A settlement reached this July between Bakersfield College and history professor Daymon Johnson is drawing new legal parameters around how far colleges can go in requiring faculty to teach through a diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) lens—a question with implications for campus belonging initiatives well beyond this court case.
The agreement, finalized July 7, permanently bars the Kern Community College District from requiring Johnson to incorporate DEI and accessibility principles into his teaching or scholarship. It converts a preliminary injunction issued in February by U.S. District Judge Kirk Sherriff into a five-year permanent injunction and includes a $150,000 payment to cover Johnson’s attorney fees. The Institute for Free Speech, the nonprofit that represented him, framed the outcome as a First Amendment victory. Institute Vice President Alan Gura called the case “a straightforward First Amendment violation.”
Johnson’s lawsuit challenged the 2023 California Community College regulations directing faculty to employ practices reflecting DEI and access (DEIA) and anti-racist principles, with employee evaluations tied to demonstrated proficiency in those areas. Judge Sherriff’s underlying ruling found that Johnson had a First Amendment interest in refusing to endorse a viewpoint he disagreed with, and that the college had failed to show any specific harm his contrary views would cause—offering only a general interest in advancing DEIA policy, which the court found insufficient to override his rights.
Notably, the settlement is narrower than it might first appear. It applies only to Johnson, not to faculty across the California community college system, and it does not disturb the college’s ability to require DEI training for those seeking to serve on faculty screening committees—a distinction the court drew by treating training participation as compelled attendance rather than compelled speech or beliefs.
That distinction may prove significant for administrators trying to build inclusive campus cultures without running afoul of the U.S. Constitution. The ruling suggests that requiring faculty to sit through training remains defensible, but conditioning teaching evaluations or classroom content on ideological alignment does not. For colleges genuinely committed to fostering DEI, that leaves a narrower, but not empty, toolkit. Institutions can still shape professional development and screening processes, even if they cannot mandate how professors teach.
The case also underscores a broader debate playing out on campuses over the period since DEI mandates became a fixture of higher education policy. Efforts to institutionalize equity and inclusion have reflected legitimate goals of ensuring all students feel supported and represented. But this settlement is a reminder that when those goals shift from cultivating an inclusive environment to compelling individual expression, the law draws a hard line—one that DEI advocates and campus leaders alike will need to navigate carefully going forward.
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