State tries to silence Stanford professors
ACLU: Department of Education pact barring legal testimony violates the First Amendment
The California Department of Education has threatened to sue two prominent Stanford University education professors to prevent them from testifying in a lawsuit against the department — actions the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California calls an attempt to muzzle them.
The ACLU, in turn, is threatening a lawsuit of its own — against CDE for infringing on their and other researchers’ First Amendment rights.
Observers say the dispute has the potential to limit who conducts education research in California and what they are able to study because CDE controls the sharing of data that is not available to the public.
At issue is a restriction that CDE requires researchers to sign as a condition for their gaining access to nonpublic K-12 data. The clause prohibits the researcher from participating in any litigation against the department, even in cases unrelated to the research they were doing through CDE.
“It keeps education researchers from weighing in on the side of parties who are adverse to the California Department of Education,” said Alyssa Morones, an ACLU attorney involved with the case. “Individuals and students seeking to vindicate their rights no longer will have access to these education experts, and the court can no longer hear what they have to say.”
Professors Sean Reardon and Thomas Dee had signed separate and unrelated data-partnership agreements with the department, and both were asked by attorneys in an ongoing lawsuit, Cayla J. v. State of California, to testify on behalf of students filing the case. The lawsuit, against the California Department of Education, the State Board of Education
and State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, charges the state with failing to prevent the deep learning loss imposed by the pandemic on low-income students and other high-needs students.
Reardon, who had co-authored landmark research on pandemic learning, said he would have considered providing expert testimony. But warned by CDE that he’ would be breaching his contract, Reardon declined — even though his learning loss research