Freedom X is dedicated to protecting religious and conservative freedom of expression against those who wish to censor, silence, or intimidate it into submission.
On February 14, 2018, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, became the scene of a deadly mass shooting carried out by a 19-year-old former student. In the wake of the tragedy, anti-gun student walkouts were staged at schools throughout the nation. The walkouts were organized by leftwing activists for the expressed purpose of putting pressure on lawmakers to restrict the nation’s gun laws. And even though the nation is divided over limiting the 2nd Amendment, these activists used the nation’s impressionable school children as pawns to advance a political agenda.
David Kissner was the only educator in America willing to challenge the walkout campaign’s legitimacy. Before 2018, David was a popular 6th-grade math and science teacher at CT Middle School in Los Gatos, a mountain suburb of San Jose in Northern California. His opposition to the walkouts turned him into a pariah after informing school administrators that, under California law, students were not legally permitted to take excused absences while attending political rallies. And that under the U.S. Constitution, school officials were prohibited from lending their support to the walkouts’ message.
David also advised his class that anyone leaving to attend the political rally would receive a failing grade on an exam being given that day. Three students assumed that risk and left anyway.
Ordinarily, this might not have been a big deal. But remember, the walkouts represented a leftwing initiative. An incensed community called for David’s head. Social media blew up. He was ostracized, put on a leave of absence, and subjected to multiple investigations. Oh yes, and falsely accused of “grooming” children. This is how the “tolerant” Left operates in our world today.
While Freedom X managed to thwart efforts to discipline David in 2018, school authorities and grudge-bearing community members wouldn’t let go. In 2021, David took public stands against the Loma Prieta Joint Union School District’s wrongdoing, budgetary waste, fraud and abuse. (There’s a lot to the story.) Perhaps predictably, his principled opposition to district policies ultimately led to his expulsion. In an unprecedented move, the school district this year both layed him off and fired him.
Freedom X is appealing both the layoff and the dismissal in Santa Clara Superior Court. We argue that the reasons given for laying off and dismissing David were pretextual and retaliatory. But we have also filed a lengthy federal civil rights lawsuit against the school district and others who have defamed him and interfered with his freedom of speech.
We are, in essence, fighting three separate battles. But David—a service veteran (U.S. Marine Corps), a devout practicing Christian, a husband and a father, and a mentor to special needs and other children—did not deserve to be a victim of the Left’s lies and unalloyed rage.
Riley’s Farm is a bucolic apple farm in the San Bernardino, California, mountains where structures resembling a colonial village serve as a destination for families, visitors, and students. It provides historical reenactments of events such as the American Revolution, the Civil War, and American colonial farm life for students on school field trips and also hosts events like apple picking.
But Jim Riley, its principle owner, is a traditional values conservative who pokes fun of the Left and comments about topical matters on social media. That upsets leftwing parents who want him and his business destroyed simply because his views differ from theirs. That is the tolerant Left’s modus operendi.
So, after a series of tweets, a community member got in touch with the Claremont Unified School District to complain. She denounced Jim and suggested the school district cancel field trips to Riley’s Farm. Never mind that the farm’s operations are wholly unrelated to Jim’s personal social media activity. Never mind that everyone has a First Amendment right to express their thoughts and ideas, offensive or not.
But the school district didn’t give much thought to Jim’s rights and like all knee-jerk leftists do canceled its field trips to the farm. Other school districts soon followed suit, costing Jim and the farm millions in revenue.
Freedom X and co-counsel Tom Eastmond have filed two lawsuits, one against Claremont USD and the other against nine other school districts seeking damages and a court declaration affirming that retaliation on the basis of a vendor’s speech violates the First Amendment. The Claremont matter is alive but pending appeal to the 9th Circuit on a discrete legal question: whether school officials enjoy “qualified immunity” (i.e., immunity from being sued for money damages because they could not have known that the constitutional right they violated was “clearly established” law).
You see, at bottom, the Left doesn’t want your children to learn about America’s founding principles, its history, or the genius of our Constitution. That’s why they targeted Riley’s Farm. That’s why they are hoping to cancel Riley’s opinions. That’s why this case matters.
When the COVID-19 pandemic began, leftwing state and local governments couldn’t wait to curtail your freedoms. And the freedom they sought to curtail the most was your right to attend church worship services. They weren’t even subtle about it.
Porn shops, marijuana shops, movie studios, and other virtueless enterprises were permitted to stay open. But churches were super-spreaders. At least that’s what the leftist governments and their partners in the mainstream media wanted you to believe.
Abiding Place Ministries, a church ministry located in Campo, California, had initially filed a lawsuit in 2020 after San Diego County threatened it with criminal penalties, even if the church conducted drive-in worship services in lieu of gathering in-person. But when the state and county modified their orders to allow drive-in worship services, then again to allow in-person services subject to fewer restrictions, the church was forced to dismiss its lawsuit.
Under the legal doctrine of “mootness,” courts have long held that once government terminates unlawful policies, litigants no longer have legal standing to seek a remedy because there no longer exists a live “case or controversy” to adjudicate. That changed On March 8, 2021, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Uzuegbunam v. Preczewski that for purposes of Article III standing, “nominal damages provide the necessary redress for a completed violation of a legal right.”
Because Abiding Place Ministries suffered the violation of a completed right when the church was ordered not to hold drive-in services, the Supreme Court decision entitles it to reopen its lawsuit to recover nominal damages.
As alleged in the Complaint filed by Freedom X in San Diego federal court, state and county officials responded to the pandemic “arbitrarily, heavy-handedly, and seemingly without reservation or respect for basic constitutional norms and ‘moved the goalposts on pandemic-related sacrifices for months, adopting new benchmarks that always seem[ed] to put restoration of liberty just around the corner.’”
Although the church cannot obtain money damages or an order compelling the government to modify its policies, a judgment in favor of the church nevertheless would be more than symbolic. It would be a victory for the First Amendment, entitling the church to recover its attorneys’ fees and legal costs, and sending a message to the defendants that a total ban on church assemblies is unconstitutional.
The state and county Defendants filed motions to dismiss the lawsuit last October and court has yet to decide the matter. Stay tuned.
Case Updates
Kissner on Four-Track Mission for Vindication
June 1, 2022 – A former Los Gatos, California, middle school teacher laid off and fired for political reasons is fighting to be vindicated in four separate pending lawsuits. Freedom X represents David M. Kissner, […]
Freedom X Revives Lawsuit Over Church Covid Closures
Los Angeles 03-22-2021 – A church has reopened a lawsuit against Governor Newsom and San Diego County over COVID-19-related restrictions that had threatened it with criminal sanctions.
Abiding Place Ministries, located in Campo, CA, had […]
Religious Liberty Isn’t Enough
Cultural conservatives also need to defend our views, which are scientifically sound and popular.
Originally published in the Wall Street Journal.
By Ryan T. Anderson
Jan. 31, 2021
President Biden’s pledge to heal and unify seems to mean giving […]
Riley’s Farm 9th Circuit Appeal to be Argued in July
Los Angeles – 03-20-2021
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has scheduled oral argument in Riley’s American Heritage Farm, et al. v. Claremont Unified School District (20-55999) sometime between July 6-9, 2021 at the court’s Pasadena […]
About Freedom X
In 2013, Freedom X joined a crowded field of non-profit public interest law firms and advocacy centers fighting to protect the rights of conservatives and people of faith. We had one goal in mind: to protect and preserve your right to express your Christian faith and conservative viewpoints openly without fear of censorship. Our name, Freedom X, was conceived as shorthand for “freedom of expression.”
No single organization can independently defeat the enemy, but each of us has a part to play in resisting the intense challenges to our nation’s Judeo-Christian character, and Freedom X is committed to making a difference whenever and wherever possible, whether it be the threats posed by school indoctrination, canceling your speech in a public space, or government forcing you to accept immoral choices, such as sexual identity policies.
We don’t want to have to say that we agree with open borders just to avoid being called xenophobes.
We don’t want to have to say that we agree with transgenders in women’s sports, or in government, or in the workforce, or in public libraries just to avoid being called bigots.
We don’t want to have to say that we agree with same-sex marriage just to avoid being called homophobic.
We don’t want to have to say that we agree with Marxist sham organizations like Black Lives Matter (BLM) or critical race theory (CRT) or diversity, inclusion and equity (DIE) policies just to avoid being called bigots.
We don’t want to have to say that we agree with Darwinian evolutionary theory just to avoid being called flat-earthers.
We don’t want to have to say that we agree with abortion just to avoid being called sexist.
We don’t want to have to say that we agree with gender neutral pronouns, gender identity, or other gender politics, just to avoid being called on the wrong side of history.
We want to express our own opinions. Our own thoughts. Our own ideas. Without fear of losing our jobs, our livelihoods, our careers. Without fear of being physically attacked or defamed. Without fear of being dropped on social media platforms. Without fear of losing business opportunities or friendships.
Meet Bill Becker
Bill Becker is president, CEO and general counsel for Freedom X. Bill is an unapologetic “warrior for Christ.” Always a Christian but not always a warrior, Bill saw the culture shifting from its moral base—the Judeo-Christian foundation of our nation’s laws—with little resistance from right-thinking moral Americans.
In 2004, after two decades as a litigator, Bill experienced an awakening in his life and was “born again” (John:3). Asked by his church pastor to conduct a Bible study class explaining why the County of Los Angeles redesigned its government seal to remove a tiny image of a cross, Bill took the initiative to sue the county instead. Since that time, he has been a vigilant defender of liberty for conservatives, Christians, and others who support America’s foundational principles.
In 2013, having devoted his practice exclusively to representing the conservative and religious victims of the Left’s discrimination, Bill started Freedom X, a charitable tax-exempt 501(c)(3) public interest law firm protecting conservative and religious freedom of expression.
In the ’70s and ’80s, Bill was a journalist anchoring and reporting for a Las Vegas TV affiliate, a news reporter for the Las Vegas Sun, and a correspondent for Variety and Gaming Business Magazine.
Bill earned bachelors and master’s degrees in Communication Studies from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, in 1976 and 1978 respectively. He earned his law degree from the University of San Diego School of Law in 1986.
Bill is an allied attorney with Alliance Defending Freedom who has been awarded its highest achievement award, the Gold Service Award, for dedicating more than 10,000 pro bono hours to the body of Christ and religious liberty. That number has grown exponentially.
Bill is admitted to practice before numerous federal district and appellate courts, the United States Supreme Court and all courts in California and Colorado, and appears pro hac vice throughout the country to defend our First Amendment freedoms.
Freedom X Campaigns
The world has changed dramatically. Respect for our religious values has been displaced by “pride” for one’s sexual identity. It was assumed that God made the universe and all things visible and invisible. Today, it is assumed there is no God, and that the universe miraculously created itself within a vacuum, curiously planting life on one tiny orb. A woman’s “reproductive rights” are greater than the rights of the unborn child. Islam, open borders, the homosexual agenda vie for the soul of America.
Freedom X is engaged in winning back the values that shaped a great nation. Explore our campaigns to learn more.
Are you a victim of conservative viewpoint discrimination?
If you believe your First Amendment rights of free speech or religious liberty have been violated, Freedom X would like to hear from you right away. Please fill out the case evaluation form to send us an email. We respond promptly to legitimate inquiries.
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