Professor Files Lawsuit Over Newsletters

An Irvine Valley College professor claims the school’s administration has violated his 1st Amendment rights by ordering him to tone down his monthly satirical newsletters.

Administrators at the college have also ordered Roy Bauer to attend anger-management counseling after deciding that his newsletters contain “verbal threats and violent behavior overtones.”

The 43-year-old philosophy professor and self-described ethicist filed a lawsuit on Thursday against South Orange County Community College District Chancellor Cedric Sampson for violating his 1st Amendment right to free speech.

The chancellor defended the district, but declined to comment specifically on the issue.

“This matter is not related to 1st Amendment rights or anything of that nature,” Sampson said. “He has to not violate district policy. . . . We believe it doesn’t have anything to do with the ability to publish his ideas.”

Bauer edits and writes portions of two newsletters, the Vine, which is written for his campus, and Dissent, which is written for the entire community college district.

His political cartoons and satire have drawn officials’ ire.

Among his cartoons, Bauer has superimposed Irvine Valley College President Raghu Mathur’s head onto Napoleon’s body; drawn board members as sumo wrestlers; and drawn devil horns onto a leader of the teachers’ union.

Only on a few occasions he has used violent hyperbole as a literary device, he said.

The chancellor, however, pointed to six examples that were apparently too violent, including a story about the violent death of a trustee. Some board members attended the trustee’s funeral and are themselves killed by “a lurid gas emanating from the [dead trustee’s] gaping mouth.”

Bauer also has a lawsuit pending against the district in Superior Court claiming the board routinely violates California’s open meeting laws.