9th Circuit Declines Free Speech Case

From American Family News:

9th Circuit declines free-speech case


Bill Bumpas - OneNewsNow - 9/24/2010 4:05:00 AMA federal appeals court has dismissed a lawsuit filed by a California college student who claims a professor violated his free-speech rights when he stopped him from finishing his speech defining marriage as between one man and one woman.





In November 2008, around the time of the California vote on Proposition 8, Jonathan Lopez was assigned to give an informative speech on any topic for his public speaking class at Los Angeles City College. As he spoke about his Christian faith, he defined marriage as between one man and one woman. But Lopez's professor stopped him, called him a derogatory name, and wrote "ask God what your grade is" and "proselytizing is inappropriate in public school" on his evaluation form.



A lower court issued a preliminary injunction against the school, saying its speech code that allowed the professor to punish Lopez's speech was unconstitutional. But the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has now thrown out the case.



"Jonathan went through all of this; [he] experienced all these deprivations of his First Amendment right to speak freely when given the opportunity to do so, yet the Ninth Circuit is saying he can't challenge the policies under which the college acted to suppress his speech," laments Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) attorney David Hacker.



"The very notion that Jonathan's speech is chilled by the existence of these policies is kind of perplexing and is really out of step with other case law," the attorney adds.



He reports that ADF may either seek further review from the Ninth Circuit or appeal to the Supreme Court.