Young America’s Foundation Students File First Amendment Lawsuit against Golden West College

Genocidal slogans such as “From the River to the Sea” and “Globalize the Intifada” go unchecked on college campuses. But it seems whenever somebody tries to debate the kind of people uttering them or otherwise challenge woke nostrums they are quickly shut down by school administrators.

For example, in November 2023, University of Southern California economic professor John Strauss was suspended and barred from campus after he rather gently challenged pro-Hamas students.

And last year, the Young America’s Foundation sued UCLA for blocking their attempt to bring a speaker critical of Islam and Hamas to campus.

Now, Young America’s Foundation student activists at Golden West College, a community college in Huntington Beach,  have filed a First Amendment lawsuit against the school for threatening to discipline them for making acerbic criticisms of Hamas and illegal immigration.

Students Martin Samimiat and Annaliese Hutchings and the Young America Foundation filed the lawsuit last month in the United District Court for the Central District of California.

The lawsuit says that, “there is no way for students to truly know what speech is or isn’t covered under Golden West’s disciplinary code. A fair guess is that politically conservative speech is risky. But in any event, Golden West’s code is vague, overbroad, and discriminates based on viewpoint, all in violation of the First Amendment. Putting a stop to such policies at government schools is among this Court’s most important functions.”

The fracas dates to this  February when Samiat and Hutchins set up a YAF booth with a whiteboard at a campus fair known as the Expo in an attempt to recruit new members and promote their views, the lawsuit says.

The whiteboard read CHANGE MY MIND!!!

 • It is a privilege to be an American and we should all be thankful for it.

• Illegal immigration is a cancer upon any society in the world.

• Men do not belong in women’s sports and spaces.

It seems that some students preferred not to debate and instead just complained to school officials about the whiteboard.

On March 7, Stephanie Smallshaw, director of the office for student life and also the official school disciplinary officer, summoned the students to her office for a meeting. Smallshaw said she had received multiple complaints about the whiteboard.

The meeting was scheduled for March 20.   But in the meantime, the students persisted with their provocative messaging.

On March 13, they set up a table and whiteboard at another campus event that said:

• Being an American is a privilege and we should all be thankful for it.

 • Illegal immigration is a cancer upon any society in the world.

 • Men do not belong in women’s sports and spaces.

 • Hamas is a terrorist organization, and they must be wiped from the face of the earth.

Some students debated Samimiat and Hutchins. Others just harangued them.

“While Samimiat was engaged in a debate with two other students over illegal immigration, using his own experiences as a naturalized citizen, a passerby yelled at Samimiat, “Go back to your f*cking country!” A member of the Gender, Love, Acceptance, Sexuality Alliance (GLASA) screamed at Samimiat for saying that children should not be exposed to pride messages.”

The meeting with Smallshaw took place as scheduled on March 20. Repeatedly accusing them of inciting violence with their speech, she threatened to punish the students if they made the same kind of provocative statements again.

The lawsuit says that, “With respect to plaintiffs’ statement that “illegal immigration is a cancer upon any society in the world,” Smallshaw declared, “You can’t use language that dehumanizes a group of people and compares them to a deadly disease. It can also be harmful to people who have experienced cancer with their loved ones.”

“With respect to plaintiffs’ statement that “Hamas is a terrorist organization, and they must be wiped from the face of the earth,” Smallshaw declared, “You can’t use language that can incite violence and encourage the killing of a group of people.”

Smallshaw also questioned whether Hamas is really a terrorist organization.

“Some students here believe Hamas is not a terrorist organization, and you need to stop using such offensive language that could potentially encourage violence,” she said, according to the lawsuit.

Smallshaw’s hectoring intimidated the students.

The lawsuit says the students now refrain from political advocacy because of Smallshaw’s “threats” to be punished under the school disciplinary code, which they say is unconstitutionally vague in violation of the First Amendment.

The Code of Conduct prohibits “hateful behavior aimed at a specific person or group of people” and “inflicting mental harm upon any member of the District Community.”

Sounds like particularly the latter phrasing makes offending somebody with your speech an actionable offense. But the lawsuit says the whole Code, by targeting speech based on what it conveys, is illegal viewpoint discrimination.

The complaint also says that the Code gives administrators unbridled power to crack down on whatever speech they do not like. “Plaintiffs “are unsure as to what speech, exactly, would land them in trouble with Smallshaw or any other College Disciplinary Officer under the Code, as they cannot guess as to where officials would draw the line as to what is “hateful,” what constitutes a “group of people,” what counts as “infliction of mental harm,” and what language “demeans, degrades, or disgraces any person” in an official’s view. They are, however, convinced that their political advocacy would continue to generate complaints under the disciplinary code, and that there is a real risk, given Smallshaw’s threats, that sooner rather than later, they would be disciplined for their speech.”

Former ACLU president Nadine Strossen told the California Globe that the two sections of the Code of Conduct are clearly violations of the First Amendment.

What’s wrong with prohibiting “hateful behavior aimed at a specific group of people?” Isn’t that just a prohibition of harassment? Strossen says the language is so broad it is really impermissibly targeting speech.

The standard “is unduly vague and substantially overbroad, hence giving the enforcing authorities essentially unfettered discretion to single out for punishment ideas or speakers they disagree with/dislike, leading to a fundamental First Amendment violation:  viewpoint- or speaker-based discrimination,” she explained..”The Supreme Court has appropriately circumscribed the definition of punishable targeted harassment by requiring an element of INTENT on the speaker’s part and also that the challenged expression be judged by an objective, not a subjective, standard (judged by a “reasonable person” in the targeted individual’s position). Without these limits, anyone who feels subjectively offended, or who subjectively (mis)interprets speech as “hateful” can claim that there has been a violation. Virtually any speech can be considered “hateful” by someone, as we can observe by how the epithet “hate speech” is regularly deployed against a wide range of expression, including against diametrically opposite ideas. One person’s hate speech is someone else’s cherished loving speech.”

Strossen added that the prohibition against inflicting “mental harm” on others is also a blatant violation of the First Amendment. “Again, this “standard” suffers from the same undue vagueness, substantial overbreadth, and viewpoint- and speaker-based discrimination as the “prohibiting hateful behavior” language does. It doesn’t include the necessary intent and objective/reasonable person elements, and from the portion you quote, it seems not to include a targeting requirement either. Moreover, the Supreme Court has consistently reined in the concept of “intentional infliction of emotional distress” as not being applicable to any expression that addresses matters of public concern; the same limit would apply to the similar concept of “mental harm.”

“While the Court has recognized that such speech may well have a negative impact on particular audience members, the appropriate response in our free society is not to punish the speech, but rather to pursue other remedies, including counterspeech and mental health resources.

This view was well captured in the 2011 Snyder v Phelps case, in which the Court protected (against a claim of “intentional infliction of emotional distress”) hateful speech against LGBTQ people, Catholics, and members of the military:

“[S]peech is powerful. It can stir people to action, move them to tears of both joy and sorrow, and as it did here inflict great pain. On the facts before us, we cannot react to that pain by punishing the speaker. As a nation we have chosen a different course – to protect even hurtful speech on public issues to ensure that we do not stifle public debate.”

The lawsuit is asking the Court to issue an injunction prohibiting the school from enforcing these provisions of the Code of Conduct.

In statements provided to the California Globe, both students trashed the administration for suppressing their speech. Matin Samimiat said  that,  “I left Iran to enjoy the amazing freedom that the United States offers. Now I find myself threatened with punishment for expressing political opinions—because they happen to be opinions that administrators don’t like.”

Similarly, Annaliese Hutchings said, “College is supposed to be a place where students can engage with different ideas. Instead, Golden West College is teaching students that certain widely-held political opinions are off-limits—and that merely expressing these opinions is somehow ‘harmful.’”

Administrator Stephanie Smallshaw, who is also a defendant in the lawsuit, did not respond to a request for comment.