Judge Bans Bakersfield College From Punishing Professor Over DEI, Yet Allows Required Training

Judge Bans Bakersfield College From Punishing Professor Over DEI, Yet Allows Required Training

A judge has banned California’s Bakersfield College and its Kern Community College District from placing sanctions on a professor who criticized the school’s diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs. Daymon Johnson, who referred to the college’s practices regarding DEI requirements on faculty as “cultural Marxism,” will now be able to speak freely. Yet, Johnson will still be required to take training courses that involve the same topics.

The Biden-appointed U.S. District Judge Kirk Sheriff ruled on Friday that the required training does not force Johnson to “personally endorse the [California] government’s views as his own.” However, the court questioned California’s regulations requiring faculty to “employ teaching, learning, and professional practices that reflect DEIA and anti-racist principles.”

The judge ruled that while the university is allowed to require faculty members to participate in certain trainings, the sessions cannot “compel Johnson to speak in support of DEIA principles as part of the training, or sanction Johnson for refusing to endorse a specific viewpoint on DEIA principles.”

Johnson’s lead counsel, Institute for Free Speech Vice President for Litigation Alan Gura, took the free speech victory as a major win over progressive “anti-racist ideologies.”

“The First Amendment forbids California from demanding that community college professors conform their speech to an official government ideology—including so-called ‘DEI’ and anti-racist ideologies,” wrote Gura.

“In America, no one can be required to believe or endorse the state’s official political ideology, and everyone is free to criticize it.”

As even left-leaning judges apply strict scrutiny to DEI training requirements at universities, the constitutional reasoning behind this line of questioning could create difficulties for similar programs at other institutions. As covered by CriticalRace.org, required DEI faculty trainings have become increasingly common, extending beyond California community colleges.

At the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, faculty and staff involved in recruitment and hiring are required to complete the “Inclusive Hiring at Illinois” program.

The prestigious Carnegie Mellon requires faculty mentors in the “Behavioral Brain (B2) Research Training Program” to “commit to at least 10 hours of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) learning during the two years in which the trainee receives B2 support.”

Conservative state universities also appear not to be exempt from requiring some of their faculty members to participate in DEI training. The University of Alaska Southeast states in its “Faculty Handbook for Academic Year 2025-26” that search committees receive training from the Office of Human Resources to enable them to understand “unconscious bias and reinforce the reasons UAS is working to attain a more diverse faculty.”

As the constitutionality of these required DEI trainings is challenged, future litigation may need to determine whether the trainings effectively compel faculty members to adopt specific political ideologies.

Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.