LOS ANGELES (AP) — A student who claims his right to free
expression was violated has sued Citrus College in Southern California,
one of four schools around the nation targeted by a free-speech group.
Vincenzo
Sinapi-Riddle filed the federal suit Tuesday against Citrus Community
College District. The 20-year-old alleges he was threatened with being
tossed off the Glendora campus last fall for seeking petition signatures
outside the school’s designated "free-speech area," an area that
represents less than 1 1/2 percent of campus.
He wanted people to sign a petition opposing spying by the National Security Agency.
"It
was shocking to me that there could be so much hostility about me
talking to another student peacefully about government spying,"
Sinapi-Riddle told the Los Angeles Times (http://lat.ms/1lA5w3H ). "My vision of college
was to express what I think."
His
suit challenges college rules restricting petitioning, pamphleting and
similar activities to the free-speech area, along with the campus
anti-harassment policy and its two-week process for approving student
group events.
The college eliminated the free-speech area after it
was sued in 2003, but the policy was readopted by college trustees last
year, according to Sinapi-Riddle’s lawsuit.
College spokeswoman
Paula Green said the school had not been formally served with the
lawsuit and it would be premature to comment.
However, the
school’s free-speech policy says the campus is a "non-public forum"
except for the designated area. The policy orders procedures to be
enacted that "reasonably regulate" free expression to prevent disruption
of college operations, the newspaper reported.
The suit and three
others filed Tuesday around the nation were coordinated by
Philadelphia-based Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. The
nonprofit group’s mission is to defend individual rights at colleges and
universities, including free speech and religious liberty, according to
its website.
The other lawsuits at schools in Iowa, Illinois and
Ohio were filed on behalf of students or faculty members in an
initiative the foundation said aimed to eliminate speech codes and other
restrictive measures on public campuses.
At Iowa State
University, Paul Gerlich and Erin Furleigh contend their club T-shirts
supporting legalizing marijuana were censored through overly broad and
vague rules banning use of the school’s name or trademarks to promote
"dangerous, illegal or unhealthy products, actions or behaviors."
At
Chicago State University, professors Phillip Beverly and Robert Bionaz
allege administrators repeatedly tried to silence CSU Faculty Voice, a
blog they and other faculty authored. The lawsuit claims the school
improperly used a cyberbullying policy to investigate a blogger for
harassment.
At Ohio University, student Isaac Smith’s lawsuit says
the school’s free-speech code bans any act that "degrades, demeans or
disgraces" another. He is a member of Students Defending Students, which
aids those charged with campus disciplinary offenses. The university
prevented group members from wearing T-shirts reading "We get you off
for free" on grounds that they objectified women and promoted
prostitution, Smith said.