Federal judge blocks California community college’s political flyer policy
Madalyn Wright
October 14, 2022
A federal judge granted a preliminary injunction in favor of a conservative youth group.
FRESNO, Calif. (CN) — A federal judge in California Friday ruled Clovis Community College administrators cannot enforce the school’s flyer policy while a suit filed by students and members of a conservative youth organization proceeds.
Prior to the injunction, the school required students to have all flyers approved by an administrator to ensure they did not contain any “inappropriate or offensive language or themes.”
The flyer policy also includes content-neutral regulations, including the number of posters students are allowed to hang and rules about where they can be posted.
The defendants argued in a brief opposing the injunction that the bulletin boards aren’t public forums and, as such, the plaintiffs did not have a constitutional right to post their flyers inside the college’s buildings. U.S. District Judge Jennifer Thurston, however, wrote in her 32-page opinion that “regardless of whether the bulletin boards are a public or nonpublic forum, the prohibition against viewpoint discrimination equally applies.”
