LifeSiteNews reported that Matthew Garrett, a former tenured professor at Bakersfield College in California, won a $2.4 million settlement against the institution. His termination in April 2023 stemmed from false claims that he and the Renegade Institute from Liberty (RIL) engaged in "unlawful activity against faculty." Garrett and the RIL, a group of professors dissenting from the school's left-wing orthodoxy, were also accused of "unprofessional conduct" that fostered an "unsafe" environment for minority students.
The board of the Kern Community College District (KCCD) voted to fire him in a closed-door session, prompting the professor to take legal action and sue Bakersfield. The legal tangle was eventually ironed out, with the KCCD agreeing to pay Garrett more than $2.4 million – including back wages and benefits – over the next 20 years, alongside amending and sealing his complaint records. In exchange, Garrett agreed to resign from Bakersfield.
While school officials spun the settlement without admitting fault, the conservative professor described it as a victory for free speech on campus.
"After five years of administrative misconduct, a decisive courtroom display exonerated me of all allegations and exposed that KCCD engaged in flagrant retaliation for my questioning of partisan policies and wasteful expenditures," he told the College Fix.
"Facing an imminent ruling in my favor and the prospect of paying millions of dollars in damages, KCCD had only one viable option – settlement. I am grateful to the many who stood by my side during this difficult time and invite them to join in our triumph."
Not a single smear from his former employer stuck to Garrett
LifeSiteNews outlined the various smears against Garrett, including his alleged defense of racist vandalism on campus; his organization of an in-person event that violated pandemic-era social distancing rules; and his alleged filing of baseless complaints against other faculty members.
The conservative professor also allegedly sent a threatening email to John Corkins, president of the KCCD board. Moreover, the RIL – of which Garrett is a co-founder – reportedly made "inflammatory" social media posts about $205,100 spent on the school's Umoja Community African-American Success through Excellence and Persistence program in the 2021-2022 academic year. The group compared this program to segregation at Bakersfield, LifeSiteNews remarked.
"If you start to really look at them one by one, they're really just flimsy sorts of allegations. But it can be overwhelming to someone who doesn't know the context," the former professor said, calling the accusations false and unsubstantiated.
"If you read the charges against me, there's not a whiff of anything about immorality – unless immorality is questioning social justice and the new-age [diversity, equity and inclusion] stuff, which I would hope that as academics, we could have disagreed opinions and we could debate and we could have discourse." (Related: Federal court orders California community college to stop censoring and violating students’ First Amendment rights.)
Ultimately, Garrett warned that the idea of KCCD and Bakersfield attempting to suppress discussion "by simply labeling things dishonest, unprofessional or immoral to circumvent the First Amendment protections" was disturbing.
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Watch Jefferey Jaxen and Del Bigtree discussing why some countries are clamping down on free speech.
This video is from the The HighWire with Del Bigtree channel on Brighteon.com.
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