Four Profs Suspended after Budget Cuts Protest

FREE SPEECH -- "On Thursday, several hundred students at Southwestern College, a community college outside of San Diego, held a peaceful protest over budget cuts that are leading to the cancellation of more than 400 additional course sections next semester," reports Scott Jaschik in Inside Higher Ed. "On Friday, the students got a sign that someone was paying attention to the protest, but they didn't get the response they wanted: Four faculty members were immediately suspended and barred from the campus for using the campus e-mail system."

The suspended professors include the current and former presidents of the faculty union, which supported the student protest.

With California's economy in a free fall, and the budgets of public colleges and universities in similar decline, student and faculty protests have been picking up across the state, and several campuses have seen building takeovers or other examples of civil disobedience. But the Southwestern situation—with faculty members getting kicked off campus—is notable for the extent of administration reaction to a protest that was relatively mild compared to some others.

The letters that the four faculty members received telling them that they had been suspended immediately did not say why. But the letters referenced (by number) a section of California's penal code that bars people from "willfully disrupting the orderly operation of the campus."

Southwestern officials could not be reached to explain why they took this action. The college's spokeswoman was recently laid off and she has not been replaced. The college's president, Raj Chopra, is reportedly on vacation and his e-mail reply says that he will be off campus until November 13. Chopra's executive assistant gave local reporters a statement that said that the reason for the suspensions could not be made public, and that "the college shares our students' concerns about reductions in state funding for the college. The college respects, values and is committed to freedom of expression.”

Philip Lopez, an English professor who is president of the faculty union, said that there is no other possible explanation for the suspensions except the rally. "Nothing else happened the day before," he said. Lopez said that the union—an affiliate of the National Education Association—has consulted with union lawyers and is demanding a hearing, which the college must schedule within seven days.