Judge Will Rule on College Free Speech : Education: Irvine Valley students complain they are not allowed to post fliers in an area they consider a public forum.

Is the front lawn of Irvine Valley College a public forum?

The answer may be of particular importance in the coming weeks, when the South Orange County Community College District’s policy on campus speech and expression will face legal scrutiny from a federal judge in Santa Ana.

It’s the latest in a series of free-speech clashes pitting students and teachers against district administrators.

The policy, adopted by the district board in April, restricts students at Irvine Valley and Saddleback colleges from hanging posters or fliers, making speeches or holding demonstrations or events except in a few designated areas.

One area where the activity is not permitted is a highly visible plaza in front of the student services building at Irvine Valley College, where that kind of thing has traditionally taken place.

In a lawsuit filed Aug. 31, three students argue that the policy is an illegal restraint on their constitutional right to free expression. Two Los Angeles County lawyers are representing the students at no charge.

A key issue could be how U.S. District Court Judge Alicemarie H. Stotler defines the Irvine Valley College campus, according to Michael Small, chief counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California. A hearing in the case is scheduled for Sept. 21.

“The general rule is that if a piece of public property is considered a public forum, the government has less leeway to restrict expression there,” Small said.

The traditional definition of a public forum is limited to streets, parks and sidewalks.

“College campuses are an interesting species,” Small said. “It may be that at a public college like this one the public quad would become akin to a park. As a legal matter, the judge will have to decide.”

Student Diep Burbridge and the two other plaintiffs, Scott Stephansky and Dorothy Caruso, are seeking an injunction to prevent administrators from enforcing the policy.

Defendants are Irvine Valley College President Raghu Mathur, district Chancellor Cedric Sampson and the district’s board members.

Officials referred questions to attorney Allan Wilion, who said the district would oppose the injunction but declined to elaborate.

The plaintiffs won a partial victory last week when school administrators agreed that student clubs and organizations can hold their Sept. 15 sign-up drive in one of the restricted areas, in front of the student center.

That’s where “Club Day,” as the sign-up period is called, had been held for years, until last year, when administrators moved it to a less visible side of the building.

“Our 1st Amendment rights are being restricted,” said Burbridge, 34, an organizer of the Student Liberties Club. “In the past, we’ve been able to hold [events] in front of the student services building.”

The students contend that since the board implemented its policy a whole range of nondistrict and commercial activities have been permitted in front of the student center--but not student activities that might include expressions of dissent against the school and its administration.

“Circuit City was out there today with a big table recruiting for jobs, but any student activities have been prohibited from being held in the same location,” Burbridge said. “We want to be treated equally, and we feel that there’s a double standard being exercised” by the college.

The ACLU’s Small said that the way the district allows the area to be used by nonstudents will be important to the case. If the judge declares it to be a public forum, “then one thing is crystal clear,” he said. “The government cannot decide who gets access to the quad on the basis of the subject matter of the speech.”

This is not the first time Burbridge has charged the school with violating students’ rights. The current policy is an outgrowth of a previous lawsuit that she and another student brought in 1998. That one was settled this year.

Then in August, instructors at Irvine Valley College threatened to file suit when they were told that the new policy also applied to faculty members, prohibiting them from hanging posters on the doors and windows of their offices. The district’s board voted not to apply the policy to teachers until it had studied the matter further.

Other free-speech wrangles have played out on the district’s campuses recently. Late last year an Irvine Valley College professor sued the district, claiming administrators violated his 1st Amendment rights by ordering him to tone down newsletters containing political satire. Officials said the newsletters contained threats and had violent overtones.

Supporters of one of the district’s trustees, Steven Frogue, claimed the board was violating free-speech laws by restricting public comment at meetings during the tumultuous months leading up to a vote last fall on a measure to recall him from office. Frogue, who kept his seat, was accused of making anti-Semitic remarks.

Another squabble over the 1st Amendment flared in 1997 and last year, when critics charged a faculty advisor was muffling critical news accounts in the Lariat, the campus paper at Saddleback College.