Defending Education Sues University of California for Penalizing Non-Preferred Pronoun Use

A parental rights group has sued the University of California system on behalf of students who say they face punishment for not using woke “preferred pronouns” to affirm “transgender” ideology.

Public universities in California, just like the state government, are hotbeds of radical leftist ideology. And since the state legally requires educational institutions to affirm transgender-identifying individuals in their gender dysphoria, it is no surprise that the universities try to punish any independent thinkers.

Defending Education’s Center for Litigation and Legal Policy is basing its argument against the UC system on the First Amendment, which prohibits viewpoint discrimination and restrictions on speech outside explicit calls for violence within public institutions.

In this case, of course, the unconstitutional censorship is particularly ridiculous, as the UC system is literally trying to punish statements of incontrovertible biological facts. But Defending Education noted that recent survey results found almost 50% of American college students engage in self-censorship on campus out of fear of repercussions. University professors and staff are overwhelmingly leftist and very intolerant of any dissenting views.

From the June 18 Defending Education press release:

UC’s Sexual Violence and Sexual Harassment (SVSH) Policy is a systemwide policy billed as necessary to maintain a “community free from harassment, exploitation, or intimidation.” This policy applies to all UC employees, undergraduate, graduate, and professional students, and third parties. What’s more, students and employees in UC System schools must complete mandatory training—the “Sexual Harassment, Anti-Discrimination, Prevention and Education” (SHAPE) training—to ensure they understand the SVSH Policy. The SHAPE training explains that “[i]ntentionally calling someone their name used before transition, as opposed to their lived name, is called dead-naming, and may be a form of sexual harassment.” Finally, UC’s Anti-Discrimination Policy similarly prohibits “harassment” through a “hostile environment” based on a person’s membership in a “Protected Category.” Protected categories include “gender, gender identity, gender expression, gender transition, [and] sexual orientation.” But the UC system’s definition of harassment includes “acts of verbal, nonverbal, or physical aggression, intimidation, or hostility based on gender, gender identity, gender expression, sex- or gender-stereotyping, or sexual orientation.” Among those acts of “verbal intimidation or hostility” in the UC system is the failure to use an individual’s “preferred pronouns.”

Sarah Parshall Perry, Defending Education’s vice president, commented in an email announcing the lawsuit, “This case is bigger than pronouns. Students shouldn't have to choose between sharing their sincerely held beliefs and being kicked out of school. That kind of self-censorship cannot stand in a free Republic.” The Constitution must be paramount over local ideological squabbles, particularly at public universities, which should be forums for debate and discussion.

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