Southwestern College named one of nation’s worst First Amendment violators

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College administration named one of nation’s worst First Amendment violators
The Southwestern Sun
By Anthony Dacong
May 4, 2010

One of America’s leading defenders of free speech has named Southwestern College one of the nation’s 10 worst violators of the First Amendment for 2010.

SWC Superintendent Dr. Raj K. Chopra and Vice President of Business and Financial Affairs Nicholas Alioto were singled out for criticism by the Virginia-based Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression “for promulgating and enforcing a policy limiting even peaceful and non-disruptive protests to a designated ‘free speech’ patio.” The Jefferson Center awarded its notorious “Jefferson Muzzle” to the college for events that arose from an October 22, 2009 student rally and a February 2010 effort by students to collect signatures for a petition to recall three SWC Governing Board members.