DENVER – Adams State University has agreed to rescind a “No Trespass Order” banning Danny Ledonne, a former professor who publicly criticized administration practices, from its Alamosa, CO campus and to pay $100,000 to settle a lawsuit filed by the ACLU of Colorado based on claims that the university violated Ledonne’s free speech and due process rights.

“The ACLU of Colorado brought this suit to vindicate Danny Ledonne’s First Amendment rights and his right to due process of law,” said ACLU of Colorado Legal Director Mark Silverstein.  “By summarily banning Danny from a public campus and falsely labeling him a security threat, without providing any opportunity to rebut the false allegations, the university deprived him of due process and unjustifiably retaliated against him for his constitutionally-protected criticism of university practices.”

From May 2011 to June 2015, Ledonne taught in the Mass Communications program and performed video production work for Adams State University.  In September 2015, after his employment at the university had ended, he launched WatchingAdams.org.  On October 12th, Ledonne posted a series of articles on the site criticizing the pay disparity between faculty and the administration and alleging that the university had violated the Colorado Wage Act by not making timely payments to adjunct professors.

Two days later, University President Beverlee McClure issued a “No Trespass Order” to Ledonne.  The order declared that for “an indefinite period of time,” Ledonne was prohibited from being on Adams State University property and that his presence on campus “would result in his immediate arrest for trespass.”
In an attempt to justify the ban, university officials, including McClure, made multiple unsubstantiated public claims that Ledonne had engaged in “harassment,” “direct and indirect threats,” and “terrorism.”

“Throughout the course of the litigation, Adams State University was not able to produce a single piece of evidence that Danny Ledonne ever engaged in any threats of violence, direct or indirect, toward anyone or anything at the university,” said Silverstein.  “The University had no legitimate basis for banning Mr. Ledonne from campus, nor did university officials have any factual basis for the stigmatizing and derogatory characterizations of Mr. Ledonne that they communicated to the university community and the public.”

The ACLU of Colorado filed suit in February challenging the campus ban.  As depositions were about to begin, the parties participated in a mediation before a former federal judge that resulted in a settlement agreement, which was finalized and signed last week.

“We hope that, as a result of this lawsuit, Adams State University recognizes that the public areas of its campus are a valuable cultural and educational resource not just for ASU faculty, staff, and students, but also to the residents of the greater San Luis Valley,” said ACLU cooperating attorney Reid Neureiter of Wheeler Trigg O’Donnell LLP, who represented Ledonne on a pro bono basis.  “We also expect that Adams State will take appropriate steps in the future to ensure that any person subject to being barred from campus will receive fair notice and a reasonable opportunity to challenge the decision before an impartial decision-maker.”

“I sought this legal action to challenge the university’s heavy-handed attempt to discourage me and others who disagree with the administration from speaking out.  I could not have done so without the incredible support and assistance of the ACLU of Colorado, and the pro bono lawyers from Wheeler Trigg O’Donnell,” said Ledonne. "I am very satisfied with the settlement and look forward to continuing my work in this community.”

Ledonne was represented by cooperating attorneys Neureiter, Kayla Scroggins, and Kendra Beckwith from Wheeler Trigg O’Donnell and Silverstein and Sara Neel from the ACLU of Colorado.

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As we do after every legislative session, we prepared a legislative scorecard so you, our members and supporters, can see where each legislator stands on civil liberties issues.
View the 2016 ACLU of Colorado Legislative Scorecard.

This year, we picked six bills to score on the scorecard. The ACLU was of course involved in many other legislative initiatives, but these six represent a cross section of civil liberties issues we work on – mass incarceration, economic justice, solitary confinement and immigrant rights – and those we played a significant role in as they made their way to the Governor’s desk.
Thanks to the hard work of our dedicated bill sponsors, staff, members, and volunteers, each of the six top priority bills passed through the legislature with bipartisan support and are now law.
As in other years, the ACLU championed and defeated many bills that are not reflected on the scorecard. For example, for the second year in a row, the Right to Rest Act was defeated in its first committee hearing. The bill prohibited Colorado municipalities from enacting laws that criminalize our growing homeless population. We also advocated in favor of a law that would make it easier for transgender individuals to change their gender on their birth certificate. This, too, was defeated on a party line vote in a Senate committee, after gaining bipartisan support in the House chamber.
We were successful working in coalition to defeat the many bills attempting to limit a woman’s access to reproductive health options, to limit access to voting through photo ID bills and the like, and to create enhanced penalties for already existing crimes. Finally and with the help of Senate Republicans, we were able to again defeat an attempt to expand the State’s DNA database by collecting DNA from individuals convicted of committing certain misdemeanors.
Find out how your legislators voted in the 2016 ACLU of Colorado Legislative Scorecard.

This commentary from ACLU of Colorado speaker and volunteer Darren O'Connor first appeared in the Boulder Weekly on June 9, 2016.

The beauty of Boulder, nestled in the Foothills and dominated by the Flatirons, is a metro area gem that attracts a great number of visitors and would be residents wishing to enjoy its charms. Its reputation as an idyllic, liberal city, however, was recently tainted by University of Denver Law School’s report, Too High A Price: What Criminalizing Homelessness Costs Colorado.
Boulder was found to issue citations for camping at more than twice the rate of Fort Collins, and 19 times that of Colorado Springs — the cities that issue the greatest number of camping citations after Boulder. Eighty-seven percent of those receiving such citations in Boulder identified as homeless, and 84 percent of the citations were only for camping.
While City Councilmembers would be at legal risk if they admitted camping and other laws primarily target unhoused people, one is reminded of Anatole France’s quote, “The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.”
Ironically, Boulder laws require pet owners provide, “enclosed structure sufficient to protect the animal from wind, rain, snow, or sun,” yet camping is against the law and prohibits in part using shelter. In the ordinance, shelter is defined such that it “includes, without limitation, any cover or protection from the elements other than clothing.” Thus, a homeless person with a pet must both provide it shelter against the elements and avoid use for themselves of any such protection, lest they be ticketed.
In contrast to the camping ordinance language, City Attorney Tom Carr recently stated, “Our camping ordinance doesn’t ban shelter, it doesn’t ban blankets. It is a reasonable and moderate response to prohibit camping on public property.” As a member of the homeless advocacy group Boulder Rights Watch, I requested a clarification from Carr on the disparity between his statement and the ordinance, but my request went unanswered.
Boulder officials and members of the community recently traveled to Portland, Oregon, where Mayor Hales spoke to them decrying as inhumane having the police tell people, “You can’t pitch a tent here.” Returning from the trip, where they visited Eugene Oregon’s Opportunity Village, Council Member Aaron Brockett stated, “I saw new ways to work on problems that we haven’t been pursuing so far.”
Others on the trip, notably Councilmembers Shoemaker and Appelbaum (who did not visit Opportunity Village), referred to Boulder’s response to homelessness (shelters and overflow shelters that address a fraction of the unhoused that executive director of the Boulder Shelter for the Homeless estimated at 1,500 people), as “a much better product.” Those on Council who appear supportive of not criminalizing homelessness through its camping law have received recent support for such a move, with ACLU of Colorado’s Denise Maes and Mark Silverstein speaking at city council meetings.
I have also challenged the City with videos showing Officer Lord, questioning a man near the library where unhoused people congregate, for holding an unlit cigarette, stating on camera that, “It’s not us that just comes down here willy-nilly, we come down here because the City Manager has asked us,” going on to say, “They can leave the city of Boulder, they can leave the state of Colorado, they can leave the country if they want to.”
Boulder must work on both their laws and how police enforce them; otherwise they must admit that its beauty, its open space, and even its streets are only open to the wealthy.
Darren O’Connor has lived in Boulder since 1994, where he received his masters degree in electrical engineering and is a social justice advocate with groups including Boulder Rights Watch, Denver Homeless Out Loud and Boulder Coalition and Alliance on Race.