Farm Field Trips Boycotted Over Owner's Conservative Views: Suit

LOS ANGELES, CA — A slew of Southern California school districts were hit with a lawsuit this week alleging they victimized a conservative business owner with "cancel culture."

The owner of Riley's Farm, an orchard and a mock 1770s-era New England historic town in the foothills of the San Bernardino Mountains, filed the lawsuit after seven school districts canceled field trips to Riley's Farm. The lawsuit alleges schools canceled fields trips for the immersive historic experience because of conservative views expressed by owner James Patrick Riley, on social media.

The Los Angeles-based law firm Freedom X brought the lawsuit on behalf of Riley's Farm, names as defendants the superintendents and board of education presidents of Azusa, Bonita, Burbank, Culver City, Monrovia, Rialto, San Bernardino City and Walnut Creek school districts.

It may be an uphill battle. Freedom X initially sued Claremont Unified School District last year, but the case was dismissed by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. The firm is vowing to appeal that ruling.

It all started in 2018. Riley got into trouble with a series of tweets and Facebook posts.

The complaint alleges that shortly after Riley posted certain comments in 2018, Crystal MacHott, a teacher in the Corona-Norco Unified School District, used an alias Facebook account to disparage him. She then sent copies of Riley's posts to various school officials within the school districts, and the field trip cancellations and boycotts soon followed, the complaint alleges.

According to the complaint, MacHott admitted to campaigning for the boycott. The complaint alleges violations of Riley's First and Fourteenth Amendment freedom speech, retaliation, conspiracy and due process.

Bill Becker, president of Freedom X, which claims to protect conservative and religious freedom of expression, described the schools' boycott of Riley's Farm as part of the current "cancel culture" trend, in which businesses become victims of left wing ideologues who seek to destroy them because of their owners' conservative beliefs.

The owners of Chic-fil-A, Mozilla, and numerous businesses and individuals branded "hate groups" by the Southern Poverty Law Center similarly have been targeted with boycotts by left wing ideological opponents, Becker alleges.

City News Service and Patch Staffer Paige Austin contributed to this report.