Two newly proposed policies regarding the right to expression on campus have raised concerns and incited discussions at recent meetings with college leadership.

The new policies will outline the time, place and manner for when students, employees and the public can exercise free speech at El Camino College.

Academic Senate members raised concerns about the new policies during a meeting in the Distance Education Center on Tuesday, March 18.

“The issue is that the college thinks that they can police what faculty put on their office door and they’re using the logic that the campus is a non-public place, and the problem they’ve forgotten is that my door is … my private place,” Erica Brenes, vice president of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion; and English instructor, said.

The proposed policies, including Administrative Procedure 3900 and Board Policy 3900, outline the forms of expression that are allowed and where they can be exercised on campus.

Brenes said she puts signs on her door so that students can feel comfortable going to her for support.

“If I’m limited with what I can put [on my door] because the college thinks it’s political, I think that’s a limitation, not of my academic freedom, but … [of] my freedom as a human being,” Brenes said.

Ann O’Brien, executive director of marketing and communications, said via Zoom that she wanted to delineate that the guidelines are not meant to impede expression.

“It’s just intended to take a content-neutral approach to some issues that we’ve had in the past, so we don’t have them moving forward,” Vice President of Academic Affairs Carlos Lopez said.

Lopez said that although he had not written the guidelines, he was prepared to answer questions — of which there were many.

Brenes inquired about being able to show support for social justice issues by posting materials on her door, or by wearing buttons or patches as a form of expression.

“As long as it’s legal, [faculty and staff] can post whatever they want,” Lopez said. “Potentially, if we have to run things through legal, we’ll run things through legal.”

Academic Senate President and cosmetology instructor Charlene Brewer-Smith said that the college can’t have certain things posted on the windows and that the new procedures were just an update.

Four bulletin boards where the ECC community can post flyers on campus were installed by the college in fall 2024, according to an article from The Union dated Oct, 11, 2024.

Shane Ochoa, ECC Federation of Teachers communications officer and English instructor, said he thinks the new procedures are dangerous and that they attack freedom of speech.

“[ECC] is committed to free speech and academic freedom as an institution. It’s in our policies; it’s in our blood as a public community college and so, these rules aren’t intended to stifle speech at all,” Lopez said.

Students, faculty and staff similarly voiced concerns about the proposed speech policy when the topic was presented at the College Council meeting Wednesday, March 19.

However, confusion between different versions of the proposed policy — where it was uncertain which documents were being referring to — led to a vote on the policy being delayed.

Monica Delgado, student success coordinator at the Social Justice Center, said that it is an impossibility to find insurance companies willing to insure events involving guest performers, speakers and gatherings under the proposed policies.

“It’s very prohibitive, and I feel that it’s a barrier to any kind of free speech or any kind of gathering on campus,” Delgado said. “Having those two policies there, it’s like saying no without saying no.”

Delgado expressed that these policies may hinder students’ ability to gather, march or protest.

“If this protocol is so prohibitive, it’s going to be impossible for [students] to follow it, … or they’re going to end up doing [a gathering], and not following the protocol, and then we have another situation,” Delgado said.

The two policies will be presented before the College Council again for a vote in April.

“The college has got to have this,” President Brenda Thames said during the meeting.

Subsequently, the council was asked a question on why the policies are necessary.

“We have to have that policy … I think the accreditor requires time, place and manner [policies], … I believe there might even be state law that requires time, place and manner [policies],” Lopez said.

For more information on future Academic Senate and College Council meetings and agendas, visit BoardDocs.