The Institute for Free Speech, which acted on behalf of Bakersfield College professor Daymon Johnson, has announced a settlement that solidifies his First Amendment protections and includes a $150,000 payment to his attorneys.
The Kern Community College District has agreed to resolve Johnson v. Fliger, a federal suit brought by the Institute for Free Speech on Johnson’s behalf. Under the terms, a preliminary injunction entered by a federal court in February 2026 will be converted into a five-year permanent injunction, preventing officials from investigating, disciplining, or terminating Johnson on account of his classroom remarks, his scholarly work, or his activity as a private citizen….
The case challenged California rules that require community college faculty to adopt teaching, learning, and professional practices aligned with DEIA and anti-racist principles and to demonstrate proficiency in DEIA-related performance to teach, work, or lead within California community colleges. Johnson, who aligns with the Renegade Institute for Liberty (RIFL), a dissident faculty group, refused to endorse the government-mandated views and confronted the threat of termination as a result.
Here is the portion I shared in February from the Johnson v. Fliger decision authored by Judge Kirk Sherriff (E.D. Cal.):
Plaintiff Daymon Johnson, a Bakersfield College history professor, brings this pre-enforcement challenge seeking injunctive and declaratory relief to preclude Bakersfield College and the Kern Community College District from enforcing, as to his intended speech, two provisions of the California Code of Regulations. These provisions would require Johnson to employ “teaching, learning, and professional” practices reflecting diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (“DEIA”) and anti-racist principles, require Johnson to “establish proficiency in DEIA-related performance to teach, work, or lead within California community colleges,” and require defendants to evaluate Johnson in part on his proficiency in such DEIA principles….
Johnson contends that the DEIA regulations compel his speech and discriminate against his viewpoint in violation of the First Amendment. He asserts that he fears being forced to express a viewpoint he opposes or facing punishment for continuing to refuse to express the government’s desired viewpoint or for voicing his contrary views. Johnson credibly identifies specific speech that he reasonably fears the DEIA regulations could proscribe. And as the Ninth Circuit has observed, he “has established a ‘concrete plan to violate the law’ based on his statements about his intended speech and his refusal to endorse [DEIA] principles.” Johnson v. Fliger (9th Cir. 2025) (quoting Thomas v. Anchorage Equal Rts. Comm’n (9th Cir. 2000) (en banc)).
Johnson has shown that his intended speech concerns a matter of public concern and that his opposition to the DEIA regulations—and to the state’s DEIA policies—touches on matters meaningful to the public. To the extent the DEIA regulations chill his teaching or scholarship, or his involvement with a campus dissident group opposing DEIA, or his private or public academic activities, Johnson asserts a First Amendment interest in that speech. See Demers v. Austin (9th Cir. 2014); Reges v. Cauce (9th Cir. 2025). Defendants have failed to demonstrate “a legitimate administrative interest in suppressing the speech that outweigh[s] the plaintiff’s First Amendment rights.” …
Johnson has not shown a likelihood of success on his challenge to Bakersfield College’s requirement that he complete mandatory DEIA training to participate on faculty screening committees, since the government may convey its views through such training, and Johnson has not shown that the training requires him to personally adopt the government’s views as his own. He also cannot demonstrate that his official capacity as a member of Bakersfield College’s Equal Opportunity & Diversity Advisory Committee (“EODAC”) qualifies as protected speech, because it constitutes government speech and he has not proven a sufficiently close tie to scholarship or teaching. See Sullivan v. Univ. of Washington (9th Cir. 2023) (rejecting the notion that faculty members serving on a state university’s animal care and use committee are entitled to First Amendment protection, since they were not engaged in “teaching and academic writing”). He likewise fails to establish a likelihood of success on his facial challenge to the DEIA regulations, as the DEIA rules cover a range of non-speech conduct and Johnson has not shown that they bar a substantial amount of protected speech relative to their broad legitimate scope….
When evaluating speech by government employees, courts balance the government’s interest in delivering efficient public services through its workforce with the employee’s interest in commenting on public matters. Pickering v. Board of Education (1968). In Garcetti v. Ceballos (2006), the Supreme Court carved out an exception to Pickering, holding that when public employees speak pursuant to their official duties, they do not speak as citizens for First Amendment purposes, and their communications are not shielded from employer discipline. The Court acknowledged that expressions related to academic scholarship or classroom instruction could raise additional constitutional concerns, but it did not decide whether the Garcetti exception would apply in a case involving speech about scholarship or teaching.
The Ninth Circuit later clarified in Demers that “Garcetti does not—indeed, it cannot—apply to teaching and academic writing performed pursuant to a teacher’s official duties.” Instead, speech “related to scholarship or teaching” remains governed by the Pickering framework even when conducted as part of an official duty. …
Johnson has not shown a basis to bar Bakersfield College from requiring him to complete DEIA training to be eligible for service on a faculty screening committee. He asserts that he cannot complete the training because he does not agree with the training’s ideology. He thus refrains from applying for a committee position or finishing the DEIA training. Yet even so, the training requirement does not implicate his First Amendment rights, as the government may express its views through such training, and he has not proven that he must personally endorse the views presented. In the absence of a compelled endorsement or viewpoint bias, there is no legal reason to block the defendants from requiring that training before Johnson can serve on a committee. See Norgren v. Minn. Dep’t of Hum. Servs (8th Cir. 2024) (dismissing a public employee’s compelled-speech claim where trainings did not require affirmative agreement with their content). But the defendants may not force Johnson to publicly endorse DEIA principles as part of the training, nor sanction him for declining to advocate a specific DEIA viewpoint….
Regarding Johnson’s intended speech on behalf of RIFL—the Renegade Institute for Liberty, a campus extracurricular group—during the hearing the defense argued that his leadership role within RIFL could make his speech “government speech” under Garcetti. That line of reasoning was not thoroughly addressed in the briefs, and in any case it fails to persuade. RIFL is an extracurricular organization on campus; Bakersfield College recognizes such groups, but there is no evidence that RIFL speaks for the College or the KCCD administration. The record suggests RIFL represents a minority campus stance, and its members’ dissenting views on a public matter are not government speech under Garcetti.
With the exception of the DEIA training requirement (and related service on a faculty screening committee) or official speech as a member of the EODAC, Johnson has shown that his prospective speech would be as a professor addressing matters tied to scholarship or teaching, or would occur in a private, off-duty capacity as a public academic. It should therefore be assessed under the Pickering framework.
[Applying Pickering, the court considers whether the defendants have demonstrated a legitimate administrative interest in suppressing the speech that outweighs the plaintiff’s First Amendment rights, and whether the DEIA regulations would alleviate real, tangible harms in a direct and material way. The defendants have not explained how Johnson’s intended speech would cause particular harm to Bakersfield College or how the DEIA rules would remedy such harm. Instead, they advance a broad justification—arguing the State has a substantial interest in advancing its educational mission, promoting teaching excellence, and ensuring equal educational opportunities—which would allow reviewing the content of faculty scholarship and teaching, favoring certain scholarly approaches, and setting standards for the quality and method of instruction.
While a public university may legitimately control its curriculum and require faculty to meet certain academic standards, the defendants do not point to any specific instance where Johnson’s speech would fail to meet those standards, nor do they claim that regulating his speech is necessary to prevent discrimination or harassment, or that Johnson intends to engage in derogatory expressions that would receive reduced First Amendment protection under Pickering. See Thompson v. Central Valley Sch. Dist. No. 365 (9th Cir. 2025) (finding that speech containing slurs and violent language carries little weight under Pickering…).
Johnson does not challenge Bakersfield College’s general authority to set academic standards; rather, he seeks to bar the defendants from forcing him to endorse DEIA viewpoints or to penalize him for declining to do so or for expressing opposing views. “When a university asks its professors to communicate a public message on a matter of public concern and a professor declines to convey that message to students, that is an issue of academic speech rather than classroom management.” The defendants also concede that they cannot sanction Johnson under the DEIA regulations for his intended speech, since the regulations do not plainly forbid any speech by their terms in and out of the classroom.
The defendants have offered only a broad justification for enforcing the State’s DEIA regulations, without tying any particular concern to Johnson’s planned speech. That generalized interest does not overcome Johnson’s First Amendment right to avoid sanction for a contrary viewpoint on DEIA matters or to avoid being compelled to advocate the State’s views on those matters….
Alan Gura, Courtney Corbello, and Del Kolde (Institute for Free Speech) represent Johnson.
