Orange Coast College has turned its back on academic freedom and integrity with the suspension of Caleb O’Neil for recording Olga Perez Stable Cox, his human sexuality instructor, who made incendiary comments about the election of Donald Trump and his supporters during class.

The school should reinstate O’Neil immediately.

If the school does not do so, President Dennis Harkins and the entire Board of Trustees should be held accountable. And let’s be clear about what being held accountable means: The board members should be recalled and the president should be fired.

The controversy has become national news. “O’Neil videotaped Cox as she called the election of Donald Trump ‘an act of terrorism’ and declared that those ‘leading the assault are among us,” according to Register reports.

The student is being punished because the recording goes against Coast Community College District rules about recording on school grounds without consent from those being recorded.

To add insult to injury, the school has required O’Neil to write a letter of apology and a three-page essay explaining his decision to record Cox, share it publicly and discuss “the impact of the video going ‘viral’ and the ensuing damage to Orange Coast College students, faculty and staff” before being allowed to return to classes.

This is absolutely disgusting. And every advocacy group and political organization in Orange County and beyond should organize against OCC.

To be sure, the freshman broke the rules about recording in class, but those rules are also absurd, especially considering that recording lectures is a common way for college students to study course material. Furthermore, OCC is a public institution that receives public money. It is not some private company, and Cox’s opinions should not be considered proprietary information protected by copyright.

Moreover, Cox opinions don’t belong in the classroom. Teachers are meant to teach, not persuade or indoctrinate students with their bias. The public has a right to know if their money is being spent on education or on erecting a bully pulpit to demonize certain students and express inflammatory viewpoints.

At its core, this is a full-fledged assault on free speech. And a desire to intimidate and squash differing political opinions. If Cox did not want her words shared publicly, she shouldn’t have uttered them in a lecture hall.

It also seems unlikely that this situation would have played out the same had the roles been reversed. Had O’Neil recorded a teacher making inflammatory pro-Trump comments, he undoubtedly would have been held up as a hero of tolerance and inclusion. But the anti-free speech drive on college campuses of late is tolerance of only one viewpoint. It is inclusion only for those who agree.

“I pulled my phone out, because I was honestly scared that I would have repercussions with my grades because she knew I was a Trump supporter,” O’Neil said, according to the Register.

OCC ought to be ashamed for what it has allowed to happen here.

These types of infringements of speech may be tolerated in other parts of the country or even state, but not here, not in our community.

This community will fight for freedom of speech. And these pages are committed to fighting OCC until there is justice.

If need be, we will write daily editorials updating readers in our community about this injustice until it is remedied.

In a free society, Cox has a right to her opinion and to express her opinion, but she also has a job to do. Her statements, and reportedly asking Trump-supporting students to stand and be counted, are not intended to further rational discourse in any way.

Academic freedom is not the right to spew rhetoric from a lectern, but rather to challenge ideas and beliefs, especially those from positions of authority, like your professors, free from recourse. Instead, in the era of safe spaces and trigger warnings, academic freedom seems to have come to mean the freedom to ignore scholarship and views of those with whom we disagree.

The school had previously said it would investigate Cox’s comments but the findings of that investigation are being kept private as a personnel matter. But, judging by the concern the school has for Cox in its letter to O’Neil and the “ensuing damage to Orange Coast College students, faculty and staff,” we likely already have our answer.

If the school was truly worried about its reputation, it would fix this now. Its commitment to the free flow of knowledge depends on it.

If it does not act, our entire community must join together and engage in this issue.

A lawsuit is under way but that is not enough. O’Neil must be reinstated. The Board of Trustees must end the absurd policy of disallowing recording of lectures. Cox should be reprimanded. The school should publicly apologize to O’Neil. And the college should take steps to ensure that students do not feel threatened by teachers because they have differing political views.

If the OCC Board of Trustees will not deliver this justice, they should be recalled and replaced.

Editors note: On Tuesday, we will publish an editorial following up this piece and will include information for donations to the legal fund to support O’Neil’s case against the district.