(WND)—A student at the University of Colorado was known to occasionally share her personal opinions on issues in society. For example, she once told another person at the school she doesn’t care “about your identity. I care more about what you have to say as a person.”
The student, Zoe Johnson, also wondered why was LGBTQ Pride celebrated in June … and in October. She also asked about the purpose of another student’s headwear.
For these and other incidents, the school ordered her into a review by the university’s Office of Institutional Equity and Compliance, which determined her speech was “unwelcome.” Now the school is being sued for violating her First and 14th Amendment rights.
It is a lawyer from the Dhillon Law Group that has taken the fight to federal court, charging that the school’s OIEC violated her rights by subjecting her to an Orwellian crackdown on speech.
The legal team said the complaint charges “Johnson was subjected to a pattern of ideological enforcement disguised as a nondiscrimination policy, culminating in an investigation into her for engaging in everyday dialogue with classmates.”
Her comments, that became part of the school’s case against her, sometimes weren’t even mentioned by anyone complaining, the lawyers explained. Even so, she was ordered into a disciplinary meeting where she was “berated for her so-called ‘white privilege.’”
Lawyer Matthew Sarelson, a partner at Dhillon, called the school’s actions a textbook example of an unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination.
“Public universities cannot weaponize vague and subjective ‘nondiscrimination’ policies to silence students with opinions that diverge from the prevailing campus orthodoxy,” Sarelson said. “Zoe Johnson was not targeted for harassment or discrimination—she was targeted because she asked reasonable questions in a learning environment that claims to encourage open discussion.”
Spencer Brown, a spokesman for Young America’s Foundation, which is supporting the case, said, “The University of Colorado Boulder is engaging in an insidious form of authoritarianism under the guise of inclusivity. Universities should be places where students sharpen their critical thinking skills, not where they are coerced into parroting approved viewpoints out of fear of punishment.”
The case, in federal court in Colorado, names university President Todd Saliman, associate Vice Chancellor for OIEC Llen Pomeroy, executive Vice Chancellor Patrick O’Rourke and associate Director of Choral Activities Elizabeth K. Swanson as defendants.
The case seeks to have the defendants held personally, and financially, responsible.
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