewhere off to the side.

Here are a few highlights of the proposed new policy:

  • Time: Monday through Friday, 8-5, excluding holidays. Overnights or sleeping on campus is prohibited. Protests like the successful 2011 sleep-in at Howard University (like SC, a minority-serving institution), where students of color protested unsafe campus conditions, would be banned. 
  • Place: Grassy areas, walkways, and “similar common areas.” However, “The District reserves the right to revoke that designation.” So, at a whim, administrators could designate any square foot of campus out-of-bounds for free speech.  
  • Manner: There is a prohibition against “any means of amplification” and a vague declaration that “expressive activities shall not disturb the operation of the college.” That definition is left to “the discretion of The District.” 

What could possibly go wrong?

A quick visit to The Sun’s archives provides some enlightening history that prompted the original “Freedom of Expression” policy.

Here are some lowlights:

  • In 2008 Chopra and Alioto passed policies banning classified employees from publically criticizing the college.
    • In October 2009 about 100 students protested Chopra’s decree to cut 439 classes while giving himself an 8 percent raise. Feeling ignored, the students left the designated free speech area and walked toward Chopra’s office. They were met by armed campus police. After 15 minutes the group peacefully dispersed because Chopra was not on campus anyway.
    • That evening four faculty members received visits at their homes from armed campus police and an HR employee notifying them that they were suspended for marching with the students. (One of the suspended professors – the union president – was not even at the rally.)

There is so much more, but only so much paper and ink.

Our archives are not the only source for SC free speech hijinks. Stories of Southwestern’s First Amendment abuses can be found in Newsweek, CNN, San Diego Union-Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Chronicle of Higher Education, Huffington Post as well as our region’s ABC, NBC, CBS affiliates, KUSI, and Telemundo. It is a case study in academic journals, to boot.

So our troubled past is hardly a secret.

In fact, in 2010 Southwestern College was awarded the “Jefferson Muzzle” by the Virginia-based Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression as one of America’s worst First Amendment violators. Former university president Dr. Robert M. O’Neil singled out former SC president Raj. K Chopra and his henchman VP Nicolas Alioto “for promulgating and enforcing a policy limiting even peaceful and non-disruptive protests to a designated ‘free speech patio’.”

There was more. SC was also hammered by the American Civil Liberties Union, the Foundation for Individual Rights (FIRE), the National Society of Professional Journalists, both local members of Congress, California Senators, and our accreditation body. There were plenty of others, but again space limits constrain us.

So this is a serious matter.

We can only hope that this screwball draft revision somehow “slipped by” administration and was never seriously considered or that our Governing Board crushes it in open session like Chopra and his board supporters were crushed at the polls in November 2010.

If this abomination of a policy passes, expect more history to repeat itself. Expect the resignation or termination of any administrator who lacks the good sense and decency to spike this attack on the First Amendment. Expect the political death of any governing board member who votes to curtail free speech.

It happened before.

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