{"id":194955,"date":"2026-02-26T15:52:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T15:52:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/194955\/"},"modified":"2026-02-26T15:52:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T15:52:10","slug":"california-history-professor-wins-injunction-against-dei-regulations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/194955\/","title":{"rendered":"California history professor wins injunction against DEI regulations"},"content":{"rendered":"

This story was originally published on Higher Ed Dive<\/a>. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily Higher Ed Dive newsletter<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Dive Brief:\u00a0<\/p>\n

A history professor in California won a federal court ruling<\/a> Friday that temporarily blocks local community college officials from enforcing diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility regulations against him over his scholarship or classroom instruction.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Daymon Johnson, who works at Bakersfield College, is challenging California regulations stating that faculty members should employ teaching practices that reflect DEIA principles. He alleged these regulations violate his First Amendment rights by potentially forcing him to express viewpoints that he disagrees with.\u00a0<\/p>\n

U.S. District Judge Kirk Sherriff agreed, writing that Johnson \u201ccredibly identified specific speech that he reasonably fears would be proscribed by the DEIA regulations.\u201d However, Sheriff declined to block community college officials from requiring Johnson to complete DEIA training to serve on faculty screening committees.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Dive Insight:\u00a0<\/p>\n

In early 2023, the California Community College system amended regulations governing employee reviews to say that faculty members should \u201cemploy teaching, learning, and professional practices that reflect DEIA and anti-racist principles.\u201d It also tied evaluation of employees to \u201cDEIA-related competencies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Johnson sued shortly afterward, though Sheriff initially dismissed his case over a lack of standing. But Johnson brought his case to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which revived some of his claims and remanded the case to the lower court.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In Friday’s ruling, Sherriff temporarily blocked Bakersfield College and Kern Community College District from enforcing the regulations over Johnson\u2019s \u201cscholarship or teaching.\u201d Officials are also barred from applying to Johnson\u2019s speech as a private citizen or his role as the faculty lead of the Renegade Institute for Liberty, a coalition of Bakersfield faculty that says it promotes free markets, civil discourse and intellectual diversity.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Institute for Free Speech, which is representing Johnson, praised the decision.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe First Amendment forbids California from demanding that community college professors conform their speech to an official government ideology \u2014 including so-called \u2018DEI\u2019 and anti-racist ideologies,\u201d Alan Gura, lead counsel for Johnson, said in a statement<\/a>\u00a0this week.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Johnson is not the only professor who has sued over the regulations.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In August 2023, six professors sued the leaders<\/a> of the California Community Colleges system, alleging the new policies violate their free speech rights and asking the judge overseeing the case to declare the regulations unconstitutional.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sheriff, who also oversaw that case, dismissed their lawsuit<\/a> in early 2025, ruling that the provisions didn\u2019t mandate \u201cwhat professors teach or how any such DEIA principles should be implemented.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a free speech group that represented those plaintiffs, said the lawsuit had achieved its intended outcome by spurring community college officials to promise they wouldn\u2019t use the regulations to censor classroom instruction.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a result of our suit, the state and the district promised a federal judge they won\u2019t interfere with our clients\u2019 academic freedom and free speech rights,\u201d FIRE attorney Daniel Ortner said in a statement<\/a> at the time.\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, FIRE attorney Zach Silver added that the organization would be \u201cwatching like a hawk\u201d to ensure they kept their word.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This story was originally published on Higher Ed Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":194956,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[760,7,91082,9,8,91078,91077,91080,91081,91079,83773,19995,51168],"class_list":["post-194955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-bakersfield-college","tag-california","tag-california-community-college","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-classroom-instruction","tag-daymon-johnson","tag-deia","tag-district-judge-kirk-sherriff","tag-faculty-members","tag-federal-court-ruling","tag-kern-community-college-district","tag-regulations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194955"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194955\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/194956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}