Twenty-one-year-old Juliette Colunga, who’s currently a student at The Master’s University in Placerita Canyon, says her First Amendment rights are worth fighting for.
She was previously attending Clovis Community College in Clovis, California, and felt she was denied her freedom of speech. She and others sued the school district that oversees the college and won $330,000 as part of a legal settlement.
In the fall of 2021, Colunga and two other students posted anti-communism posters on school grounds for Young Americans for Freedom, which is a national conservative organization and a chapter of Young America’s Foundation. The goal was to stimulate conversation about the negative effects of Marxist policies. The college, Colunga alleged, took the posters down.
The school’s response to the posters was one reason why Colunga, the two other students involved, and Young America’s Foundation sued the State Center Community College District, which oversees Clovis Community College, for violations against their First Amendment Rights. Over the summer, the two parties settled.
“I wanted my free speech to be respected,” Colunga said during a telephone interview earlier this week. “And not only mine, but my friends and also future students.”
She added that she wanted her free speech to also be protected.
The initial incident involved about 20 posters that Colunga and her two friends made that listed various statistics pertaining to countries that had implemented socialism and communism. Colunga said she and her friends went to a student activities office on campus to follow the protocols for posting such materials at school.
“Generally, you just bring your posters in, they’d stamp them and put them up,” she said. “That’s what happened with these. The only thing was that they wanted us to put something on the posters to indicate that they were from our group specifically. So, we did. We put our Instagram username on them, and then they were approved and we put them up.”
Colunga said the posters stayed up for at least a few days. She didn’t actually notice that they were taken down. The chairman of the Young Americans for Freedom group texted her to give her the news.
“We were very confused as to why they got pulled down because we had gotten them approved,” she said. “The first thing we did was to reach out to the Young America’s Foundation.”
The group put the students in touch with the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a nonprofit civil liberties organization. According to Colunga, FIRE put in a Freedom of Information Act request. Colunga said FIRE later alleged that school officials gave the orders to remove the posters due to others who were said to have been uncomfortable about the messaging on them.
A little over a month after all this, Colunga and her friends wanted to weigh in on the Dobbs v. Jackson United States Supreme Court hearing regarding abortion rights. Again, the students went through the school’s approval process to hang pro-life posters around campus.
“We were told that we could only post them on the free-speech kiosks, which are these two little kiosks in between the two main buildings on campus,” Colunga said. “Well, they don’t really see a lot of foot traffic.”
The students were frustrated about the limitations placed on them. Colunga said it was the tipping point.
According to David Snyder, executive director of the First Amendment Coalition, schools do have a say in these types of matters in some circumstances.
“The basic bottom line is that the U.S. Supreme Court — and many other courts — have held that schools have an obligation and a right to ensure a peaceful and productive education for their students,” he said during a telephone interview. “Affiliated or connected to that right is the ability to limit student expression if it’s actually disruptive of the educational process. And what actually ‘disruptive’ means really depends, in part, on the school and on the level of school that you’re talking about.”
Snyder added that even though a school could limit student expression in certain cases, there are still ways that students can appeal. A court could always rule that a school is overstepping its bounds.
In the case with Colunga, her friends and the Young America’s Foundation, the State Center Community College District settled.
District spokeswoman Jill Wagner offered a prepared statement from the district:
“SCCCD settled this case to avoid the cost, uncertainty and distractions that come with any litigation. We have a commitment to the values of the First Amendment and look forward to ensuring that all members of our community recognize the virtues and benefits of free speech.”
In addition to the $330,000 settlement, which Colunga said was split by her, her two friends, attorneys and the Young America’s Foundation, the district also agreed to offer “First Amendment training” to the higher-ups at its schools. The district also agreed to put in place district-wide protocols for posting statements around campus.
Colunga said she already saw some of those changes around campus while she was still at Clovis Community College.
Ultimately, she’s happy with the results of the action she and her friends took, hoping it leads to creating a space at State Center Community College District schools that fosters cordial and meaningful discussions pertaining to important things going on in the world.
As for the role the Young America’s Foundation played in the matter, Colunga said she and her friends likely would not have pursued any legal action without the organization. In fact, she said she hopes to start a Young Americans for Freedom at The Master’s University.
“I’ve talked to the foundation, and I would like to get something started up,” she said. “It’s just a matter of finding the time.”
Colunga received her associate in arts degree from Clovis Community College, then transferred to The Master’s University in the fall to study biology with an emphasis in education. She ultimately wants to teach high school biology.
At TMU, Colunga is also on the women’s track and field team. In addition to being attracted to the spiritual environment at the school, she applied after learning about the track and field program there through her program at Clovis Community College. She spoke with the coach at TMU, paid a visit to the campus and was very impressed.
Colunga lives in Old Town Newhall and said she loves it there because it reminds her of a neighborhood back home called Old Town Clovis. She’s even open to the idea of staying in Santa Clarita after college and looking for teaching work here. She said time will tell.
