Anti-DEI California professor reaches deal with college officials

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (CN) — Officials of Bakersfield College and the Kern Community College District in California cannot investigate, discipline or fire a professor after he sued them over diversity, equity and inclusion policies.

The protection for Daymon Johnson stems from a stipulated order signed Tuesday by U.S. District Judge Kirk Sherriff. Johnson, who served as faculty lead for campus group Renegade Institute for Liberty, filed suit in 2023. He claimed college administrators villainized his group, fired one professor for “wrongthink” and investigated him after a colleague filed a harassment complaint.

“Given school officials’ various ideological proclamations, his experience of being investigated for pure political speech and the example defendants made of his colleague and direct predecessor as RIFL faculty lead, whom they fired for dissent, Professor Johnson refrains from expressing himself on political matters for fear of being subjected to further investigations and termination,” he said in his complaint.

Sherriff says in his order that the college, along with its agents and employees, cannot enforce certain diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility state regulations on Johnson. Those regulations require faculty to gain proficiency in DEIA-related performance to teach or work in California community colleges. Evaluations of employees also must include their progress toward DEIA.

Also, the college cannot require Johnson to use teaching and professional practices that reflect DEI principles. Nor can they fire him for refusing to obey those rules, to the extent they hinge on his social and political speech.

However, the college and other defendants can require Johnson to take a mandatory DEIA training that’s required to serve on a faculty screening committee. The order also doesn’t apply to Johnson’s official speech as a committee member.

Sherriff, a Joe Biden appointee, noted the order closes the case.

Johnson’s suit wound through legal corridors for three years, at one point reaching the Ninth Circuit.

Sherriff in 2024 dismissed the suit, ruling Johnson didn’t have standing to bring First Amendment claims against school officials for injuries he hadn’t yet experienced.

The judge at the time said standing was an essential part of Johnson’s case. Johnson needed to show he’d been injured, that the school might take enforcement action against him and that a ruling in his favor would correct that injury.

Johnson had argued he couldn’t recommend books with the phrase “cultural Marxism” in the title. However, Sherriff determined that only covered the question of “what,” not “when,” “where” and other essential details.

Johnson appealed, leading a Ninth Circuit panel to give him a partial win last year.

The appeals panel found some state law provisions forbade Johnson’s conduct, which gave him standing to sue certain community college officials. It also said the defendants never stated they wouldn’t enforce those provisions.

The judges also discarded an argument that the college had no history of enforcement, writing that had little weight because the regulations became effective only months before Johnson’s suit.

The decision sent the case back to Sherriff, who in February denied a motion to dismiss by the defendants.

The Institute for Free Speech praised the ruling in a statement, noting it includes $150,000 in attorneys’ fees.

“California community colleges tried to make Professor Johnson say things he didn’t believe — under threat of discipline or termination if he refused. That’s a straightforward First Amendment violation,” said Institute for Free Speech Vice President for Litigation Alan Gura, lead counsel for Johnson, in a statement. “California cannot demand that community college professors conform their speech to an official government ideology — including so-called ‘DEI’ and anti-racist ideologies.”

Attorneys for the defendants couldn’t be reached for comment.