Last year, we discussed the free speech case of Matthew Garrett, formerly a tenured history professor at Bakersfield College who was investigated and disciplined after he questioned the use of grant money to fund social justice initiatives. Bakersfield College has one of the worst records on free speech in higher education and has been repeatedly sued by faculty. It will now pay another $2.4 million in a settlement to subsidize the anti-free speech actions of its administration. The question is why California taxpayers continue to allow faculty and administrators to burn through millions in these efforts to punish divergent or dissenting viewpoints.
Matthew Garrett will reportedly receive $2,245,480 over the next 20 years as well as an immediate one-time payment of $154,520 as “compensation for back wages and medical benefits since [his] dismissal.”Unfortunately, the college got its way in insisting that he resign from the Kern Community College District. So it achieved greater uniformity and orthodoxy in viewpoints at the cost of millions in damages.
Ed Morrissey
Good. Make it costly, and schools will stop doing this.
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