A longtime Portland Community College sociology instructor is suing the school, claiming he was fired for his anti-fascist political views rather than any legitimate misconduct. Randy Blazak, 62, taught part-time at PCC's Rock Creek campus and online from January 2018 until his termination on Sept. 18, 2025, and he has sued the college.
According to The Oregonian/OregonLive, Blazak alleges the college dismissed him because of anti-fascist views he expressed in class, and his attorneys, Matthew Ellis and J. Ashlee Albies, argue his speech was protected by both the First Amendment and principles of academic freedom. The lawsuit also challenges PCC's Standards for Professional Behavior Policy as unconstitutional, claiming it gives the college broad authority to discipline or dismiss faculty for protected speech or viewpoints. Blazak's attorneys wrote that the government cannot regulate speech when the restriction is motivated by the speaker's ideology, opinion or perspective.
Blazak has researched hate crimes and extremist groups and chairs Oregon's Coalition Against Hate Crimes, according to the same report. He told students he would not evaluate them based on their political beliefs, but the path to his firing stretches back years before his dismissal, built on a string of warnings, a probation period, and ultimately a wave of student complaints.
A Pattern of Warnings Before the Firing
The paper trail began in January 2022, when PCC directed Blazak to refrain from commenting on a student's physical appearance and from consuming alcohol with students. In March 2024, he received another written warning after recorded lectures showed him drinking and referencing alcohol use; he said he'd had a glass of wine while teaching a remote class during the pandemic.
A student complaint in December 2024 triggered formal disciplinary probation, which ran from Jan. 2 to April 2, 2025. During that stretch, the college required him to stop sharing divisive personal opinions, political thoughts and personal blogs, and directed him not to discuss specific politicians, election outcomes or his own social media posts in class. PCC also told him to consider how his statements affected students of differing political, religious, gender or socioeconomic identities. Students had alleged that Blazak made highly emotional comments about the 2024 presidential election that were often unrelated to course content, shared a personal blog about the results, and photographed students for his Instagram without consent, the outlet reports.
Summer Complaints Led to Termination
The following summer, three students complained that Blazak had shared political views and made inappropriate remarks about sexual violence in class. According to the lawsuit, Blazak discussed a lecture about how nominating a presidential candidate accused of rape reinforces rape culture, and in mid-July 2025 he made a remark referencing HBO's Game of Thrones and rape, which he said was intended to mock the show's frequent depictions of sexual violence. He also asked students whether fisting was the new second base and made comments about IUD insertion that same month, per the lawsuit.
The complaint states that Blazak said Trump and MAGA represented a greater threat to the country's founding than anything since the Civil War, and that he feared the nation was headed toward a dark age ruled by an oligarchy. He compared Nazi Germany's targeting of Jewish, Marxist, socialist and liberal college professors in 1933 to contemporary events, told students a Nazi was not welcome in his class, and at one point raised both middle fingers on camera during an online lecture. On July 31, 2025, he called Donald Trump a threat to the United States and told Nazis to leave, the lawsuit states.
Dana Fuller, PCC's dean of social sciences and ethnic studies, told Blazak that the college did not consider his classroom comments about sexual evolution, rape culture or Nazis to be protected by academic freedom. Blazak said his lecture on cultural transformation was meant to discuss how sexual norms change over time, and The Oregonian/OregonLive reports he acknowledged making the statements the college cited but said he uses humor to provoke a reaction and engage students.
College Cites Unrelated Classroom Material
PCC moved to terminate Blazak after the summer complaints, and the college ultimately said he was fired for violating directives against promoting his social media accounts in class — where he has more than 230,000 Instagram followers and uses the platform to discuss social justice, far-right extremism and sociological topics, according to the lawsuit. His attorneys argue no college policy actually barred faculty from sharing social media accounts with students.
The termination letter cited unprofessional behavior and remarks deemed disrespectful, offensive and unrelated to the course curriculum, and the college rejected his academic-freedom defense outright. Students had described his classes as a one-man podcast of personal opinion and criticized his teaching as insensitive, cavalier and deficient in effective instruction on core sociology concepts, the outlet reports. The complaint states PCC terminated Blazak before he could make improvements to his approach, even though he had expressed regret to college officials that his actions negatively affected students and indicated he was open to adjusting how he handled traumatic topics and commentary about the Trump administration.
PCC's own published guidance on freedom of expression, which applies to both in-person and virtual classes, states that faculty cannot stop students from expressing ideas merely because those ideas are unpopular, offensive or contrary to the college's values, according to Portland Community College. That same guidance says classroom speech must still comply with policies against harassment, threats and incitement to violence, and that discussion should generally focus on course content, though instructors retain some discretion to bring in current events.
College Declined to Comment on New Allegations
PCC officials declined to comment Thursday on the lawsuit's specific allegations. Spokesperson James G. Hill said by email that the college had not yet had a chance to review the allegations thoroughly, according to the report.
Blazak said he sued to hold the college accountable, and his filing argues universities should foster discussion and debate to prepare students for participation in democracy. The lawsuit challenges his termination.
