Southwestern College makes news again

when it receives Jefferson 'Muzzle' Award for Egregious Censorship

The Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression has awarded a 2010 "Jefferson Muzzle"—a dubious distinction reserved for "egregious or ridiculous affronts to the First Amendment right of free speech"—to administrators at California's Southwestern College. 

The public college earned its Muzzle by "consistently refusing to heed and apply such clear principles of free expression in the governance of an institution of higher learning" in dealing with a peaceful student and faculty protest over budget cuts. The college banned from campus faculty members who participated in the protest. 

FIRE has been extensively involved in defending the faculty members and advocating for the dismantling of Southwestern's unconstitutional "free speech zone." This is the third consecutive year that a school at the center of a FIRE case has been awarded a Jefferson Muzzle. 

(an example of Column B)

Update: Southwestern College Faculty Suspensions

Update: Southwestern College Faculty Suspensions blogged via Google Alerts from Student Activism by Angus Johnston, 11/2/09



Inside Higher Ed has a new piece up this morning on the Southwestern College fiasco, bringing the story pretty much up to date. Go check it out. 


Also this morning, a source on campus sent me a copy of the latest memo from the administration.

Southwestern College students protest class cuts (& what the Administration did)

AAUP is taking an interest in this one after we brought it to their attention on adj-l. Click through to the blog post for comments.

Southwestern College Students Protest Class Cuts (And What the Administration Did Afterward) via The Writer's Washroom by Nickolas on 10/24/09

On Thursday, October 22, students at Southwestern College in Chula Vista chose to protest against the unilateral actions of the school president and its Board. The protest was civil and held in the fifty yard-by-fifty yard zone that the school calls its "Free Speech Area."


It should also be noted that the Free Speech Area is hidden away between several buildings and is invisible to any road, parking lot, or driveway that surrounds the campus. To a member of the voting public - such as myself - who showed up to watch the students, it was difficult to find. I, like others, had to park and wander the campus until we found it.

For the last Board meeting, President Chopra refused to move the venue from the tiny room it usually used to the auditorium it regularly uses when it expects a big crowd. He knew that students, professors, members of the public, and the press were coming to express their displeasure at his budget-slashing plans, so more than one hundred people – like me – stood outside and listened to the meeting on little speakers, while police guarded the doors.