The Assembly Higher Education Committee advanced a student-speech bill on Aug. 30, approving a motion to concur in Senate amendments and send the measure to the floor on an 80-25-51 roll call, according to the committee record and transcript from the hearing.
Testimony focused on the effects of time, place and manner, or TPM, policies on student expression. One speaker said TPM rules were meant to prevent hostile campus environments but had instead increased hostility toward students of color and made campus policies less transparent and less accountable. Another speaker, identified in the transcript as Angel Marie Taylor of California State University Channel Islands, described repeated TPM investigations, surveillance and discipline tied to protest activity.
Taylor said she had been investigated three times for 11 different TPM policies, was disenrolled without due process after a 2023 protest over black student resources and tuition increases, and later faced two TPM violations after a 2025 protest over employment cuts. She said a hold on her student account blocked registration, housing applications, financial aid and graduation.
A separate speaker objected to reporting TPM enforcement data in a more detailed way, warning that with about 300,000 systemwide students, the number of conduct violations tied to TPM represented less than 1% of enrollment and could become identifying if disaggregated. Another speaker said they did not support the original Senate bill because of concerns about a chilling effect on student and free speech, while also acknowledging a Jewish California letter.
The committee action moves the measure to the Assembly floor, but the testimony suggests it remains contentious on free-speech and privacy grounds.
