From today’s Report and Recommendations by Magistrate Judge Christopher D. Baker (E.D. Cal.) in Johnson v. Watkin:

BP 3050 serves as the [Kern Community College] District’s policy on “Institutional Code of Ethics.” BP 3050 provides that “all associates in the District, faculty, students, management, classified staff, and trustees, as well as volunteers and vendors, each bear personal responsibility for their own ethical behavior and for the ethical statute of our organization.” BP 3050 requires “that [the community] conduct [itself] with civility in all circumstances of [their] professional lives” and does “not participate in or accept, condone, or tolerate physical or verbal forms of aggression, threat, harassment, ridicule, or intimidation.” BP 3050 states it values a spirit of free inquiry and free speech and “encourages the expression of a range of points of view, but [expects] all expressions of content to be conducted in a manner respectful of persons.” …

The Undersigned finds the term “verbal forms of aggression … harassment, ridicule or intimidation” has a likelihood of being impermissibly vague. The term lacks a commonly understood meaning and creates a policy that is broader than the civility policies District Defendants allege are similar.