Are California’s new 'woke' DEI college standards illegal?

California Community Colleges' new teaching standards "mandate viewpoint conformity" and "compel professors to teach and preach the State's perspective," according to a lawsuit called Palsgaard v. Christian, filed by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, or FIRE.  

Join Reason's Zach Weissmueller and Liz Wolfe this Thursday at 1 p.m. Eastern for a discussion with Jessie Appleby, an attorney with FIRE, and Bill Blanken, a chemistry professor at Reedley College in California and plaintiff who says the standards advanced by the state's community college board amount to  "compelled speech" in the classroom.  

They'll discuss the details of the case, dive into the proposed changes in the classroom, discuss the origins of the "diversity, equity, and inclusion" (DEI) standards that pervade academia and the corporate world, and examine FIRE's other case against Florida's Stop WOKE Act, which prohibits the kind of classroom instruction that California's new standards compel.

Sources:

Palsgaard v. Christian complaint - https://www.thefire.org/research-learn/palsgaard-v-christian-verified-complaint

California Community Colleges DEI curriculum model principles: https://www.thefire.org/research-learn/palsgaard-v-christian-dei-curriculum-model-principles

FIRE: The Academic Mind in 2022 - 
https://www.thefire.org/research-learn/academic-mind-2022-what-faculty-think-about-free-expression-and-academic-freedom

Tema Okun: Dismantling White Supremacy Culture - https://www.whitesupremacyculture.info/uploads/4/3/5/7/43579015/okun_-_white_sup_culture.pdf

The Intercept: Tema Okun on Her Mythical Paper on White Supremacy: https://theintercept.com/2023/02/03/deconstructed-tema-okun-white-supremacy/