Assembly Higher Education Committee

Fong? Here. Fong, here.

Warner? Here. Werner, here.

Jackson?

Patel? Here. Patel, here.

Sharp Collins? Here. Sharp Collins, here.

I love that you said my first name, too. I like that. Thank you. All right. No problem. Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and members. I am pleased to present AB 2551, which would increase transparency and uplift student voices through two requirements. First, the California State University will be required to hold a student hearing giving feedback on content-neutral, time-place manner policies affecting their right to participate in expressive activities on campus. Second, it would require demographic data collection and the punishment enforced on students with TPM violations promoting transparency and ensuring TPM's fair enforcement. Our goal is to protect all students. And to do so, we must ensure policies surrounding students' expression are transparent, accountable, and enforced equitably. TPM is intended to prevent hostile campus environments, but it has arguably increased the hostility that students of color experience from administration and authorities. students of color report experiencing violent arrests at peaceful protests, targeted disciplinary actions, and bureaucratic barriers that suppress their right to protest, leading many student organizers to fear severe repercussions and reprisal. As a former student activist myself while I was at UCLA, I care deeply about empowering all students and protecting their abilities to organize and advocate. Through data collection and student hearings, this bill helps ensure the equitable and consistent enforcement of time, place, and manner policy. And with me today, I have two incredible young people, Angel Marie Taylor, a recent graduate of Cal State Channel Islands, and Candace Phan from the University of California Student Association, who's also a UC Davis graduate. Thank you.

ANGEL MARIE TAYLOR, STUDENT OF CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, CHANNEL ISLANDS, TO SPEAK ABOUT THE TIME PLACED MANNER POLICIES THAT THREATENED MY FUTURE, MY SAFETY, AND TAKES AWAY MY FREE SPEECH. IN MY YEARS OF STUDENT ACTIVISM ON CAMPUS, I HAVE BEEN INVESTIGATED FOR TPM VIOLATIONS THREE TIMES FOR 11 DIFFERENT POLICIES. DURING THESE INVESTIGATIONS, I HAVE BEEN SUBJECTED TO SURVEILLANCE, SUPPRESSION, RETALIATION, violence. In 2022, I led a protest on campus for Title IX reform and survivor rights. As a leader, I faced a TPM investigation and administration stalking during finals. I was too afraid to come to campus and failed. In 2023, I protested for Black student resources and against the tuition increase. I was disenrolled without due process. I faced police harassment and was pulled over 12 times in one semester. Being disenrolled, I could not continue my classes needed to graduate that year. In 2025, I joined a protest for labor rights against employment cuts. As the only Black student speaker at this event, I alone was surrounded by campus police. I was later charged with two TPM violations, faced potential expulsion, surveilled at my workplace, and had a hold on my student account that prevented me from registering for classes, applying for housing, receiving financial aid, and ultimately graduating. This particular investigation took 402 days to close, eight days before commencement, not giving me enough time to apply and attend. My academic journey is filled with terror and trauma, losing my honor society position and countless opportunities for my future. As students, we pursue education to get degrees, not felonies. We should have the freedom to grow into the changemakers our society needs. We need you, committee, please, to think of students like me across the state and vote yes on AB 2551. But ultimately, we must work together to abolish TPM policies to protect free speech and students. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Chair Fong, members of the committee and staff. My name is Candice Fan. I'm a student at UC Davis and serve as the president of the UC Student Association, which represents over 230,000 undergraduate students across the UC system. Our association is proud to support AB 2551 as it pushes for more transparency and accountability from the UC system during a time when time, place, and manner policies are being inconsistently enforced. And as a result, students are being harmed and their right to free speech is being compromised. I want to begin by making something very clear. The UC in particular prides itself in being a birthplace for the free speech movement. And yet the university's decision to implement time, place, and manner policies directly contradicts with that legacy and the concept of free speech. And not only that, the enforcement of these policies are disproportionate. For example, UCLA recently relaxed its rules on lining up for a basketball game to accommodate large crowds, yet students are only allowed to protest in what the campus literally calls designated areas for public expression. At UC Irvine, far-right groups that spewed anti-black rhetoric on campus that didn't receive conduct violation citations while students protesting for workers' rights and against ICE were subjected to diploma withholding for not submitting the proper forms to use amplified sound during their demonstration. To have to get permission on where, when, and how to put on a demonstration before it happens is frankly an insult to student organizers, to previous social movements that have changed the world, and to the fundamental idea of freedom of speech itself. UCSA has consistently brought up this issue to campus administrators and continue to be given insufficient answers. And so we are seeking support from the state through this bill that serves as an opportunity to assess the parameters and outcomes of these restrictive policies and to collect demographic data that will identify inequitable patterns that will identify, that will help prevent additional harm. Please also note that in student leaders' recent conversations with the UC Office of the President, we were continuously told that system leaders want to hear from students about this complex issue. So we think that the UC should have no issue with a bill like this that would do exactly that through its student hearing provision. AB 2551 is a first step towards addressing the broader criminalization of dissent on our public campuses and will include student voice in this process. Thank you. And we request your aye vote.

Mario Guerrero on behalf of the California Faculty Association, sponsor of the bill.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and members.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Are there witnesses in opposition in the hearing room? Are there tweeners in the hearing room? Colleagues, any questions or comments? I'm sorry. I'm sorry, tweener. Welcome.

Oh, sorry, in opposition. Thank you. Are there tweeners in the hearing room? Okay, colleagues, any questions or comments? Okay. Motion is second. Thank you so much. To the member of the public who's here in opposition, there is no opposition that was invited to present. would you like to present in opposition besides just saying you're in opposition?

Thank you. Any further questions or comments? Ms. Lamar Gonzalez.

Yeah, so SB1287 was initially created to ensure that students felt safe on campus as a result of campus protests. And many students, according to the reporting, are feeling safer. However, many students, it has created a chilling effect for protests on campus, and many students feel that the violations and those of whom who are kind of being disciplined for said violations, it's disproportionate to the violations themselves. So we had a student in our last hearing who attends UC Irvine. She talked about five students had planned a protest on their campus. And because they had forgotten to apply for a permit for amplified sound, which Candace mentioned, because she forgot to apply for that, she's now on an administrative list that doesn't allow her to get her degree, doesn't allow her to enroll in classes. And all five of those students who are trying to appeal to the administration to get off of that list, haven't heard back from the administration. And so we're just trying to understand transparency, really create a sense of transparency related to why this is happening, what is actually happening, are the violations and the actions proportionate to one another, and how do we then really think about, in addition to thinking about the demographics, how do we utilize a hearing to think about the best solutions as a result of what we know, you know, was created from a perspective of keeping students safe, but it is harming some of our students.

Yes, UC Irvine.

Can you like, can you dive a little bit deeper?

Sure. Our concern is that once we start sort of disaggregating people into different categories, that it becomes easier to tell who exactly may be identified in that report. For example, if these protests are put on social media, it may be easy to find out, oh, it was that student committing that type of conduct, and this was their punishment because of that too. So also in federal reporting, we can't have less than 10 in a category because it makes it so easy to identify people. So those are pretty significant concerns about being able to identify who was where and what punishment they had had.

I think it is really important for us to know what's happening. So far, we've noticed that students of color have been receiving the most violations from what students have come to share with us. And so we just want to be able to see that disaggregated data as a way to understand how we can best then solve for that. What's happening? Why is it happening? Given that we know that, you know, across the UC system, there's less than 2% of black students. There shouldn't be more than 10 students that are black on that list, but likely there are, as we've heard from Angel Marie. And so we want to be mindful of how we can look at that data and then utilize it to really ensure that we're finding the best solutions, given that the policies were created, I think, from good intentions. But there are unintended consequences, and we have to really look at those deeper.

Yeah, so we actually removed the sunset, so that's, I think, outdated.

Yes, we definitely believe that. It's actually only one hearing now, and we believe that it's really important to get student input.

Of course.

Thank you.

I mean, yeah, I did not support the original Senate bill because of my concerns of the chilling effect on student free speech. At the same time, I also received a copy of the Jewish California letter, and I do want to acknowledge what I believe is there are legitimate concerns about concerns for the safety of Jewish students on our campuses. And so I just want to state for the record that, you know, we obviously recognize that this is these time, place, manner, regulations need to strike that right balance between protecting and promoting free speech rights of students as well as faculty and community members, as well as making sure that all students feel safe and supported. And so it's my understanding that your bill is now limited to the two student input hearings to further that effort to strike that balance.

And so also apologies for that outdated letter. Our intention was really to work, and we've shared that we want to work with our community members, given their concerns, and ensure that once we are able to have the data, once we're able to get back the information from the hearings, that we could really find the best solutions together.

Okay. So this is a topic that brings a lot of issues up that I can agree with. I've been appalled at the anti-Semitism on our California college campuses, abhorrent. I've been appalled at the violence. The situation has been allowed to get out of control. I don't think the administration has done enough. Students, you're adults. You should be ashamed when this sort of conduct is happening. You can't defend it in the name of free speech. That's not free speech. This is a learning moment. And so this is an important topic. We should be spending a lot more time on it. My problem is with some of the flaws in the bill and how there are some things being left on the cutting room floor here. First, as it relates to the issues that are being raised about privacy, let me read from the bill itself. A report shall be submitted pursuant to subparagraph A to include information on student code of conduct violations that occurred during or as a result of a protest. So it's very specific. So we're talking about every protest and every code of conduct violation that is identified by the school, that would be detailed in the report. That allows a granularity that I do believe rises to trigger some significant privacy issues. And while I know we have a lot of bad protests on college campuses, there may not be enough to have the data avoid some of the federal standards that our systems have to comply with. So I think it's almost setting up a trap, a noncompliance trap with the federal government here. And perhaps with less prescriptive language, we could get to the same outcome. And so I would encourage the representative of the system, why not provide a report on some of the characteristics of enforcement, gender, religion, race? I would like to see political philosophy. We might have a couple others that are added. That doesn't require the specificity that this bill is imposing, but it's something that I believe the system can provide to inform decision-making and to provide public transparency, that there is no selective enforcement. So I'm going to put that there because we always have people show up opposed to something, but it's almost as though you're calling our bluff. It's like, okay, unless we are prescriptive, then you won't actually do it. That onus is on you. We would like to know this is a matter of public interest, transparency to settle the rumors and the allegations that there selective enforcement That something you should want to do before we have to as a legislature impose a requirement I would like to see you no matter how this bill turns out come back and let all of our legislators know how you plan to address that one way or another. Because I do think you are, if this bill passes, I do think we're going to have some federal issues and privacy issues that are legitimate. And I don't think that's the intent of the author. And it doesn't do anyone any good because that's not really what we're trying to achieve. We're trying to achieve more transparency. Second of all, the data is disaggregated only by race and gender, and I think that that does a disservice because if we are trying to solve the problem of the allegation that there's selective enforcement on TPM rules, there is an argument that different political views are enforced against, that if you are conservative or libertarian or Republican, that those groups are harassed routinely, discriminated against. And so I think we could actually broaden out the reporting criteria, again, in a way that protects privacy. I think it would be more informative. The bill only deals with the portion of the mandate that this legislative body gave university administrators, quote, the trustees of California State University, I'm reading from government code section that this bill amends, shall do all of the following, quote, A, prohibit violent, harassing, intimidating, or discriminatory conduct that creates a hostile environment on campus. Have you ever shown up at a Republican or conservative assembly or group to protest?

Well, that's probably the obvious answer that I'm going for. But when we have the heckler's veto that's exercised based upon content of speech, that's the teaching moment for our students, which is don't show up to someone, don't cut off someone's microphone, don't go to their press conference and heckle them with a, what did you call it, an amplified sound system. Don't do that. Instead, let them say their piece. You can always hold your own forum. That's the beauty of the American system and the First Amendment. And so that requirement, I don't know how long it's been on the books, but it's probably been on our statutes for a while. We haven't seen that. And then a second requirement is B, prohibit conduct that limits or denies a person's ability to participate or benefit in the free exchange of ideas. What's more of a free exchange of idea than people having political views that are different? Even if they can be passionate, even if someone offends me, I will defend their right to be offensive because that's the nature of free speech. Some would argue that sometimes I'm offensive. That's fine. They have an opinion. And then finally, C, establish reasonable content neutral. See, the time, place, and manner, TPM restrictions are not gender neutral or religion neutral. That goes without saying. It's content neutral, and that's the portion of the bill that we're completely missing. Again, I agree with the elements that you've raised in your bill, but unless we're dealing with all of them, I fear that this becomes a process that won't instill the sort of transparency and public support and equality and diversity of opinion that we need on this topic. And this is, again, a good thing for us to be looking at, but I think we need to cook it a bit more. And in the meantime, if the bill does not move forward, this is a problem you guys have to address. You can be opposed to something, but you should be saying we're not good with this, but this is what we will do because these statutes, statutory language, it's been on the books for a while, and we're clearly not achieving what this legislature years ago, decades ago, intended by putting this on the books.

I just love that you keep saying my first name. It's really nice. I'd like to just respond to a few of your comments, Assemblymember DeMaio. I think first, a lot of what we're talking about are not protests that are kind of happening where folks are protesting one another, right? So Angel Marie talked about a labor protest that she was attending and leading. And so it wasn't about trying to impede on anyone else's First Amendment rights. It was just her trying to exercise them. And I think it's important for us to recognize that everyone can and should have the opportunity to do that. But what we don't want is that violations are then happening because of something as small as a permit that didn't have an application for something like amplified sound. So the amplified sound is not to heckle someone else. It's just to lead their own protest. I think what you mentioned in terms of some of the other categories that could potentially be in here, I've actually spoken to a few of our colleagues. I think those are important, but I just really appreciate all of our colleagues' input and what we want to continue to do, and even thinking about the privacy piece and what we can do to work together with UCs and CSUs. We're looking forward to making that happen, and especially to really protect our student activists and protesters who are doing incredible work on their campuses. I respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Fong? Aye.

DeMaio? No.

Gonzalez? Not voting.

Jackson? Aye.

Mertucci? Aye.

Patel? Aye.

Rodriguez?

Sharp-Collins, aye. Tangipa? Aye. Tangipa, aye. Thank you so much, colleagues. That measure has six ayes. I'm sorry. What's the roll? Seven ayes, one no, and one not voting. We'll keep the roll open for additional members. Thank you so much, colleagues. Thank you. Thank you. I don't know. Maybe, maybe not. You just work on this long enough, you become a lawyer. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. At this time, we'll entertain add-ons for file item number one. Mr. Secretary, roll call, please. AB 2551, the motion to concur Senate amendments and pass to the floor.

Rodriguez, aye. Thank you so much. That motion passes eight ayes, one not voting and one no. Thank you so much, colleagues, for a robust committee hearing, and thank you to all our committee staff for all the robust meetings that we've had throughout the year. And this wraps up our final meeting of this year, and with that, this meeting is adjourned. Thank you. Thank you.