In late November 2018, the YAL Chapter at Santa Ana College held a speech ball event on the campus of the Southern California community college. Chapter President Andrew Rivas and member Boston Bolles rolled the ball around and talked to students about the First Amendment until they were stopped by campus administration. The administrator informed the students they were in violation of campus decency standards; when asked by the students what policy she was specifically enforcing, the administrator emphatically pointed out an explicit drawing on the ball and told them to leave.

Unfortunately the issue wasn’t over for the students, who were already prepared to fight for their rights to assemble on campus. On top of shutting the event down, the campus charged the students with violation of the district’s Standards of Student Conduct and were facing potential discipline for “obscenity” and “vulgarity.” The Director of Free Speech got the students in touch with FIRE who wrote an emergency letter on the students’ behalf. The charges were quickly dropped and no discipline enacted, but the students weren’t content.

Jacobed Torres took over as chapter president in the Spring of 2019 and together with FIRE pushed for changes in the district policy. After making little progress with the distract Board of Trustees, FIRE wrote a demand letter saying that “[W]ithout knowing that the YAL members can expect to encounter constitutionally-compliant policies and practices in future semesters, we will be forced to file a lawsuit to protect their ability to fully exercise their rights on campus.” With pressure from Torres, the district adopted new policies on November 25, 2019 and secured free speech rights for over 50,000 students.