Los Angeles City College student Jonathan Lopez is suing the LA city college district because of how a professor, John Matteson, treated him in class.
From the Los Angeles Times:
A classroom dispute at Los Angeles City College in the emotional aftermath of Proposition 8 has given rise to a lawsuit testing the balance between 1st Amendment rights and school codes on offensive speech.
Student Jonathan Lopez says his professor called him a "fascist bastard" and refused to let him finish his speech against same-sex marriage during a public speaking class last November, weeks after California voters approved the ban on such unions.
When Lopez tried to find out his mark for the speech, the professor, John Matteson, allegedly told him to "ask God what your grade is," the suit says.
Lopez also said the teacher threatened to have him expelled when he complained to higher-ups.
In addition to financial damages, the suit, filed last week in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, seeks to strike down a sexual harassment code barring students from uttering "offensive" statements.
...Lopez, a Los Angeles resident working toward an associate of arts degree, is described in the suit as a Christian who considers it a religious duty to share his beliefs, particularly with other students. He declined to comment. Matteson could not be reached.
Lopez is represented by the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian legal organization based in Scottsdale, Ariz., and co-founded by evangelical leader James Dobson of Focus on the Family. The group also advised proponents of Proposition 8 and sued, unsuccessfully, to stop the release of the names and addresses of donors, who said they had been harassed during the weeks of demonstrations that followed the measure's passage.
Alliance staff counsel David J. Hacker said Lopez was a victim of religious discrimination.
"He was expressing his faith during an open-ended assignment, but when the professor disagreed with some minor things he mentioned, the professor shut him down," Hacker said. "Basically, colleges and universities should give Christian students the same rights to free expression as other students."
[I]n a letter to Alliance, the district said it deemed Lopez's complaint "extremely serious in nature" and had launched a private disciplinary process.
In the letter, Dean Allison Jones also said that two students had been "deeply offended" by Lopez's address, one of whom stated that "this student should have to pay some price for preaching hate in the classroom."
Hacker said the district's response was inadequate.
"What they didn't do was ensure this wouldn't happen to other students," he said. "The dean accused Jonathan of offending other students."
It is not OK for Matteson to call Lopez a "fascist bastard" because he expressed a view that some people didn't like.
When Matteson gave the assignment, were students told they couldn't speak of God?
I wonder how Matteson would have reacted if a student gave a speech promoting gay marriage.
Would he have gone ballistic and shut that student down?
Does Matteson typically call a student a "fascist bastard"?
That is totally out of line.
I wonder how often Lopez has been offended by what he hears at Los Angeles City College. Do students give speeches that he wouldn't endorse?
I'm betting Lopez has been offended. The exercise of free speech is bound to offend someone.
In any case, it's completely inappropriate for Matteson to refuse to answer a student's question concerning his grade.
Here's what Matteson allegedly wrote on the evaluation form for Lopez's speech:
Matteson really went off the deep end. He seems to have lost control. Very unprofessional.
____________________
Video here.
7 comments:
Wow! You have quite the opinion on this topic considering you have very few facts. I was in that room when this happened and the lawsuit is full of lies. First of all, the assignment was not an "open-ended" one at all. We were specifically instructed to deliver informative speeches, NOT persuasive speeches like the one Mr. Lopez presented. Second, John Matteson NEVER called Jonathan Lopez a fascist bastard. After election day he expressed his disappointment that Prop 8 had passed and said that anyone who voted for it was a fascist bastard. Have you ever been in a college classroom? It's far from uncommon for professors to be open about their political viewpoints. But most importantly, Mr. Matteson never told Jonathan Lopez to stop speaking. Mr. Lopez spoke for what felt like forever and was allowed to openly compare homosexuality to incest and pedophilia, it was disgusting and deeply offensive. He failed to finish his speech only because the class collapsed in chaos and Mr. Matteson dismissed everyone because people were very upset.
This lawsuit is a joke. Unfortunately, people like you only contribute to the false picture of what really went down that day. If you're going to criticize a person's actions and character you might try and know what you're talking about first. John Matteson did the best he could that day. He allowed one student to let his bigot light shine while trying to protect everyone else in that room. It's too bad that most people reporting on this issue don't bother to actually put in any work and instead base their opinions on the lawsuit itself.
I'm commenting on the information provided by the Los Angeles Times and KNBC.
Don't whine about "people like me."
If the LA Times and KNBC put out false or incomplete reports, take it up with them.
To Anonymous. I was wondering what the "other side" of the story was. I've read all the claims from the student as espoused by his legal counsel the ADF, but I hadn't heard what it was he actually said in his speech. That little factoid is strangely absent from all the ADF talking points to the media. It's nice to hear the other side.
Now that the facts have been brought out in a bona fide court, I wonder if there will be any clarification of comments.
Law of opposites - The ones who say they are tolerant are actually the ones who are the least tolerant and those called intolerant are the ones who are the most tolerant. Corollary - The ones who say they are tolerant start the name calling. Amazing, but true.
Matteson dug his own grave.
Interesting, Anonymous. How clever of you to cloak your identity, by the way. However, the judge who just ruled against LACC obviously did not rule that the "lawsuit is a joke."
Golly Anonymous, it sure makes me feel a lot better knowing that, according to you at least, the professor only called the 7 million Californians who exercised their voting rights(and Barack Obama and Bill Clinton by extension since neither of them support gay marriage) "fascist bastards" not just Mr. Lopez.
When I was at Berkeley in the 1970's we fought against professors like this, we were the FREE SPEECH movement, do you understand what that means? You might want to Google it.
It doesn't matter HOW offensive anyone found Mr. Lopez's speech, that is the whole point of free speech or is that not being taught at LACC anymore?
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