A tenured history professor at Bakersfield College in California who founded a controversial, conservative-leaning faculty group received notice earlier this month that the Kern Community College District Board had voted to fire him. The professor, Matthew Garrett, says administrators are penalizing him for exercising his free speech. College leaders say the decision has nothing to do with his conservative views and have charged him with a litany of offenses.
The Kern Community College District Board of Trustees voted to end Garrett’s employment in a closed session at a board meeting on April 13, according to a notice provided to Garrett the following day. At the meeting, the board listened to public remarks from Garrett and other faculty members before discussing the matter and ultimately deferred making a public announcement on its decision. The termination notice, however, was leaked to the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a free speech advocacy organization. It gives Garrett the option to appeal the decision within 30 days, which he has done.
Garrett has been a polarizing figure on campus as co-founder of the Renegade Institute for Liberty, which describes itself as a faculty coalition “dedicated to the free speech, open inquiry, critical thinking to advance American ideals within the broader Western tradition of meritocracy, individual agency, civic virtue, liberty of conscience and free markets.” Members of the group say it’s intended to foster diversity of thought and good-faith debate. Critics say some members have contributed to a hostile campus environment by making inflammatory posts on the group’s social media page and stalling diversity initiatives by repeatedly questioning and criticizing them in committee meetings.