A tenured history professor at California's Bakersfield College can't be fired for criticizing DEI ideology, but he can still be forced to sit through DEI training if he wants to serve on hiring committees. That's the split decision from U.S. District Judge Kirk Sherriff, who ruled Friday that the college and the Kern Community College District are barred from punishing Daymon Johnson for his political and social speech.
The ruling came seven months after the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated Johnson's First Amendment lawsuit, overruling Sherriff's own earlier finding that Johnson lacked standing to sue. Sherriff, a President Biden nominee, then reversed course, rejecting the defendants' motion to dismiss and partially granting Johnson's motion for a preliminary injunction.
The injunction prohibits Bakersfield College and KCCD from "investigating, disciplining, or terminating Johnson by enforcing" California code regulations "based on Johnson's proposed social or political speech." That's a significant win. But the judge left one door open: the college can still require DEIA training "as a requirement to participate on faculty screening committees."
At the heart of this case is California's regime of DEIA regulations for community colleges. These rules demand that faculty "employ teaching, learning, and professional practices that reflect DEIA and anti-racist principles" and demonstrate "proficiency in DEIA-related performance to teach, work, or lead within California community colleges."
Read that again. Not competence in your subject. Not quality of instruction. Proficiency in a political ideology as a condition of employment.
Johnson's sin was refusing to play along, and saying so out loud. He criticized "cultural Marxism" and declined to promote progressive orthodoxy. For that, he endured a five-month investigation. He's up for evaluation again this year and, according to the case record, has widely censored himself to avoid a bad evaluation. He stopped booking speakers for campus events. He dropped out of committee meetings. The chilling effect wasn't hypothetical, it was already working.
Judge Sherriff acknowledged as much:
"Johnson has credibly identified specific speech that he reasonably fears would be proscribed by the DEIA regulations."
The judge further found that Johnson's speech "concerns a matter of public concern" and that he spoke in the "capacity as a private citizen or public academic engaging in extracurricular speech." In other words: a professor criticizing a state-imposed ideology is doing exactly what the First Amendment protects.
Bakersfield College and KCCD tried to argue they had a legitimate reason to suppress Johnson's speech. Sherriff wasn't buying it. The defendants failed to show "a legitimate administrative interest in suppressing the speech that outweigh[s]" Johnson's rights. Based on "the plain text of the regulations," the judge found it "hard to envision" how faculty could comply with the DEIA mandates without endorsing a particular viewpoint.
The defendants also argued, "[s]omewhat inconsistently" in Sherriff's words, about who was actually responsible for enforcing these regulations. The college and district tried to deflect to the statewide Board of Governors, but the judge identified them as the "moving force" behind enforcement, they were the "municipal entities" doing the punishing, regardless of which body was the "promulgating entity."
Sherriff noted bluntly:
"There is no basis to believe the Board of Governors would take enforcement action against defendants."
And yet he also acknowledged that "only a statewide authority could adequately defend the DEIA regulations and the statute." Translation: the people enforcing the rules can't defend them, and the people who wrote them aren't bothering to show up.
The ruling isn't a clean sweep. Sherriff allowed the college to continue requiring DEIA training for participation on faculty screening committees, reasoning that such committee work "would constitute government speech on an administrative matter in an official capacity." He also noted the record wasn't developed enough to determine whether serving on a screening committee crossed the line, but he drew a distinction: Johnson doesn't have to personally believe what's in the training.
"The government may express its views."
That's the judge's reasoning. The government can talk, it just can't compel Johnson to agree. Whether that distinction holds in practice is another matter entirely. Mandatory training sessions have a way of blurring the line between "the government expressing its views" and "the government requiring you to nod along."
Sherriff also acknowledged that Johnson's speech on the Equal Opportunity and Diversity Advisory Committee, "an official Bakersfield College committee", constituted official speech with different protections. The boundaries here are narrow and fact-specific, which means more litigation is almost certainly coming.
Johnson isn't the first professor at this institution to face this kind of pressure. His colleague Matthew Garrett faced similar retaliation for similar speech. KCCD voted to fire Garrett in a secret board vote. Garrett later secured a $2.4 million settlement with KCCD to end his litigation.
A $2.4 million payout, and the institution learned nothing. It simply moved on to the next target.
This isn't confined to California's Central Valley, either. In New York, the Baldwinsville Central School District put Spanish teacher Jennifer Fasulo on paid leave soon after she agreed to advise students setting up a high school affiliate of Turning Point USA, the organization founded by the late conservative activist Charlie Kirk. In Maryland, a split 4th Circuit panel rejected teacher Kimberly Polk's motion for a preliminary injunction against a Montgomery County Public Schools policy, though the Supreme Court last term overturned every 4th Circuit ruling it reviewed, save those from one other appeals court.
The pattern is unmistakable. Educators who dissent from progressive orthodoxy face investigations, suspensions, secret votes, and professional exile. Those who comply face nothing. The system doesn't punish bad teaching. It punishes wrong thinking.
Alan Gura, Vice President for Litigation at the Institute for Free Speech, which represents Johnson, framed the stakes clearly:
"In America, no one can be required to believe or endorse the state's official political ideology, and everyone is free to criticize it."
That used to be so obvious it didn't need saying. California's DEIA apparatus has made it a contested legal proposition. The state built a compliance regime that requires faculty to demonstrate ideological proficiency, not just awareness, not just tolerance, but active endorsement of a specific set of political commitments, and then acts surprised when someone with tenure and a spine pushes back.
KCCD did not respond to Just the News requests for comment. Their silence is consistent with their strategy throughout: enforce quietly, punish discreetly, and hope the professor gives up before a judge weighs in.
This time, the professor didn't give up. And the judge weighed in.
