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LOS ANGELES — A Los Angeles Community College student has filed a lawsuit against the school district after his instructor used an expletive against him in front of the class for his speech about marriage. He also refused to grade the student’s assignment telling him to “Ask God what your grade is.”
According to the suit Jonathan Lopez was sharing his views on marriage during an open-ended assignment Nov. 24 in his public speaking class. Speech professor John Matteson interrupted and ended the presentation mid-speech when Lopez cited the dictionary and Scripture in defining marriage.
Instead of allowing Lopez to finish, Matteson told the other students they could leave if they were offended. When no one left, Matteson dismissed the class for the day.
“Christian students shouldn’t be penalized or discriminated against for speaking about their beliefs,” ADF Senior Counsel David French said in a news release. “Public institutions of higher learning cannot selectively censor Christian speech. This student was speaking well within the confines of his professor’s assignment when he was censored and ultimately threatened with expulsion.”
Matteson threatened to push for Lopez’s expulsion a week later after seeing the student talking to the college’s dean of academic affairs.
The attorney for Lopez said the episode was not an isolated incident for Matteson who used the same language in class to deride those who voted yes on Proposition 8, which limits marriage to one man and one woman.
“Professor Matteson clearly violated Mr. Lopez’s free speech rights by engaging in viewpoint discrimination and retaliation because he disagreed with the student’s religious beliefs,” French said. “When students are given open-ended assignments in a public speaking class, the First Amendment protects their ability to express their views.”
French, who also heads ADF’s Center for Academic Freedom, alleged the issue goes much deeper than Matteson.
“The district has a speech code that has created a culture of censorship on campus,” the attorney said. “America’s public universities and colleges are supposed to be a ‘marketplace of ideas,’ not a hotbed of intolerance.”
ADF-allied attorney Sam Kim and attorney Michael Parker of the Buena Park firm Sam Kim and Associates, APC, are serving as local counsel in the case.
ADF’s Center for Academic Freedom was founded in January 2006 to help defend the constitutional rights of students and student organizations who wish to engage in free speech, expression and association, as well as the free exercise of religion on campus.
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