Student Files Sex Complaint About Speeches in Class

Drawing a line between free speech and sexual harassment, student Kelly Friscia and her lawyer, Gloria Allred, accused a College of the Canyons speech teacher Wednesday of creating a “hostile learning environment” by encouraging his students to make sexually explicit speeches.

Friscia, a 19-year-old sophomore at the Santa Clarita community college, said that her professor, who was not identified publicly, had urged his students to deliver speeches on sexual topics, and congratulated one student for a Feb. 8 speech that graphically described how to perform oral sex on a woman.

“I felt sick and repulsed by what I was hearing,” Friscia said. “How can any student obtain an education when the educator allows something so wrong?”

Friscia, flanked by her parents and feminist lawyer Allred, presented their grievances in the form of a letter to college trustees Wednesday afternoon. The letter urges that the school comply with Title IX of the Civil Rights Act, which bans verbal sexual harassment in educational settings.

The college has responded by initiating the school’s grievance procedure, which will mediate the dispute, a spokeswoman said.

“We’re in the middle of the process right now,” said college spokeswoman Sue Bozman, who added that the instructor has given a written response. “We do take this very seriously.”

Allred said no decisions have been made about legal action, and that the complaint targets the teacher and not the student who gave the speech.

Mike Friscia, Kelly’s father, said, “The instructor has been allowed to teach young men how to harass women.”