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A Bernie Sanders-backed California congressional candidate who touts his career as an educator has used the classroom and academia to push diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives and activist groups, according to his own writings and reports on his work with students.
Randy Villegas is taking on Republican Rep. David Valadao in California’s 22nd Congressional District in a high-stakes Central Valley showdown that could help determine control of the House.
Democrats have made the seat a top pickup target as the nonpartisan Cook Political Report rates the district a “toss-up” and gives the district a razor-thin D+1 partisan lean.
Villegas, a political science professor at College of the Sequoias and Visalia school board trustee, co-authored a 2022 academic paper arguing that DEI is central to the mission of community college educators and describing it as a “social justice-driven duty.”
The paper, titled “A Commitment to Teaching, Learning, and Student Advocacy: Community College Careers,” was published by the American Political Science Association as a chapter in Strategies for Navigating Graduate School and Beyond.
“At the heart of community college teaching is diversity, equity, and inclusion, and culturally responsive teaching,” Villegas wrote. “Community colleges commit to teaching excellence and to a social justice-driven duty to accessibility. Most community colleges have similar institutional characteristics as a result. For example, community colleges are open access institutions. This means that all students are accepted.”
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Villegas and his co-authors framed diversity and inclusion as a responsibility that extended beyond campus, writing that “a commitment to diversity and inclusion expands from the classroom to the communities in which students live” and arguing that students’ “social and economic realities” should also shape course design.
While the paper pre-dates President Donald Trump’s push to eliminate DEI mandates across the federal government and education system, it sheds light on Villegas’ views on DEI and social justice in higher education.
In his dissertation, “Voices from the Valley of Vulnerability,” written for the University of California, Santa Cruz, Villegas identifies himself as a “former community organizer and scholar activist” and makes the case that activism can be part of his scholarly work.
He bats away concerns that activism could affect academic objectivity, arguing that his activism gave him access to information and that his identity and life experiences made his research stronger. He cites scholar Zepeda-Millán, who argued that researchers’ “biases can actually be assets.”
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Throughout the paper, Villegas described taking part in grassroots activism that included organizing May Day demonstrations, protesting outside an immigrant detention center and working with community groups to advocate for far-left causes.
He argued that schools often failed to sufficiently engage students in politics, describing educational institutions as “anti-political” while praising community organizations for “actively politicizing and socializing youth” and empowering them to become “agents of change.”
That push to turn students into political activists went beyond his academia research. In 2018, Villegas helped lead the Central Valley Freedom Summer (CVFS), a program that connected students with community organizations for voter outreach, civic engagement and grassroots organizing. Participants worked on issues including LGBTQ rights, immigration, environmental justice and racial inequality while conducting voter-registration and turnout efforts. Among those groups that teamed up with CVFS was Jakara Movement. In 2020, the group launched a campaign seeking the removal of a statue of Mahatma Gandhi, citing what it described as Gandhi’s “history of anti-Blackness and racism,” Breitbart reported.
Some CVFS graduates went on to launch activist groups of their own, including LOUD for Tomorrow, a self-described “queer and trans BIPOC youth-led” organization that has hosted youth drag events across the Central Valley.
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“Randy Villegas was cooked up in a lab to be the radical left’s perfect woke freak. The only thing he cares about is political power and his far-left agenda,” Republican National Committee spokesperson Nick Poche told Fox News Digital.
Meanwhile, Villegas did not respond to Fox News Digital’s questions about his statements that educators also wear the hat of a “social activist.” Instead, a spokesperson made remarks about incumbent Valadao.
“David Valadao ripped away healthcare and food assistance from Valley families to hand his billionaire buddies a tax break,” the spokesperson said in an email. “These desperate attacks won’t hide his toxic record, or the domestic abusers bankrolling his campaign.”
The comments appear to refer to Valadao voting in favor of President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill”, a sweeping tax and spending package that included roughly $1 trillion in Medicaid cuts. Democrats have argued the cuts could cause tens of thousands of people in Valadao’s heavily Medi-Cal-dependent district to lose coverage.
Fox News Digital reached out to Valadao’s chief of staff and communications director for comment, as well as Villegas’ campaign for clarification on the allegation that “domestic abusers” are financing Valadao’s campaign.
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