California Court of Appeal Says CSU’s Anti-SLAPP Motion Went Too Far in Faculty Retaliation Case
Most people have never heard of California’s anti-SLAPP law, but it can dramatically affect a lawsuit at the very beginning. In a published decision issued on March 24, 2026, the California Court of Appeal held that the Trustees of the California State University could not use an anti-SLAPP motion to knock out two retaliation claims brought by former Chico State professors Hyewon Pechkis and Joseph Pechkis. The court’s core conclusion was that CSU’s motion was too broad. CSU argued the claims were based, at least in part, on protected communications, but the court held that was not enough. The case is Pechkis v. Trustees of the California State University (Cal. Ct. App., Mar. 24, 2026, C103742).
This decision matters because anti-SLAPP motions are powerful procedural weapons. If they succeed, claims can be cut out of a complaint at an early stage, discovery is generally stayed while the motion is pending, and a prevailing defendant is ordinarily entitled to recover attorney’s fees and costs. California’s Legislature enacted the anti-SLAPP statute to address what it described as a “disturbing increase in lawsuits” brought to chill the valid exercise of free speech and petition rights, and the statute directs courts to construe it broadly.
A short primer on California’s anti-SLAPP statute
“SLAPP” stands for Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation. California’s anti-SLAPP statute, Code of Civil Procedure section 425.16, does not bar all lawsuits involving speech. Instead, it gives a defendant a procedural tool called a “special motion to strike.” If a claim arises from protected petitioning or speech activity within the statute, the defendant may ask the court to remove that claim at the outset unless the plaintiff can show a probability of prevailing. The court evaluates that issue based on the pleadings and supporting evidence.
Procedurally, to “strike” a claim means to cut it out of the complaint, in whole or in part, so that the targeted portion of the case does not move forward. The statute also generally stays discovery while the motion is pending, unless the court permits specified discovery for good cause. And yes, attorney’s fees are an important part of the statute. A prevailing defendant on a special motion to strike ordinarily recovers attorney’s fees and costs, while a prevailing plaintiff recovers fees only if the motion was frivolous or solely intended to cause unnecessary delay.
With that framework in mind, the Pechkis decision is easier to understand. The Court of Appeal did not decide whether the professors will ultimately win their retaliation claims. It decided a narrower question: whether CSU had shown that the challenged retaliation claims arose from protected activity under the anti-SLAPP statute. The answer was no.
The facts alleged in the lawsuit
According to the complaint as summarized by the Court of Appeal, Hyewon Pechkis and Joseph Pechkis were married tenured physics professors at Chico State. They alleged they were subjected to harassment by a former department chair. The opinion states that Hyewon in particular alleged discrimination based on sex, Korean ancestry, and national origin, and that the chair aggressively confronted her in a manner that caused her to fear for her physical safety. The complaint further alleged that the professors raised concerns about discrimination, harassment, and stalking to the dean, but Chico State failed to address the situation.
The opinion also recounts that Hyewon sought psychiatric treatment and was diagnosed with chronic post-traumatic stress disorder, major depressive disorder, and generalized anxiety disorder resulting from the hostile work environment. According to the complaint, her doctor concluded she should not remain in the same environment as the chair. The plaintiffs alleged Chico State failed to protect them and that they were effectively forced to leave their tenured positions.
Things allegedly escalated after the professors accepted employment offers at Cal Poly for the fall 2024 semester. The opinion states that Chico State Vice Provost Mahalley Allen emailed Hyewon asserting there were serious concerns about a possible Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act violation. The complaint alleged Chico State had launched a “sham investigation” into Hyewon over old blog posts written in Korean and allegedly mistranslated. The opinion further states that Hyewon then received a letter from Cal Poly indicating Chico State’s determination of alleged privacy violations could affect Cal Poly’s offer, and that Allen allegedly called Cal Poly to report the alleged violations before the investigation had even concluded. Plaintiffs also alleged Chico State delayed and complicated the transfer of their lab equipment to Cal Poly. They characterized all of that conduct as retaliation.
The procedural history
The complaint was filed on December 9, 2024, and asserted six causes of action, including discrimination, retaliation under the Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA), hostile work environment, failure to prevent discrimination or harassment, and whistleblower retaliation. The appeal concerned only two of those claims: the FEHA retaliation claim and the whistleblower retaliation claim.
On March 3, 2025, CSU filed an anti-SLAPP motion to strike those two retaliation causes of action. The trial court denied the motion on April 10, 2025. The trial court concluded that CSU’s administrative investigation into Hyewon’s alleged privacy violation qualified as an official proceeding authorized by law, but it still denied the motion after finding plaintiffs had shown a likelihood of success on the merits, including based on constructive discharge allegations. CSU appealed.
What CSU argued was protected activity
CSU’s appellate theory was fairly specific. It argued that the retaliation causes of action had to be stricken because they were based, at least in part, on communications between Chico State personnel and Cal Poly personnel concerning the investigation into Hyewon. CSU contended those communications were protected under the anti-SLAPP statute because they were statements made in connection with an official proceeding authorized by law.
That argument matters because section 425.16 protects certain written or oral statements made before, or in connection with issues under review in, official proceedings. But the statute does not automatically shield every act associated with an investigation. It protects qualifying speech and petitioning activity, not every investigatory step simply because an official proceeding exists.
Why the Court of Appeal rejected CSU’s motion
The Court of Appeal affirmed the denial of the anti-SLAPP motion because CSU did not carry its burden at the first step of the anti-SLAPP analysis. The court explained that under California Supreme Court authority, the moving defendant must identify the acts on which each challenged claim rests and show how those acts are protected under a statutory category. It is not enough to argue that a cause of action involves some protected communications somewhere in the story.
That was the problem with CSU’s approach. The opinion quotes CSU’s position that even if the retaliation claims were based in part on unprotected activity, including the decision to initiate the privacy investigation, the motion still should be granted because the claims also were based on Chico State’s communication of the investigation to Cal Poly. The Court of Appeal held that this analysis improperly focused on the communications while ignoring other allegations that could independently support retaliation liability.
The court then identified allegations of potentially unprotected conduct embedded in the two retaliation causes of action. One was constructive discharge. Both causes of action alleged that Chico State retaliated by constructively discharging the plaintiffs, and the court noted that adverse employment actions can be unprotected conduct for anti-SLAPP purposes. Yet CSU did not explain how the alleged constructive discharge itself qualified as protected activity at step one.
The other was the investigation itself. The Court of Appeal explained that a claim based on an investigation is not automatically subject to the anti-SLAPP statute if the claim is based on the investigation itself or its outcome, rather than on investigation-related speech as the injury-producing conduct. The court acknowledged that the investigation may have been an official proceeding authorized by law, but emphasized that this did not shield all acts done within the investigation. As the opinion put it, CSU’s analysis focused on one requirement while ignoring the other.
The court also invoked a warning from the California Supreme Court: if all investigatory acts by public employers were treated as protected activity, public employers could too easily shift the burden to employees in discrimination, harassment, and retaliation cases before discovery, while the threat of attorney’s fees loomed in the background.
Precision mattered, and CSU did not provide it
The opinion repeatedly returns to one central theme: precision. When a defendant challenges an entire cause of action containing multiple factual theories, the defendant must identify with specificity which allegations or claims for relief arise from protected activity. The court relied on Bonni and Nazari for the proposition that the defendant must do the element-by-element work and, if it wants a surgical result, must “propose where to make the incisions.”
Here, CSU challenged the two retaliation causes of action in their entirety, but did not sufficiently connect all of the liability-producing conduct within those claims to protected activity. The Court of Appeal rejected the notion that a claim becomes vulnerable to anti-SLAPP merely because protected conduct appears “in part.” In the court’s words, being based on speech in part is insufficient.
Because CSU failed to meet its burden at the first step, the Court of Appeal affirmed the order denying the motion. Plaintiffs recovered their costs on appeal.
Why this case matters
For employers, employees, and attorneys alike, the practical takeaway is straightforward. Anti-SLAPP motions are important, sometimes case-changing procedures, but they are not automatic escape hatches for employers or other defendants whenever a dispute involves internal communications, investigations, or speech-related facts. A defendant must show that the claim actually arises from protected activity as defined by the statute. When a retaliation claim also rests on non-speech employment conduct, such as constructive discharge or other adverse actions, a broad anti-SLAPP motion may fail if it does not isolate the truly protected acts with enough precision.
Bottom line
The Court of Appeal did not decide whether Chico State retaliated against the professors. It decided only that CSU’s anti-SLAPP motion went too far and was not carefully tailored enough to eliminate the two retaliation claims at the pleading stage. The case therefore remains alive on the merits.